me and my husband just recently got married and bought a yellow lab to keep me company while he is at work. we bought a cedar bed for him at costco to sleep on, however he wont sleep on it. he will only chew on it. the only thing he will fall asleep on is our leather sofa or sometimes our bed. no matter how wound up he is, if you put him on the sofa he falls right asleep. we've tried lying down with him on his cedar bed and all he wants to do is chew, bite and play. he goes from fast asleep on the sofa to hyper and ready to play once we put him on his bed in our room. we make sure to take him on super long walks around the base in the evening and my husband runs with him as well. he is totally wiped out after but he will only fall asleep on the sofa no matter how hard we try to keep him off. we are getting a crate this weekend, but i have a feeling he wont like it since when we put him in the laundry room with a baby gate he flips out. i've had puppies before but never one this bad! he also wont eat much, we got the exact food the breeder had and he has hardly ate anything since we got him almost a week ago. i need help! im not sleeping because of him!!!!!!

O_Troubles

ok i no dog exert but mabey the ceder smell is too strong for his puppy nose and its not good for him also the eating thing may be cuz he moved into ur house and he's stressed see a vet thou if u love ur puppy its better for his health and urs

labman

It is only natural that a puppy resists its crate at first. What the puppy
wants more than anything else is to be others, you, anyone else in the
household, and any other pets. In our modern society, even if we are home,
other things distract us from the attention an uncrated puppy must have. The
only real solution is to crate the dog when you aren't around. The dog may be
happier in its den than loose in the house. It relaxes, it feels safe in its
den. It rests, the body slows down reducing the need for water and relieving
its self. Dogs that have been crated all along do very well. Many of them
will rest in their crates even when the door is open. I think the plastic
ones give the dog more of a safe, enclosed den feeling. Metal ones can be put
in a corner or covered with something the dog can't pull in and chew. Select
a crate just big enough for the full grown dog to stretch out in.

Leave it some toys. Perhaps a Kong filled with peanut butter. Don't leave
anything in the crate the dog might chew up. It will do fine without even any
bedding. You will come home to a safe dog and a house you can enjoy.

A dog that has not been crated since it was little, may take some work.
Start out just putting its toys and treats in the crate. Praise it for going
in. Feed it in the crate. This is also an easy way to maintain order at
feeding time for more than one dog.

The "shut the puppy in a safe room" is a fallacy. Very few houses even have a
safe room. How many of us have a room with a hard surfaced floor and nothing
else? Most rooms have electrical cords to chew if nothing else. In addition
to destroying anything a bored puppy finds to chew, it may choke or have
intestinal blockage from the pieces. I had a friend that left her dog in a
"safe" room. It ate a hole in the floor covering. The safe rooms fail to
give the dog the comfort of the enclosed space their instinct requires. Nor
do they restrict activity extending the time the dog can go without relieving
itself.

You will find additional helpful material in the sticky at http://www.askmehelpdesk.com/dogs/in...tml#post251802

It is unusual for a Lab not to eat. In the sticky I suggest doing just as you did, continuing what the breeder was feeding. All you have to do is identify it among the other dozens of puppy chows. He should be eating a cup or less each of 3 meals a day for now. Likely he came from the breeder too fat. Butter balls are cute, but lean is healthy. See LongLiveYourDog.com - Life Span Study - Rate Your Dog There is more about not eating on down in the sticky. Chances are once he adjusts a little and maybe trims down a little, he will eat better. If he is one of the few Labs that keeps himself lean, he will live longer than the ones that are over fed.