NIght 1 NOT what I would call a success.

[Katherine Henry]

Hi everyone!  I am so happy to be in this group...but I am SOOOOO darn tired.  I brought my Jarvis home last night (final name change #3 lol).  After a 4 hour car ride with traffic and 3 stops for the little guy, we finally got home last night at 6:30 pm.  I set him up with food and water, which he happily ate and drank :)  Played with him, and got ready for bed.  Well I think I probably got, altogether about 1 1/2 hours of sleep.  He would not stop all night long.  Barking, whining, biting everything.  I had him in his crate next to me all night.  Nothing I did would quiet him.  I took him potty once every hour and half, hoping that would tire him out a bit.  No dice.  I don't know how to get him to sleep through the night.  I know it's early, but he is such a good dog...hasn't had a single accident and goes potty every time he goes outside.  I have a feeling it is because he slept the majority of the car ride yesterday, and it was his first night....so I am trying to keep him up all day today!  Wish me luck!  I love this cute little guy!

[Katherine Henry]

Jarvis is doing well!  So Friday night, as promised, my amazing fiance stayed downstairs with him and he slept from midnight to about 630am, which was great!  Saturday night, he did really well upstairs in our bedroom.  Took him out twice overnight, and he woke up at 7am.  Last night, not so great.  Saturday night I played with him for about a half an hour after I took him out, and he went right to sleep after that till the morning.  Well I had to work today, and get up at 5am for it, so I was not about to stay up and play with him last night....he was a pain.  Pretty much from 3am till I got up he was yelping.  Still no accidents in the house.  His puppy nails are super sharp, and if anyone has any advice for that, I am listening!  Also,  I know he is teething, but the biting is driving me nuts.  He has tons of toys.  A rope toy, several plastic bones, a Kong, a Kong Wubba, A large stuffed lobster named Leroy ;), balls, you name it, he has it.  Yet it seems like all he wants to do is chew hands....and feet, and things he is not supposed to.  I know he will get better, but jeeze....Other than that, he is lovely and adorable, and I am absolutely in love!  

[Linda And Loo]

When the teething was bad I put some of the dogs chew toys in the freezer and then gave them to the dogs to chew on. I also gave them crushed ice and frozen green beans for treats! I also put Peanut butter in the kong and then froze it and used it as a special treat. I always gave it to the dogs in their crates. It was less messy that way. It was also something positive they could associate with their crate. I hope this helps.

[Brianna and Rhubarb]

What a sweetheart! I'm glad that you are starting to find things that work for Jarvis. Their paths definitely don't follow a straight line (with good nights, and then some set backs), but over time it does get easier. We have had our doodle for 4 weeks and are still getting the hang of things.

A few things that have worked for us (that might be helpful, or not, so take them with a grain of salt!)

- we exhaust ours before bed, by taking her outside, standing 100 feet apart and calling her back and forth between us until she is too tired to run. This seems to help. We are lucky enough to have a safe place to do this. We also put a hot water bottle tightly wrapped in a towel into her crate for the first week, so that there was a 'warm body' for her to cuddle up with.

- for chewing on fingers and toes (etc), we let out a loud 'YIP!" (REALLY loud) every time she makes contact with human skin, even if it's not a hard or painful bite. It surprises her, and tells her that we don't like what she is doing. If she continues to bite/mouth, we say "too bad" and walk away immediately. It didn't take her long to figure out that if she wanted to play, she had to play nice.

Hang in there!