Very vocal GSD pup!

[ddpowell]

So we got our Black GSD pup last week and she seems to be settling in great.

She's bonded really well with both myself and my fiance. However the minute we leave her in a room by herself or outside she howls and howls. So far we've been home with her to keep it to a minimum but after returning home today after about an hour & half with her outside she was still howling.

I've been extremely strict in only going outside and/or giving her attention once she goes quiet in order to promote her silence as a positive thing!

So far we've slept 4 nights down in the lounge on a mattress with her next to us on her mat but that' can't continue for much longer (we live in a 2 storey townhouse)

The concern is mainly due to our location, in the middle of the city - close neighbours that won't hesitate to call the council if she continues like this for much longer.

i realise it's only early days but what's the best tactic to combat this separation anxiety early on as to be honest we need to get her outside soon but we just can't while she's howling so much (and it really is a horrible noise when she gets going).

Any assistance would be great -

Cheers

Dan

[ChrisNJudy]

Hello Dan,

For starters, congratulations on the new pup!!

When Mike, the head dog trainer logs on, he will be able to provide more insight, but just off of my experience it sounds like what is happening here is a case of seperation anxiety. This site actually goes into speration anxiety in detail, so you may want to read this section. This can be found in the members area on the home page click on "Start self help" then click on "Anxiety" then click on "seperation anxiety". this section may be able to assist you.
Some pointers that I can provide you with for now based off of what are telling us with the background. It sounds like the dog getting sense of comfort when he/she is with you, which is good, to a point. The problem becomes when you are not around they start paniking. Sleeping with the dog will only increase their anxiety when you are not around. Also over petting them can cause this as well. I know we all love our puppies and want to just hangout and pet them all day, but in the long run this ends up hurting the dog more than anything. The rule of thumb is not to pet them for more than 10 seconds at any given time. This doesn't mean that you can not play a good game of fetch or something with them for more than ten seconds, but you really do not want to throw on a movie and pet the dog the whole time during the movie or something.
The best solution for barking, is unfortunlitley not the best for the owners which ignore them. Once they realize that barking does not get them what they want, they will stop attempting it. What you should do is when you leave and go out, leave the dog with something that will keep them occupied, either a toy that they like and don't get to have all the time, or I know when Prelude was a puppy, the best thing was a "Kong" we would fill it with chicken or something that is healthy and that she really likes and then freeze it and when we would leave give it to her and it will keep her occupied for a long time and by the time she is done, maybe you are home, or she may be tired, etc.. Antoher rule of thumb, is don't have big "Hello's" or big "Good bye's". If you make it a big thing everytime you leave, they will be anticipating this and start to get anxiety when it happens.
You also can start to leave them alone for short periods of time, like walk out of the room for a couple of minutes and then go back in and keep increasing the time. This way the little one starts to realize when you leave it doesn't mean forever and you will be coming back. In the begining I undersatnd it is difficult, but it will get better I promise.

Well I hope this helps until Mike is able to answer you.
Good Luck!! and check back with updates!!

Chris

[ddpowell]

Thanks for the advice!

She's outside now - and silent! playing with her until she's really tired seems to do wonders, she howled for about 15minutes still, so i waited till she was quiet and had moved away from the door and went outside. I didn't make a fuss, in fact i didn't even look at her and just sat down at our outside table, she whined a little and sat in between my feet and then lay down all quiet.

After about 2 minutes i just got up silently and went inside - so far so good while she's asleep! But i know when she wakes up - she'll start up again.

Am i following the right timing sequence by going outside as soon as she is quiet for a few seconds? Is this reinforcing that howling will make me come out or that being quiet will?

I think during the day when we're here we can probably manage it as it doesn't matter if she howls for a while and then settles down, but at night we're stumped for ideas that won't involved hours of howling before she settles!

The 'over patting' concept is probably something i should work on, she's had a lot of attention over the last week with us being home all the time and visitors etc

Tonight she'll be put outside so we can sleep in our own bed for a change, i figure Saturday night is the best time to test our neighbours patience...

I read the anxiety chapter and i'm certainly trying to stick to it as best as possible. i wasn't sure if this is just normal puppy behaviour or an actual anxiety problem.

We've been so impressed with how resilient she's been, doesn't get scared by noises, fine in the car, travelled on the plane without messing the crate and she gets up once a night to go pee so we're getting a pretty good sleep.

I've attached a picture of our little terror! 9 weeks old and weighing around 21lb, her paws are about 8 sizes too big for her at the moment, they're massive!

[Mike D'Abruzzo]

How are things going with the Pup? Sounds like you were getting on the right track. You can definitely consider some of the howling behavior normal with a pup and German Shepherd puppies in particular are prone to this.

One thing that I would like to stress, just like Chris, is to be sure not to overpet and coddle. This is by far one of the biggest factors that makes it very difficult for the pups to deal with seperation. I have known lots of German Shepherds who can barely tolerate being seperated from their owners when the owners are actually present but not within reaching distance - nevermind out of site. When they are pups is when you really set the pace for this.

[ddpowell]

To be honest, i don't know if she's getting better or worse!

I've had some great days where i've been home all day, and left her outside with little fuss provided i pop in and out and play with her every few hours. The last few days however haven't been great. We had a cranky neighbour complain about a day we both had to work all day so we're now really conscious of it. On top of that she howled from about 1:30am-2:30am the night i tried to get her to sleep outside, so that failed

I can say that we would definitely have given her too much attention pats/cuddling etc. We're going to try to tone it down and maybe try smaller periods by herself this time.

you're right about the needing to have contact with us, even separating her in the lounge she went crazy.

When she howls, we wait till she goes quiet for a second and the quickly go outside and praise her or even give her a treat for her silence, is this reinforcing silence or teaching her that if she howls we'll come outside soon after?

[ChrisNJudy]

Hey Dan,

Shes a good looking pup, judging by the sizes you gave up top, looks like she will be a pretty big girl!!

Sorry to hear about the bad days you have had, especially with a cranky neighbor complaining, you definitley don't want that.

Is she an outside dog all of the time, or just portions of the day? When they are younger it will definiley be tougher to get them acclomate to being a full time outside dog. When I was younger, I had an outside dog too, but we got him used to be away from us while he was younger by living inside, so when we coverted him to an outside dog, it was not such a shock to him and he never really barked, so the neighbors didn't complain. Like Mike said though, with German Shepards, this will be tougher as they are very vocal dogs. I am not sure of your situation, but if you are worried about your neighbors complaining, you may want to get her comfortable being seperated from you inside before you leave her outside if you can.

Have you started the shorter spurts yet? you know keep her in the other room for a couple of minutes and when she is quiet, go back in and keep increasing that? That should at least start to help get you on the right track.

Also, to manage it for now, have you looked into getting her items to keep her occupied when you are gone? (i.e. Kong, toys or even when she starts to get older and her teeth can handle it, bully sticks will help alot too.) they last a long time and they are not bad for the dogs. I do not reccomend raw hide, even though I know that is what most pet stores will push. They are not good for the dog, they can choke on them and they cannot digest them right.
For bully sticks, you can just search them and you will find plenty of places to find them. Here is one site that might help you. http://www.bestbullysticks.com/ NOTE: I just googled bully sticks and this was the first one that came up, I don't really know anything about this site or anything, so if you find a better site and prices, you will want to use them. I was trying to help get you on the right track.

In regards to your last question, yes you definitley want to reward them for being quit, but you want to remember timing with her too. Note: Dogs can only relate to something withing in the last 1.3 seconds, even better in the last half second. so if you say quiet and and she stops barking, you want to reward her immediatley, but if you wait 2 minutes and do it, shes not quite sure why she is being rewarded. But you are on the right track by only going out there when she is quiet, you really do not ever want to go out there when she is barking even if it is to tell her quiet or anything else, because she just wants any kind of attention and she will just learn by her barking that gets a reposne out of you (good or bad). I know this is the most difficult thing to manage in the begining.

Good Luck!!

Keep us updated

Chris

[ddpowell]

she's all settled now! she's extremely attached to us though, when we take her for walks we let her off leash and she'll just follow us around - doesn't care for balls, sticks etc

if she's in the car and i'm outside filling up with gas she'll cry, howl and scratch to get too me. Like Mike said about some GSDs she flips out if there's anything stopping her having access to us.

She doesn't cling to me at home, she just needs to know she can get to me if she needs. She goes off and sleeps under a table or in her crate but when we put a barrier there, ie. door, shut her crate door... not a good result.

This is the big hurdle for us - how to transition her from sleeping on her mat into the crate - i've been sleeping in the lounge on a mattress for 5 weeks now slowly getting her used to this crate we've got. Problem is it's a soft crate and i know she'll destroy it if i just close it up and go upstairs to sleep. I want to make the crate a positive experience so i'm just slowly graduating her into being in there more often like for meal time, whenever she's sleepy, and we've trained her to 'go in your crate' for a treat etc. but at night she likes to move from the crate to beside the mattress (we don't let her on the bed of course) so when i close it, she just claws at the door and starts to whimper which leads to howling which will lead to hysteria not long after!

i cut back on affection too, only pat her now if she does something for it and we're cutting any 'cuddling' out all together. when i get home i don't give her attention till she calms and then its a brief pat and a scratch.

[ChrisNJudy]

Hey Dan,

It sounds like you are making good progress!
A lot the other stuff will approve over time.
You are on the right track with feeding her in the crate and giving her treats in the crate. Keep that up, but also start giving her something a little longer lasting. Have you tried the bully sticks or the frozen kongs? You can give her that in the crate so she will get used to bin th longer and longer. She keep increasing the spurts away from you and in the crate. As hard as it is, you really want her to start getting used to being away from you and over time it will get better.

Well keep us updated and good luck!
Chris