Whining all of the time! I need help or we're going to go crazy!

[Kelli, Fenway, & Dustin Pedroia]

Hi Everyone! I have been so busy with work, training Fenway, and taking care of Dustin that I haven't had a chance to get on here very often and I miss everyone! Things are starting to calm down, at work at least, and I have a question for all of you experts out there.
Dustin is our goldendoodle puppy and he is almost 11 weeks old. He is the complete opposite of Fenway in almost every way, which means we have a whole different set of issues with him than we did with Fenway when she was a puppy. We started crate training right away, and although that took a while Dustin finally got used to it and was ok being left through the night in his crate (which is right by the bed) and for short blocks during the day while we're at work. Lately he has been doing A LOT of whining when we put him in his crate at bed time and when we put him in there right before we leave for work (mostly when we are gathering our things and still there, quiets down pretty quickly as soon as we're out the door). But that's not the only time he whines. We also live on the 4th floor of a building in a condo so for various reasons we have to carry him down to the potty (he can't make it all the way down before he goes potty and there is a dog that lives in the complex has had parvo and I'm trying to be very careful). Anyway, a lot of the time he will whine the whole way down and back up. I think he really doesn't like to be carried most of the time. Sometimes he will be laying at our feet and will whine, or just running around and will whine. It doesn't seem to be triggered by any one thing. He may have just been fed and then gone out to potty and he'll lay down in the kitchen and whine. There doesn't always seem to be a rhyme or reason. That being said we try very hard not to reinforce his whining. We don't speak to him unless he's quiet in his crate and we don't speak to him when he's whining when we carry him either. I don't want to encourage the whining. We do talk to him when he's quiet and tell him what a good boy he is and sometimes he gets treats when he's being quiet, but that doesn't seem to be discouraging the whining at all. Do you think we just got a whiney doodle? What can I do? It's driving me and my husband crazy! It's like he's never satisfied.

[Amy]

I would guess he is due for a vet visit soon. Maybe you could take a urine sample to rule out an infection. Our dog, Maggie, had one about a year ago and it was quite painful for her.

[Kelli, Fenway, & Dustin Pedroia]

He does have a visit on Monday, but he's been like this since we brought him home and he's been to the vet 3 times. I keep hoping it will stop so I haven't mentioned it to the vet, but I definitely will on Monday. It's almost like he's a collicky baby that's really fussy all of the time. Although, he eats fine, loves to drink water, goes to the bathroom well, sleeps well, but whines when he's awake a lot of the time. Maybe he's just needy!

[Kelli, Fenway, & Dustin Pedroia]

She used to run right over to him to check and make sure he was ok, which I know is probably part of why he still does it so much, but now she pretty much ignores it too. I guess after checking on him a couple of hundred times she finally figured out that he's ok and she can just go on about her business. The one exception to this is in the morning when he starts whining to get out his kennel. She will still jump down off of the bed and lay in front of his door. Sometimes she'll lick him and sometimes she just sits there, but she does still do this. Again, this may be reinforcing his whining, but I'm not sure how to stop her short of banning her from the bedroom, which would be punishing her because of Dustin. I don't know. We'll keep ignoring and we'll start leaving the room too and I'm going to ask my vet about it on Monday just to be sure there's nothing we've missed, but like you said I may just have a vocal puppy. Thanks for the help.

[Adina P]

Don't have much experience with constant whining so not sure exactly of what I'd do. The fact that you are not rewarding the whining is a good thing.

The only thing I can think of is rewarding quiet...first just moments of quiet and then longer and longer stretches (rewarding with "good quiet" and a tasty treat). But not sure HOW well this works.

My other thought is if you decide to take Dustin through the same training you're doing with Fenway, when he's old enough, THEN that might alleviate the issue. Just because you can make whining and down-stays incompatible, for example.

[Kelli, Fenway, & Dustin Pedroia]

I've already thought about this. I think that training is going to be key for him, but if I remember correctly he can't start that training until he's six months old. I told my DH last night that I felt like a lot of it would be alleviated when he became a better trained dog, but in the meantime...
I'll try to reward the quiet more and see how that works.

[fergie11]

My new doodle Lucy - groans. She had her first obedience class today and the teacher said - OH Don't let her growl. I assure you that it is not a growl. She groans all the time. Yes, it does drive me crazy. If she doesn't get attn with the groan she starts barking - a high annoying bark. I do remember Fergie barking whenever I was away but now she's so content with, without me, whatever. I'm sure Lucy will grow out of this. I think it's a stage - hopefully. Puppies are so much like kids - the good thing is their stages don't last so long. It's cute how your other dog lays by the crate.

[Nancy, Ned, Clancy, and Charlie]

Ned doesn't whine but he chortles when he is excited; when he greets us in the morning or when we come home or something exciting is happening. He can do this with or without a toy in his mouth! He also groans at various times. He has started growling when he hears people come home next door and at our house. He is doing some barking too. I don't like the growls or barks but I love the chortles and groans.

[Leslie, Dexter & Kirby]

You may just have a whiner. Dexter is totally a whiner and he's almost 3. He cries to go potty, when he thinks it's time to eat, if we're on a walk and a human passes us w/o stopping to say hi to him (he'll whine), if Kirby has a toy that Dex wants, Dex will cry. We just learn to deal with it, but there is a lot of crying in this house!

[Tricia, Shiloh, Fenway & Tessie]

Ok, I've read all the responses....Kelli.....I feel really bad for you and I hope it gets better soon! But all I have ripping through my head right now is Tom Hanks saying "There's no crying in baseball!" =)