Curly is a brat!

[nubonics]

We've come to terms in the last week that Curly pie was a bit spoiled by the breeders. Um, let me rephrase, really spoiled. We were fortunate that they started him on puppy pads so he is about 90% housebroken with use of the pads and we're working on weaning him off of them.

He was also crate trained so he loves his crate. However (here comes the brat), he does not like the door to be closed. As soon as the door closes he start crying bloody murder. We've ignored it, gone out for dinner, come back quietly and he isn't making a noise until he sees us. Brat.

We were really fortunate with our Frenchton (French Bulldog and Boston) and he loved his crate. he preferred the crate over everything. When we got our Bugg (Boston and Pug) she cried the first night but the second night we decided to try kenneling her and Sully together. She stopped crying and that was that.

So we decided to try what we did with Mi'me with Curly. First we crated just Sully and him together (Curly LOVES Sully). Curly started crying bloody murder. Okay that didn't work. So then we tried crating them all together (Mi'me was left out of the crate so we thought maybe jealousy?) Nope didn't work.

Our conclusion is that the breeder completely babied the litter and when they barked, they came running. So while they did get some good habits, we need to break the bad ones.

Any tips on what else we should try? He does not have a problem going into the crate, laying down and sleeping - it's just when we close the door. We're also trying treat and giving him one when we close the door but we think it's counter productive because he is only associating the treat with the door shutting but he barks as soon as we are a couple of steps away.

He also isn't very fond of car ride either and will cry/bark the whole time. But I learned if I crank the AC so it's about 60 degrees he will go to sleep. I'm wondering if I put his cooling pad down in the crate if maybe he will be more comfortable? Anyone else bully wish they were Eskimos?

Just so you don't think we were being bad parents, this was our crate condo when we had all three together...That's Mi'me in the front one...

 

[AubreysMom]

Make sure not to leave his cooling pad down unless he's supervised. Not long ago we had a bully here that ate one and passed away even though it was suppose to be non-toxic: http://www.englishbulldognews.com/f...he-Dog-Cooling-Pad-is-Toxic&highlight=cooling

Aubie loves to be cool. She is wound up in the car until we get going and then she lays down and goes to sleep. I think once he gets used to it, he will calm down and be fine. When it comes to barking in the crate, we bought a crate cover with Aubie and put it on to make it dark. She learned quickly to just lay down and be quiet or go to sleep because the way we situated the crate she couldn't see us. Maybe something to try?

 

[DudleysMom]

Dudley is good in the car, but he MUST be cool...he'll pant and sound like a freight train if the air conditioning is not cranked up!

I don't have any advice on the crating -- Dudley was surprisingly good.

 

[Jennifer Clark]

Make sure not to leave his cooling pad down unless he's supervised. Not long ago we had a bully here that ate one and passed away even though it was suppose to be non-toxic: http://www.englishbulldognews.com/f...he-Dog-Cooling-Pad-is-Toxic&highlight=cooling

Aubie loves to be cool. She is wound up in the car until we get going and then she lays down and goes to sleep. I think once he gets used to it, he will calm down and be fine. When it comes to barking in the crate, we bought a crate cover with Aubie and put it on to make it dark. She learned quickly to just lay down and be quiet or go to sleep because the way we situated the crate she couldn't see us. Maybe something to try?

This is exactly what I was going to suggest.

 

[Lokismom]

If you know that he is quite once you are out of sight maybe just more and more leave him alone or leave a radio on for him so he doesn't get bored. Loki was the same way we would leave and come back quietly about 5 mins later and he was completely quite.

 

[nubonics]

Make sure not to leave his cooling pad down unless he's supervised. Not long ago we had a bully here that ate one and passed away even though it was suppose to be non-toxic: http://www.englishbulldognews.com/f...he-Dog-Cooling-Pad-is-Toxic&highlight=cooling

Aubie loves to be cool. She is wound up in the car until we get going and then she lays down and goes to sleep. I think once he gets used to it, he will calm down and be fine. When it comes to barking in the crate, we bought a crate cover with Aubie and put it on to make it dark. She learned quickly to just lay down and be quiet or go to sleep because the way we situated the crate she couldn't see us. Maybe something to try?

That is so sad (re: cooling pad). I don't think it have the one that is mentioned though; it does not have gel in it. It's call Cool Bed by K&G. It's actually more of a water bed - it has a foam in it and you fill it with cold water everyday. The foam absorbs the water and the bed stays cool. Then when it warms up you can squeeze out the water and refill. Usually we fill it with water and throw it into the freezer for our bigger dogs that way it says cool longer.

I digress. We tried the "cave" method too but it didn't work either. Don't get me wrong, he likes being in the crate and will sleep in there too but once that door shuts all heck breaks loose. It's like he wants free range and knows he can't have it when we close the door.

Now that he's gotten so much more comfortable with our other two dogs we're hoping that he will start learning from example and mimic their behavior. He started copying "sit" from them but unfortunately he started mimicking them when they beg LOL

 

[Baxter Tiberius]

Not sure crying with the door closed equals having been spoiled.
These dogs are extremely, extremely, extremely needy for us. Which is why I love them.
A closed door and confined area is not something I think a bulldog puppy does well with sometimes.
They just came from a setting full of loving parents and brothers and sisters.
Now its total and complete isolation.

I have a video of Baxter doing this very thing when i closed the door to his crate.
I know the breeder didn't run to his crate to open it.
He was crying because he was by himself, and feeling confined.
I was torn because I was told not to let him out if he cried, but to let him suffer instead.
I found that when I gave him a playpen area, built around his crate, which was now open, he immediately calmed down and was very happy.
It makes sense to me.

This was one of the mornings where he'd pooped everywhere and destroyed the crate.
Thankfully this behavior changed as I learned how to work with him better.
In hindsight - now that I understand his facial expressions and emotions more, I see a puppy that was extremely lonely and sad.
Taken from his family and very, very sad. So watching this video makes me really down.
Because at the time I was clueless, and just thought he was being annoying. A brat.
Wish I could go back in time.

 

[nubonics]

Not sure crying with the door closed equals having been spoiled.
These dogs are extremely, extremely, extremely needy for us. Which is why I love them.
A closed door and confined area is not something I think a bulldog puppy does well with sometimes.
They just came from a setting full of loving parents and brothers and sisters.
Now its total and complete isolation.

I have a video of Baxter doing this very thing when i closed the door to his crate.
I know the breeder didn't run to his crate to open it.
He was crying because he was by himself, and feeling confined.
I was torn because I was told not to let him out if he cried, but to let him suffer instead.
I found that when I gave him a playpen area, built around his crate, which was now open, he immediately calmed down and was very happy.
It makes sense to me.

This was one of the mornings where he'd pooped everywhere and destroyed the crate.
Thankfully this behavior changed as I learned how to work with him better.
In hindsight - now that I understand his facial expressions and emotions more, I see a puppy that was extremely lonely and sad.
Taken from his family and very, very sad. So watching this video makes me really down.
Because at the time I was clueless, and just thought he was being annoying. A brat.
Wish I could go back in time.

I was loosely using the term brat I guess my humor didn't translate well. But I do know that he is just displaying seperation anxiety. The breeders we got him from did tell us that the pups were babied. It was their first litter ever and were a bit extreme with everything. We checked out the puppies for about an hour and we witness them babying not only the puppies but the mama who was in another room. Not sure if it was because we were there but it seemed too natural

Anyhow I digress. We tried the playpen idea a when we got our oldest dog so we decided to try it with this guy too, today actually. Set up his play pen, swimming pool (the breeders used a baby pool to put puppy pads in so we continued that here while we are housebreaking and he does use the pool about 95% of the time), gave him his favorite sleeping pillow toys and kept his new besties (our other two dogs who now normally have free range) in the pen with him.

We then left. He mad no noise. Then we went outside, made no noise (if he barks we can hear it outside because of how our place is setup). Then we went around the block. No noise. We went to Starbucks and we came back to this blood curdling howl and whining. We stood outside for a bit longer and determined it was curly. When we came inside we no longer heard the howl. So we waited a while to see if we heard it again and we didn't. So we went and checked on curly. The two older dogs were quietly in the kennel and curly was just sitting in the corner ran over to us like he was just hanging out the whole time not whining.

I'm considering bringing in a trainer to help because I can't have him howl like this if we are just gone for 5 minutes our neighbors will start complaining fast. We have that one neighbor too that complains about anything and everything to our landlord.

Our other dogs I think are trying to step in to help with the whining too (they arent barkers or whiners). Sometimes he will whine if no one will play with him and our oldest dog will now growl if he barks too much and stand over him. curly will stop whining and lay down. We've tried imitating this but yet to have succeeded


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[nubonics]

I was reading a few articles and realized I haven't tried one thing - tiring him out. He barely walks around the block right now so long walks are not an option. Tomorrow I'm going to play with him for about an hour, walk him and put him in the pen. I really want to leave the house for a few hours tomorrow (I work from home so I get crazy cabin fever) so hopefully we can get this bugger to settle down


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[2BullyMama]

I was reading a few articles and realized I haven't tried one thing - tiring him out. He barely walks around the block right now so long walks are not an option. Tomorrow I'm going to play with him for about an hour, walk him and put him in the pen. I really want to leave the house for a few hours tomorrow (I work from home so I get crazy cabin fever) so hopefully we can get this bugger to settle down Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk - now Free

Oh my goodness... yes, tire him out! a tired pup is a good pup. Sorry that was not mention to you earlier -- walks or some play time will help

 

[nubonics]

Oh my goodness... yes, tire him out! a tired pup is a good pup. Sorry that was not mention to you earlier -- walks or some play time will help

Problem right now with walks is that he is putting the brakes on half way down the block. I know he can make it all the way around the block but he just wants to turn around and go back in. There are only certain part of the block he does this at so right now I'm trying to train him to walk around the block lol baby steps.

In doors he only really wants to play with the other dogs. When we try to play with him the isn't interested in us. One of our two dogs has taken the Curly Protector role and is fairly high energy so she plays with him but it's more until she is tired rather than curly. After she is tired out and we try to continue to play with curly he just does a lazy play - doesn't run much just lays there. If mi'me then gets back involved in playing since we are giving curly attention his energy level goes back up.

And here is a curly selfie lol.

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[2BullyMama]

Problem right now with walks is that he is putting the brakes on half way down the block. I know he can make it all the way around the block but he just wants to turn around and go back in. There are only certain part of the block he does this at so right now I'm trying to train him to walk around the block lol baby steps.

In doors he only really wants to play with the other dogs. When we try to play with him the isn't interested in us. One of our two dogs has taken the Curly Protector role and is fairly high energy so she plays with him but it's more until she is tired rather than curly. After she is tired out and we try to continue to play with curly he just does a lazy play - doesn't run much just lays there. If mi'me then gets back involved in playing since we are giving curly attention his energy level goes back up.

And here is a curly selfie lol.

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What a great photo.... he is so darn adorable!! hard to get annoyed or mad at that face.

are you using treats on the walk to get him to keep walking?

 

[nubonics]

What a great photo.... he is so darn adorable!! hard to get annoyed or mad at that face.

are you using treats on the walk to get him to keep walking?

Yea that's my stinker. It's really really hard to get mad at him.

He must be the strangest bully ever but he is not very responsive to treats - we have the Blue bits which are the soft meaty chews and a crunchy treat (we just ran out but they were by blue too). He will sit for them but he won't walk for them. I think he might have associated the treat with sit than with walk lol this guy is going to need so much work. Thank goodness I work from home!

He likes walking with our frenchton Sully so we tried walking them together and he goes a bit further than normal but at certain spots he just stops walking and sits down.

We've gone as far as dropping the leash and keep walking. 50% of the time he will run after us the the 50% of the time he will just sit there staring at us.

I'm also in LA and it's still hot out here so I thought he's just hot. But he does the same thing at night when the temps drop to the 60s.

Today though I took a mini squeaky rubber duck on the walk with us and squeaked it when I pulled him to come and he was interested in the duck!! So I think I found my motivator ::knock on wood:: I also am trying to pay more attention to him and prevent him from sitting during the walk which I've found to work at bit right now.

He's only been with us for 2 weeks now so he is still getting use to everything I think eventually he will get use to the walks



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[2BullyMama]

Great catch on the squeaky toy.... Find a motivator and stay consistent with him. They do test us all the time