I have an 8 week old husky that I've just brought home a week ago. At night, we place him in a covered play pen and go to sleep. But we have not been able to sleep for the past week.
1. Once he realizes no one is around, he starts shrieking and howling to wake everyone up. Initially we thought those were toilet emergencies and he just didn't want to eliminate where he slept. However, once he did it in the yard and we put him back in the pen so that we can go upstairs to continue sleeping, he howled again.
Subsequently we realized that when people were around him in the play pen, he knew how to eliminate on the side with the pee pad. We have tried coming downstairs and facing our backs toward him until he keeps quiet (to discourage the shrieking) and he does stop, but only when someone comes down and ignores him from where he can SEE them.
In the day, when I'm alone with him at home and I go upstairs to take a nap, he also starts shrieking/howling. How do I stop him from shrieking every time he knows everyone has gone upstairs?
2. The first couple of days, we managed to bring him to the yard to eliminate every 3 hrs and he seemed to be getting the hang of it. So we thought to reinforce the direct method of house training by taking him out every 3 hrs (including in the middle of the night), but it seems to be working against us in problem no. 1 as we would think that he needs to eliminate whenever he shrieks/howls. But oftentimes, when we arrive downstairs, he has already done it on the pee pad side of the play pen. And we feel that it's attention he's craving for, instead of a need to eliminate.
Right now we think that it is more important to solve problem no. 1 and reinforce eliminating in the back yard after he has gotten over sleeping alone. Do you think he will be able to eliminate in the back yard after problem no. 1 is fully resolved? If not, what should we be doing now instead?
3. Is it common for an 8 week old puppy to have an extremely short attention span? He gets easily distracted when we're trying to get him to eliminate in the back yard (He would sniff around the grass for 20minutes and wouldn't eliminate even when we use "poo-poo" and start howling as if he needs to eliminate the moment he is back in the play pen), and when we're trying to give him 5 minute obedience trainings, even with treats.
Thank you in advance for your kind feedback.
