Re: Puppy Dog is EATING MY COUCH!!!

Yes definitely it will work!

I bought the Cesar Millan season 1 DVD boxed set .. he deals with exactly the situations you are facing. Although my pup didn't have any extreme issues, I felt it was very good idea to put some rules in place, and just adapted what I'd learnt from the DVDs to help me.

Dogs are very sensitive creatures, they do pick up on our energy and feelings. I read your post below and can see it may be a stressful time for you, so see what you can do to get some relaxation built into your day. Even if it's only 2 minutes of quiet meditation/deep breathing sitting in the car a few times a day, it will help. When you feel more calm, the puppy will feel more calm too.

And about exercise, I suggest you take her before AND after work. The best walk/run will be the morning one. And since you are understandably a little down right now, I think the extra exercise will help you too. And make you look even more gorgeous for when Mr Right comes along. Labs need at least 30-45 minutes, twice a day to get the exercise they need.

And also bear in mind that all attention (from her perspective) is good. She is like a kid who craves attention. If she gets it from bad behaviour (even when it's negative attention) she is still happy. So don't nurture the poor behaviour by over reacting, but make sure she gets lots of fuss when she's calm and behaving well.

Is there a way you can section off part of your home .. like just the kitchen or some place where she can't get at all your stuff? This may need to be an option until she gets a little calmer. And leave the radio on for her. Tweet