We broke the puppy.

Question:
How long does it take to break the barker of a new lab puppy?

The answer: 4.5 days.

Embry is a screamer. I mean this pup can peel the paint from the walls with her screaming. Chris and I both compare her to a howler monkey. You put her in her crate, she goes insane. We have her on one side of the baby gate while we are trying to feed the other dogs, she goes insane. She MUST be with us or the screaming starts.

This has led to several sleepless nights for everyone in the house.

Today was the first day that neither of us were home with her all day. Chris went to work on time. I went in at 9:30. I was back home by 1:30. She screamed while I was getting ready for work and she was still screaming when I left the house. When I got home for lunch, she was quiet. I was so pleased... Then I looked at her, standing in her crate, on a wet towel, her one paw standing in poop, her toys ignored.... and she was still screaming, there jsut wasn't much noise coming out.

She now sounds like a baby teradactyl. It's pathetic.

I know she'll get better and I know there's not much we can do about this. But it's heartbreaking to hear her scream in her crate. But we can't hold her every minute and she has to learn we will come back. Until then, we have a teradactyl with the lovely needle teeth of a lab puppy.

sigh.