Jump to content

Birb

  • Posts

    1
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Extra Info

  • Location
    ACT
  1. Hi all, I have a 5 month old rottweiler puppy who I've been having a couple of issues with. 1) Eats everything: he's going through a heavy phase of teething so I understand that he has a desire to chew, however it is getting really frustrating to find him swallowing a lot of things that he shouldn't. The other day we took him to an outdoors obedience class and as soon as he got out of the car, he lunged for a stick and swallowed it but it got stuck in the back of his mouth; we managed to pull it out but then he went for another stick to eat, but then coughed it back up. Other times when he's chewing a stick, rather than spitting the pieces out he'll swallow them. When I took him out to a local oval, he lay down to rest after running around and started chewing the grass which at first didn't seem that bad, but after suspicions of him holding some in his mouth I ended up pulling a large clump of grass out of his mouth. He'll also catch and eat flying leaves as well. I've managed to pull out small rocks, other stick bits, grass, toy bits and even a cigarette butt from his mouth, however, now that his teeth are coming in I really cannot risk sticking my hand in his mouth. We've resorted to using a basket muzzle outdoors on walks as a temporary measure for the time being, and always have him on leash. He knows "leave it" but ignores me on walks since he's so easily distracted (even when presented with treats); he also somewhat knows "drop it" but can only apply it to large toys. I spoke to the behaviorist at our vet, and she suggested that rather than pulling stuff out of his mouth, to just get excited and distract him with something else so that he'll drop whatever he's holding and come to me. Did try that when he had something in his mouth, but instead of dropping it he tried to swallow it faster before coming to me. tldr; puppy eats everything in sight, how do i stop him? 2) Still having toileting issues: I've committed to taking him out hourly/every two hours for the past fortnight to toilet. He'll usually do 3-4 poops throughout the day and one just before bed at 10, and usually does it as soon as I take him out so I don't have to wait outdoors long. He knows that he has to go outside, but will still have his accidents every now and then... The main issue is, he doesn't always finish doing his business. At night for his final toilet break, he'll poop then try and pull away from his harness to get back inside the house. I'll wait a couple of minutes to see if there's anything else but he does nothing. I'll put him back in the laundry room (his sleeping place) and next morning I'll find poop stains on the floor. After checking the camera we put in his room, we found that he'll wake up at 10.30pm and do another poop, and then EAT IT before going back to bed. I tried waiting until 11pm to take him out to toilet the next few days, and he did toilet at that time, but next morning was no different... We can't afford to stay outdoors in -1 degree nights for half an hour waiting for him to do something (during the day it's fine). We don't have a doggy door for him as he'll get too big, and we don't let him free roam around the yard due to reasons stated above. It's just frustrating that despite all this effort put into toileting him, he'll still toilet indoors. He's fed twice a day (9am and 4pm) with blackhawk kibble for large pups. tldr; puppy has late night/early morning accidents-- doesn't give us any warning or indications either, I was wondering if anyone had any tips on adjusting his feeding schedule so he'll stop having these accidents?? 3) Stubbornness: when he's in a spot he likes, but we don't like it, he won't budge even with food or toy incentives. One reoccurring example would be the car; when we let him jump in, he'll just lie down and take up all three seats. When we try moving him, he'll open his mouth and start nipping at us because he doesn't want us to move him over. We end up using the muzzle on him so we push him to his side without getting our clothes torn apart. Sometimes he won't listen to commands either, he'll just stare at me. How should I address this? 4) Overly Friendly: I know he's still a puppy but it's getting very frustrating when he has to greet every single human being that we walk past. If he sees a stranger near by, he will lunge towards them and try and jump on them. When I'm walking down the street and there's someone on the other side of the road, he'll stop and stare at them (tail wagging like crazy) and will not budge unless I physically pull him away (even then he'll look back at them every 3 steps). We met another younger rottie pup the other day who took no notice of us... Story time: I was practicing recall with him by running up ahead (my brother held him by the leash), and I called him over. As my puppy was running towards me, he sees an old man across the drain on a footpath parallel to the one we were on and as he was half-way towards reaching me, he diverts his path and runs towards the man! The drain was partially filled with water, so as he was running towards the man, he stopped at the drain. I almost caught up to him, but then he JUMPED across the drain, got his belly wet, and finally reached the stranger. He started jumping and circling the old man, trying to lick him, but the man was obviously not happy at all and tried to smack him away. I apologised after I finally caught up to him and dragged him away. This guy was like 20-30m away from me, and yet my pup still wanted to greet him! From then on, we only let go of his leash when there is no one around. It was insane! How can I teach him to ignore strangers on our walks? (I've tried food again, but he ignores it completely) When will he become more weary of people? I was hoping he would be a little more reserved and calmer in nature as stereotypical of the breed, but he seems to go ecstatic over people whether they like him back or not. ---- I'm sorry for this super long post but these problems have been causing me a great deal of stress. With my break almost ending, I'm losing the ability to dedicate these entire days towards training him. I want to address these issues whilst he's still young and before he reaches those "terrible teens". Thank you so much in advance!
×
×
  • Create New...