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KarriLab

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  1. We did exactly what LukeW said above - and yes she cried for most of the night on the first night with the door shut. We ended up taking turns sleeping on a mattress next to her crate with our hands poking through the wire for the first night or two, but it very rapidly got better and before long she was sleeping in there with the door shut with no worries. We'd just get up to let her out to the toilet several times a night, reducing the number of toilet breaks as she got older. Our puppy is now 7 months old and still sleeps in her crate, but we've moved it outside and leave the door open for her now. It was so handy having her used to being in there with the door shut though when she was desexed a couple of weeks ago and we had to keep her confined!
  2. These sound interesting. Think I might give them a try. Ptolomy (or anyone) can you tell me how many patties I might need to feed my 6 month lab if I was feeding them for 1 of her 2 meals per day?
  3. We feed our lab puppy Advance puppy biscuits in combination with raw chicken carcasses, lamb flaps and vegies (which helps lower the cost of feeding her). She seems to be doing really well on it.
  4. Funnily enough we had this issue addressed at our first obedience class that we attended last sunday as a result of our own hyped up Lab! Karri was completely crazy with all the other doggies around and the instructor used her as an example of a 'hyperactive dog'. She said that when she goes nuts we should have her sit between our legs (kind of pinned i guess) while we stand and massage her around her ears and neck. Not sure how easy it is in practise, but that was her advice!
  5. We trained our now 16 week old lab puppy to sleep in her crate with the door closed from the day she arrived home. Recently though, she's had a few nights with an upset tummy and she cries to be let out during the night. We get up, she does her business then she goes straight back to bed. This was happening 2-3 times a night so we thought we'd try moving her crate outside (which has a canvas cover), adding more warm blankets and a hot water bottle, and leaving the door open so she can take herself to the toilet. Well, its worked a treat. She happily goes into her crate, and settles down straight away. We don't hear a peep from her till we get up the next morning. She seems to be happy sleeping outside with the crate door open, BUT I'm wondering if we've just undermined the principles of crate training? Does the door of the crate have to be closed for your dog to be 'crate-trained'? I suppose that by leaving the door open, we're not really teaching her to hold on anymore. She is house-trained now though - we haven't had an inside accident for weeks :D
  6. I'm very interested to hear what people say about the OP's question too. We have a puppy that we're just starting to take out into the big bad world. Can anyone elaborate on the best ways to go about training a dog not to pull? If that's not too much !!!
  7. Bummer about last night's accident. Hopefully they will become more and more infrequent as time passes. We've had our lab for 4 weeks now and she's finally (almost) house-trained, both during the day when she's free to wander and at night in her crate. It really just took persistence and time (sorry - i know that doesn't really help you much!). We take her water away about an hour before she goes to bed and that seemed to help with the frequency of toilet breaks during the night.
  8. Hi cocosonni I also have a lab puppy who sleeps in a crate, with great success, so I'd definitely recommend using crates for sleeping your puppies. It helped so much with toilet training. We've found our little girl to be lots of hard work but so rewarding. I imagine with two, you'd have double the hard work but hopefully double the reward. Good luck! Sounds like you and LabsGalore have a lot in common!
  9. :cool: This would be very hard to do with a straight face! I can't even read it on the screen without laughing!
  10. Thanks everyone for your replies. We had a MUCH better night last night. We fed her much earlier and didn't set an alarm, just waited for her to wake us and went straight out and straight back in again. Only one toilet break at 2.30am so we were stoked! Thanks again!!
  11. We have had our little black lab at home for 3 nights and are crate training her - I'm just not 100% sure what to do at night time and thought I'd check before we instill any bad habits in her! I know that there is tons of info on here about crate training (which has been very helpful!) so my apologies if this has already been asked (I couldn't find anything about this). She goes into her crate at night with no dramas and settles pretty quickly. We don't have the crate in our bedroom, but it is closeby. I'm wondering though how to go about toilet breaks at night time. Do we wait till she wakes up and whimpers a bit before we take her out or do we set an alarm and take her out? We tried setting an alarm on on sat night and took her out at 1am where she promptly did a wee, but nothing else, and then settled back down in her crate. BUT at around 1.45am she started crying so we ignored her, thinking it was for attention, rather than toileting - we were wrong! I went out to her after about an hour thinking I'd just settle her back down without letting her out, but she'd done a wee & a poo in her crate So I'm confused!! How do we know whether she's crying for attention (and therefore needs to be ignored) or crying to go to the toilet (and we need to act fast!). Thanks in advance for any helpful advice! A pic of the little angel
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