Dog is driving me nuts
My dog is driving me nuts, he’s a 3yr old French bulldog cross but since I started mat leave a couple of weeks ago he’s been a nightmare. When I’m working he’s usually home on his own, and now that I’m home all the time he’s constantly barking and looking for the next thing to do. He’s definitely become more protective and barks at any little noise, and he’s also becoming more and more demanding, but when he’s home on his own he’ll literally just sleep all day. We are keeping up with walks but I haven’t been able to take him for walks longer than 20 mins as I’m now 38, nearly 39 weeks and struggling with pelvic pain. He still goes with a dog walker 2x a week but he’s honestly bringing me to tears nearly every day with the barking and constant need for more. I try to play with him, but he loses interest super quickly and then it’s back to barking at whatever has made the slightest noise again.
I’m guessing he can sense things are changing & that may be why, but how do I deal with this? In the evenings once my partner is home he’s fine, it’s just when he’s home alone with me. Again, if he’s home with just my partner he’ll settle.
I end up getting so frustrated with him & myself and I’m dreading what things are going to be like when baby is here 😩
What do I do?!
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On mental stimulation, ‘hide and seek with her toy in the grass/hedge’ and she’s knackered afterwards. I hope you get sorted and get some rest it’s not easy juggling it all but it’s worth putting the effort in now before baby comes x
He'd had a massive change to his routine. Fellow frenchie owner here. And they are normally gobby and find anything to bark at oh and will do anything for attention, which any frenchie owner will tell you their dog is exactly the same. Maybe crate train him so he's got his own time out space, I give my lad yak bars and anything that he can chew and will knacker him out, snuffle mats, lickimats hope that helps
Yes crate training may help you in this situation xx
My dog gets like this when she’s overstimulated and over tired. If you’re now home all the time that’s a massive change to the dogs routine. We had the exact same problem with our dog and took her to a trainer who told us she has too much freedom and not enough enforced rest so we’ve crate trained her and she’s a different dog, she only goes in for about an hour twice a day and then sleeps in there at night and she’s so calm and well behaved in comparison. Took about three days to train her (lots of protest barking and whining) and now she runs in there any time she’s tired and settles straight away without being asked. It’s like she was begging for it. I feel bad because I didn’t realise how anxious and stressed she was before, I also thought she was being really demanding and I also increased my training thinking she needed more, when she actually needed less. My dog is an 18 month old border collie and she gets trained twice a day, 30 minutes a time. We don’t do ‘walks’ we focus