New puppy owners support thread - everyone welcome

[Sherbert37]

Have a Border Terrier pup aged 11 weeks. Current favs are digging under the fence, chewing trousers and eating stones. On the plus side, she is great at night (sleeping 10.30 - 5.30 and doesn't wee), seems to love her crate and is so cuddly.

Took her to Pets at Home this morning and everyone made a fuss of her (ticked off the man with a beard on the socialisation chart).

Anyone else?

[Blondeshavemorefun]

as our monster puppy is still under 1 - the he is a puppy - just a big one

great swiss mountian dog

[alisha29]

my new puppy (well not that new anymore) she is 4 months and is adoreable(now) she is a jrt she loves slippers,shoes,clothers she follows me everwhere and we are getting to grips with the toilet training and training her and myslef she is responding well to training and in the end she will be a lovly family pet(i hope)

[floaty]

We have a 13 week cocker spaniel puppy,housetraining going well,very sociable ...loves everyone,only real problem is the play biting and trouser chewing!

[Bubblebell1]

Hi everyone.

I have a 20 month old SBT and am picking up a new puppy (another SBT) on saturday. so excited and looking forward to all that entails

[Sherbert37]

Just been along to the post box with her in my arms. Now she is asleep again in her crate. She is so eager to please but only understands 'sit' so she does that whenever we talk to her.

[Bubblebell1]

Aww, she sounds adorable sherbert. Do you have any pics of her? When is her last jab? how long before she can have a proper walk?

[CarofromWton]

Boy do I need a support thread for this! We have a 14 week old border collie pup - totally adorable, cute, very sociable and loves people - the more the merrier.

HOWEVER - she is driving me crazy. Now, we've had collies before but I don't remember the puppy stage lasting this long and being so hard. Or is it like having children - you only remember the good bits?

She is rubbish at house training - although she will soon go when put out into the garden, she is just as likely to relieve herself in the house if it's more convenient to her! She sleeps in her crate all night and never messes in there!

She was a nightmare for the first few weeks re: chewing our clothes and getting over-excited whilst playing with the kids (nipping) but we have made some progress with this. Now when she becomes manic for longer than a few minutes we calmly place her in her crate and she calms down quite quickly.

On the whole though I don't feel we're doing very well on the whole behaviour front and feeling a bit down about it. Our last dog was go well-behaved. I need some reassurance that in time it will get easier ...

(no scaremongerers please )

[alisha29]

i have a collie to and she is a nutter and no good as a guard dog but great with children which makes up for it

[fruitshootsandheaves]

my springer 'puppy' is nine months, does he still count as a puppy?

[alisha29]

yes fruit he still counts up until one

[PaulaAtMummyKnowsBest]

my border collie is nearly 6 months old already!

It has gone very fast.

She is such a lovely little thing and has none of the bad habits that our old dog (newfoundland) had. She is great with the children and the cats seem to tolerate her too.

The only "bad" things are her digging up the garden and coming in covered in mud, her weeing on the floors inside if she gets too exited and her fussiness with food.

She has the most adorable nature and looks gorgeous too

[Sherbert37]

Just been to the vets for the first lot of jabs, so will be July before she can go out for a walk. Vet said she was adorable, but I bet he says that to everyone.

Making slow progress with housetraining. Like Caro, she will go outside quite happily but then immediately wee inside on return. Dry in the crate at night though. Will go into the crate to sleep but not happy to be left alone there while awake.

[spugs]

13 week old mini schnauzer x bichon frise, very small and fluffy called Alfie.

Hes great with kids and very sociable, weve just started puppy school but hes not very sure of the other puppies. So hopefully that will get better.

He seems to be brighter then i thought he was as he now knows sit, down, come, paw, roll over and beg. House training however seems to totally confuse him. If i take him outside he goes outside but if hes inside he pees wherever he is! Doesnt try to make it to the back door. If the back doors open and hes in the kitchen he'll go out to wee but if hes anywhere else in the house he forgets!

He sleeps well, but i dont crate him over night so he pees everywhere. I only crate him if hes being left for an hour or so and hes very rarely left which brings us to his second problem. When you do leave him he goes balistic, it is getting better slowly and im making a point of crating him a couple of times a day while im around and ignoring him.

Apart from the house training and barking hes fab and my kids are totally in love his favourite thing seems to be shredding paper/cardboard and attacking the grooming brush (he has long hair so we do it every day).

I agree with the being like babies

How long does everyone walk there pup for? We go out twice a day for between 15 and 30 minutes occasionally longer if we go out somewhere. Im worried it might be too much as he has short stubby legs he seems to love it though and hes very rarely knackered after the shorter ones and has a lot of energy.

[doggiesayswoof]

9 week old Border Terrier, she's been with us just over a week, and has settled in amazingly well.

She is usually dry at night in her crate as long as we come down and let her out as soon as she has woken up, during the day housetraining is going pretty well with only the odd pee on the floor now.

Main "issues" currently are nipping, growling and chewing trouser legs, and also she is nervous when we take her out - I carry her round the block as she has not had her 2nd jag yet, and as soon as we are out of the garden she is shaking in my arms.

Lots more socialisation needed - we are going to start puppy classes soon. I am a little bit worried about her developing fear aggression as she can be nervous and very excitable - or maybe this is a fairly normal puppy thing?

[mum2seb]

I have a 16 week old Lakeland Terrier, and love him to bits!! I take him to puppy classes, where he behaves impeccably, and has duped everyone there in to believing that he's the worlds most perfect puppy - then he comes home, jumps all over the sofa (constantly telling him 'OFF!"), tries to eat ds's Batman cape (really NOT good!!), and wees everywhere. On the up side, he doesn't seem to poo in the house anymore, and we've come down to a clean kitchen all weekend (wee, no poo!)!! He has a crate, but sleeps in it with the door open (WHY did I buy it?!!). I really don't know how I survived a house without a dog before our pup arrived!!

[CarofromWton]

Following on from my gloomy post last night, our collie has been pretty adorable today (just one wee in the house). However, she was doing her usual manic dash around the garden tonight and managed to hit her front left paw on the gate. Since then she has been limping and feeling v. sorry for herself. She is getting lots of cuddles (actually I think she's milking this a bit!) If she's not walking normally in the morning I'll take her to the vet.

Poor thing - given the amount of energy she has though, I'm surprised she has gone this long without injury!

[doggiesayswoof]

Morning all, hope you all had peaceful pee-free nights with your puppies

Ours was dry again last night, bless her, loads of peeing in the garden first thing. She hates being out on the dewy grass though, wee delicate soul.

DH had a difficult afternoon with her yesterday - she has discovered that she can get in underneath the overgrown shrubs in garden then she was refusing to come out again. DH needed to get back inside to check on dcs and didn't want to leave her in the garden - we are going to have to start training her properly to come.

Caro, I'm also surprised that pup hasn't injured herself yet - she races around and frequently goes head over heels. Hope your pup's paw is ok!

[MmeLindt]

Joining in with Daphne, Maltese Terrier/Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, 8 months old.

She is at the Toilettage in France today, the doggy grooming parlour getting a short back and sides

[doggiesayswoof]

Ooh - Toilettage - I love it

I bet she looks even cuter when she comes back (if that's possible)

[pigsinmud]

Can I join? I have a 5 month old puppy (springer x collie, lab, staffie mix).

She is lovely, but am struggling with walking on lead. She doesn't spend long on lead as we only have to walk down road to fields where I can let her off. She's our first dog so it's all new to us. She's great with kids.

My finest trick is getiing her food bowl on the floor and she looks at me waiting for me to tell her to eat!

Toilet trained now. She really really jumps at her mum's owner, my dh and one friend in particular - don't know why! She never jumps up at me.

She looks quite staffie round the head, but has really long ears - had several people aske me if she has beagle in her!

[Stayingsunnygirl]

We are getting a chocolate lab puppy in about 6 weeks time - she'll be 8 weeks old. I'm pretty nervous about it, because I've never had a dog before - we had cats when I was growing up, and have had cats since dh and I married (we wanted to wait until we were living somewhere fairly rural before getting a dog).

I'm lying awake nights worrying about how she'll get on with our current cat - I'd hate for him to be unhappy because of the new addition to the family, as well as worrying about training her when I know some theory and that's all, and lots of silly little worries too - like how to deal with dog poo (I am not looking forward to carrying those little bags of poo - but I will be doing it, promise).

I'm sure she will be a lovely addition to the family, and will be great company for me, as well as getting me out of the house and walking each day (which will be very good for me, as well as getting me to meet other people).

I will definitely be needing this thread, though!

[fruitshootsandheaves]

I have a collie too Caro. Not a puppy anymore she is 4. They are real babies when it comes to injuries and make ALOT of fuss about the smallest thing. It took 3 people to hold mine just to get a tick off her ear!
She''l probably forget about her paw if she wants to run around and then limp again if she thinks you are watching!

[CarofromWton]

You're right there fruitshoot - our collie's a real baby - hates it if we even leave the room!

Thanks for the concern doggie re: her paw - good news is it seems a lot better this morning - I have even taken her for a short walk - lots of light limping, but nothing like it was last night .

[CarofromWton]

Oh by the way doggie, our pup was terrible for pulling and chewing floaty dresses/skirts and trouser legs when we first had her but this has massively improved. It got to the stage that I couldn't get completely dressed for work until just before going out the door in case the dog savaged my clothes!

I'm not sure if the cure was through training (basically saying 'no' when she pulled our clothing then cutting the attention) or whether it was just a young puppy thing.

Good luck!

[Sherbert37]

Our BT is also shaping up to be an escape artist. She loves to run along the bottom of the fence which is behind bushes and dig. I have taken the liberty of blocking the gaps with bits of concrete slabbing I found next door in the neighbour's garden (house is empty at present).

Have you got a collar and tag? I bought a collar which does not have an end dangling as she bit through the first 'puppy' one. Wouldn't let her outside without her collar on as she could easily squeeze through the fence. I watch her like a hawk too.

We have improved a lot on the chewing clothes front in just a couple of days. On Saturday I got ready for work in my suit and ski socks to protect my trouser legs.