Bichon Frise puppy

[Partsman41953]

Hello,
I have a 7 month old Bichon Frise male puppy who is the sweetest little guy but there are times when his "horns" come out and he is just a little devil. My wife and I both understand that he is still a puppy and we are trying to train him ourselves but at times we just have no clue what to do with him. My wife and I are home most of the day, I work out of the house and my wife goes to school online at home so Toby knows we are home. We have 2 other dogs as well, a 9 year old female cockapoo, who is Toby's best friend, and a 14 year old Pomeranian, who is old and has some physical problems, who Toby tortures most of the time because he just does not know that Priss is old and he is much bigger than she is.

Our problem is that during the day when we are busy we have the dogs in their pens in the laundry room. Toby normally is good for about 2 hours and then he starts to bark and bark until one of us have to stop what we are doing to either let him out of his pen to go potty, which he does sometimes, or just wants to play, which we understand. The problem is when we try to put him back in his pen after that he will not be quiet and will continue to bark.

Our other problem with Toby is that he continues to jump up on people and the 3rd problem is that when we are having either lunch or dinner and he is in his pen he will bark constantly until we let him out and then will come up to the table and start begging.

Please let me know what we can do to train him to be a good boy and to listen to us like our other dogs do.

Thanks.

Glenn

[emmabeth]

How much time does he spend with you, actively doing stuff, as opposed to shut away?

I do appreciate that things need to be done, but I work from home and my five dogs have access to most of the house whilst I am busy, so they can come get me whenever they need me.

[Jindo]

How long do you listen to him bark before you let him out of the pen?

[Nettle]

a 14 year old Pomeranian, who is old and has some physical problems, who Toby tortures most of the time because he just does not know that Priss is old and he is much bigger than she is.

Please take active steps to keep them separate. You owe your old dog that consideration. It is unkind for a sick old dog to be subject to this kind of thing in her last few months on earth, and I am sure you are not at all an unkind person.


For the puppy - all puppies are hectic and need a lot of your time. If yours is quiet for two straight hours, that's pretty impressive - you wouldn't get that with a small child, and he is the equivalent of one of those. Does he have things to do while in his crate? Check out our pinned thread Exercise the Mind for lots of really good ideas that cost next to nothing.

[Partsman41953]

Toby is not a bad boy but like you said he just gets bored and that is why I think he starts to bark. If I bring him up to my office he will start chewing on papers that I need even though he has plenty of bones or stuffed toys to play with but he just gets bored with those after a while and when he gets bored he will start mouthing with his 9-year-old "sister" Toots the cockapoo. He could play with her for hours but they tend to get loud.

The other reason we keep them in their pens is that Toby is still not 100% housebroken and if my wife or I do not keep an eye on him he will not tell us all the time if he has to go potty or not.

I guess we do need to find things for him to do to stimulate his mind so he does not get bored which is probably why he is barking.

Thanks for the information and if you have any other suggests please feel free to let me know.

Thanks again.

[emmabeth]

I think you do need to have a re-think about the way you manage your dogs.

It IS hard work, working from home and raising a puppy - a lot of folk think its the easy option but as someone who works from home themselves, I do understand.

However it seems as if you have fallen into the trap of preventing the symptoms of puppyhood/boredom from annoying you/causing damage, rather than actually fixing them - if you continue to pen the pup, he is never going to become housetrained, never going to learn not to chew up stuff or behave nicely whilst you are working. It is dodging the issue and as you are finding, creating new ones!

Sooo.. do a big tidy-up - no filing systems on the floor (I am the worlds WORST for using the floor around my desk as a filing system!!), paperwork ALL out of reach of puppy teeth. Pen set up in your office - no room in the office for a pen, then use a crate, or temporarily move your office into a larger room and put the pen in there.

Find a way to break up your day so that every hour and a half you take the pup outside to potty (and the elderly girl!) - you should only need to do this for at worst, a couple of weeks, before you figure out his 'internal schedule' and can space the potty breaks further apart.

For the times when you really cannot drop everything and apply to the dogs needs (and you should at first, really limit these as much as possible), prepare in advance a selection of food dispensing toys, chew toys, big raw meaty bones, whole large raw veg and destruction boxes (cardboard box filled with paper twists that have little treats inside for pup to wreck and find the goodies), so that when you are in the middle of an important phone call or getting stuck into something urgent you have something at hand to give to the pup BEFORE he starts being a pain in the rear.

For mealtimes - I suggest you teach him what you DO want him to do - again the first few meals you WILL be getting up and down from the table putting pup/dogs back onto their bed/back into a sit or down, but if you are consistent it DOES work.