CAITLIN FITZGERALD

Thank you so much! I got her to back up to 15 hours yesterday and am aiming for the same today. I am looking into a play pen or trying crating her and we'll try some of these things once she is better with being left alone. Sleep is the best time - I wish I could get her to sleep for 20 hours of the day... that would be way easier on us!

Thank you so much for your thoughtful response. I read it yesterday morning but didn't get a chance to get online and respond. But it helped. I had not heard of the extinction burst. I'm also going to look for the jazz up settle down game. We have the cats separated so that she is in the living room/kitchen/yard and they are in the rest of the house. I am a dog and cat person completely but definitely don't love the hair, drool, or cleaning the litter box so I get that! 🙂 Thanks for the kind words too. It's been so hard and I'm burned out and tired. We'll get through it eventually. I just ordered some of the quiet moments chews!

I’ve been reading the information on counter conditioning and impulse control and frustration threshold etc and realizing those exercises will be helpful. Still would like some specific guidance but definitely relieved that we don’t need to make her cry it out!

Hi everyone, I just purchased the brain training class and am new to the forum. We're still in preschool, obviously. I have a 3 month old Australian cattle dog/Labrador mix that we just adopted about 10 days ago. She was found on the side of the road with her sister and taken to the shelter. We're in puppy hell right now... but determined to get through this. We have a 7 mo. and 11 mo. kitten as well and I've been reading the forums and courses on what we can do with that. Thank you Adrienne for the wealth of information available! I'm so excited to start working with her on impulse control and teaching her to go to her mat, etc.! She's crazy smart. We were able to teach her in the first two days to sit at the door and wait for us to invite her inside and she learned "leave it" her second day with us as well. She learned sit after just 2-3 tries! However, we are struggling with massive tantrums and I didn't see any posts about puppy tantrums. Now that she is comfortable with us, whenever she doesn't have our constant attention she will chew anything in sight and cry or bark - and if we ignore her, she throws a tantrum. I realize I should not give her attention but what do we do about the tantrums while she learns? We can't exercise her until she is vaxxed and she doesn't know how to play with anything (our previous dogs liked to fetch and just always knew how). We just have her chew things and give her kongs stuffed with kibble. But when we want to tend to the cats or go take a shower, or are in a meeting for work - she will start crying and then if we ignore her she quickly starts to bark and screech which literally send shocks up my spine. We also have a shared wall with a neighbor (we live in a duplex house so one shared wall touches all the rooms except the living room/kitchen). So ignoring her tantrums is hard to do as well because I feel bad for the neighbor. (He hasn't complained and we introduced him to her so he would know what the ruckus was but still, I want to be considerate of him). They happen once or twice a day and I struggle with my patience. And then my second question is about sleep. Keeping a sleep/activity journal has been helpful and eye-opening in realizing that she was not sleeping enough. Letting her nap instead of trying to wear her out has helped a lot. But sometimes when she wants to play with the cats, she will not sleep and then she gets cranky. Yesterday she only clocked 11.75 hours of sleep out of the 24. Her usual is around 15 hours. I can't get her to sleep any more than that. When she is wound up, I've started sitting near her and petting her (not when she is crying) and then she falls asleep but I don't want her to become dependent on us for sleep. How can I get her to sleep the full amount she needs? Is it ok to calm her down like that first? Thank you! - Caity