New Puppy Owners

[kid]

I know there are a few of us that have recently picked up new pups.
Were your puppies lovely and calm when you first got them or were they mental straight away?

I can't believe how calm Teddy is being so far. He has slept a lot but even when he is awake, he just nibbles gently on your fingers or rolls his ball with his feet.

He has not had any accidents in the house yet which is a miracle.

I am wondering if this is the calm before the storm?

I have tried the non chew spray and..........it doesn't work! Storm seems to actually like the taste so my advice would be save your money!!!

Storm seems to go to bed really well now, no crying at night or when Daddy puts him back in in the morning when he goes to work.
But still the pooping it is driving me mental. This morning it took me 40 mins to clean him and his crate up! Not very nice at all. We think it happens between half 5 when DH goes to work and 7 when I get up. And no getting up at half 5 is not an option, I just can't do it. What's half 5 anyway????
So what can I do? DH does take him out for a while in the morning, hopefully when he is able to go for walks it may help as DH will take him for a quick walk in the morning.

He obviously didn't get the memo about NOT fouling his crate coz he doesn't seem bothered!!!

Nice to hear how everyone is doing. We are keeping a close eye out for wasps.

Rory went for his second set of vaccinations on Friday evening. It was his first time going for a real journey in his car crate. He wasn't too impressed and whined most of the way there. But it is only a 10 minute journey, so that wasn't too bad. There were 2 other dogs in the waiting room and he was actually very good. I expected some frantic scrabbling to see the other dogs, but no - just calm interest from afar. It was the same vet who gave him his first set of jabs and he remarked how much he had grown. He weighed 10.7kg - at one day shy of 12 weeks. The return journey was slightly quieter.

Mum came for tea yesterday - it was the first time she had seen him. Unfortunately Rory seemed to have misinterpreted "Grandma's coming for tea" and spent most of the time eating her! Poor woman - she managed to escape reasonably intact, but we had warned her in advance to wear old clothes....

We changed to 3 meals a day on Saturday - we eventually decided on 7.00am, 1.30pm and 8.00pm. On Saturday evening at 10.15pm we were watching TV and heard him leave his crate in the hall where he had been napping and go through to the kitchen. There was a banging noise and he appeared in the living room with his food bowl in his mouth. It was almost as if he was saying "You've forgotten my supper!" He has woken me at 6.00am and 5.55am the last 2 mornings - definitely an improvement. We'll have to see if this continues. He had a touch of the runs this morning - again just a bit more than 48 hours after his jabs. Luckily, it was all outside this time!

purple that is great about him bringing his food bowl in!! genius dog.

wrt the crate fouling, if your DH is taking him out to toilet at half 5 and he is then waking you about 6, do you take him out at that time? it sounds like 6 is when he wants to get up and usualy thay need the loo soon after they wake. we have also had a fee crate accidents and i am trying to time it right every night to catch him before it happens.

urm no usually I am out for the count! sometimes I don't even hear him I sleep that deep! will try to set an alarm for 6 and see if that helps.

Storm just brought me his dinner mat!!! And to top it off he didn't spill his water, just whipped it out waiter style
When should we switch to 3 meals? Storm doesn't eat all of his meals, sometimes not even half. DOes that mean we need to switch to 3? And can anyone help me with the timing? 3 days a week I go to work 11:45 and don't get home til after school pick up about 3:45. When should he have meal number 2? before I go work or after? difficult as it would mean either a long time between breakfast and lunch or lunch and tea. Ideas please.

oops, i think i am getting mixed up, i adressed that to purple when it should have been pink. all these colours!!

i would say if he isn't eating it all then time to switch down. we are on 3 at the minute and even then sometimes tehre is some left in his dish. he is 9 weeks.

how about the reducing his amount of food per feed and still giving 4 feeds to keep the gap between meals a bit more even?

in the morning, i don't feed WB til after the school run so he gets his breakfast about 10ish. would this be any help to you to feed him a bit later in the morning. you could use his hungry eagerness to do a bit of training before breakfast. that way you could feed him at say 10, 4 and 9. or is that too late for an evening feed?

thanks boo not a bad idea with the late breakfast that sorts it out great. he only has two handfuls of his dry food with a bit of water to make itsoggy. Storm is 9 weeks today, I thought they had to stay on 4 meals till 12 weeks?

That's OK - booyhoo - crate fouling is one of the few problems we have never experienced! Frankly I am much happier getting up at the crack of dawn than cleaning up the mess at 7.00am.

pinkanimal - it is amazing how quickly you get used to getting up early. It depends, though, whether you can manage to get to bed an hour earlier as well! At the moment I am trying to go to bed beween 9.30pm and 10.00pm. DP then takes Rory out and puts him to bed.

I am amazed that some people's pups are not finishing their meals. (Guess they aren't labs! ) Rory scoffs his in 30 seconds flat .... then looks for more... then he gives his bowl a few hopeful licks in case he has actually managed to miss some! He is growing so fast that we are having to adjust the amount we give him every week, but are weighing it out carefully to avoid over-feeding. The problem is, he now recognises the sound of the scales being picked up, so arrives hopefully every time they are moved!

omg just found baseball hats and socks and princess dresses for dogs ok so I just bought a few bandanas but really, socks???

You may have a point about the getting up purple I have never been a early riser tbh, even when our DD was a baby. I just can't handle the lack of sleep. omg what is he eating now????? Clump of grass. Makes a change, earlier it was a black thing dunno what?
I do go to bed at 10pm , still not early enough!!!!!!!! lol
Hopefully he will grow out of it soon! At least I have here to vent my stresses!

pink i am not an early riser at all either, the dcs were easier because they could come into bed with me . i am really notcing the lack of sleep aswell, infact i got up at 6.30 this morning, fed ds2 and took WB out to the loo and then went back to bed, slept in and got up at 20 past 8!!! had to get my neighbour to take ds1 to school with her DDs, thankfully, same school.

purple WB is a golden retriever and apparently tehy have similar tendancies to overeating as labs do so we are weighing his food out aswell, i guess he has decided to monitor his own diet

not sure about the 4 meals til 12 weeks, i guess if you weigh out the day's amount of food and spread it over 4 meals, but even if we did that WB is still leaving some in his dish.

I know this is not new puppy related but i have just had a very wet and pissed off looking moggy clamber through he living room window. she is thoroughly drenched and giving WB evils as he is currently snuggled up in his nice warm crate

Left to my own devices I am a natural night owl. Like booyhoo, when dd was little she would end up getting up at 4.30am-5.00am, and I would bring her into our bed and doze. She is now 12 and I am definitely not as adaptable as I once was. I was a wreck for the first week or so after Rory came home, and ended up going back to bed in the afternoon a couple of times. That was a disaster as I then wasn't ready to sleep at bedtime. But since I went back to work after my fortnight holiday and the schools here went back 2-and-a-half weeks ago, I have got into a proper routine and things have fallen into place.

This morning I reset my watch alarm from 6.00am to 6.30am, and that is now the time I will get up if I am not woken earlier. (My alarm has only gone off twice in the last 4 weeks when I have still been in bed.)

agree purple, this is ds1's first full week of school so i am hoping his routine will nudge me back into going to bed earlier and rising earlier. i really am struggling at the minute.

hey purple Lola is same, wolfing food in seconds, and there is no way I can space out to 3 meals/day yet, she appears permanently hungry. I keep checking weight of food - 6kg 12 week pup, expect maybe 20kg fully grown, so 300g/day kibble. That's 75g x 4 right. But she acts starving! And she gets kongs with extra rice, chicken etc too.

kid as you have a springer too, tho he's a bit bigger, how many g/day do you feed? Hate the idea of over feeding a spaniel, but she stalks me all day long in a hopeful manner...

Survived the first day with DD at school. L in crate for an hour while I went out with no problem. How long is anyone else leaving their puppy at this stage? I need to get a bit of normal life back!

i think the most i have left WB in the crate during the day is 2 hours. i tend to just take him everywhere with me so not much need for long stays in the crate.

just got my puppy pack from fish4dogs. WB is loving the sea jerky tidlers (thanks WTWTW). going to use my 10% discount to order some puppy food for him. (and some treats aswell)

Puppy wont eat from his bowl. Stainless steel bowl that she has used fine since Saturday. She has not eaten since 11am. I tried ceramic and plastic and then back to stainless steel this evening, but nothing eaten. She has been bashing it since 11am feed trying to knock her food onto the floor and then eating it from there. Any ideas?

Sorry her bowl!

i was going to say that she could see her reflection in the stailess seel one but if you have tried ceramic hen i am at a loss to know what is wrong. if she is eating off the floor then clearly it isn't the food thats a problem. is the bowl small? perhaps it is touching her whiskers and making her feel claustrophobic? all i can think of really.

oops, appauling spelling there. typing too fast.

Booyhoo, I had wondered if it could be her tag banging on her bowl that was spooking her, which is why I tried the plastic one,but figured that had nothing to do with it. However, when I spoke to her breeder, who is brilliant, and she suggested removing the tag and put her food on the floor for a couple of days, as it is no big deal to me. I will just mop up after her. She is sleeping a lot, is this normal?

how old is she aasumpta?

WB is 9.5 weeks. i go him at 7 weeks and for the first 4/5 days he slept loads during the day. i think a mixture of new sights, sounds and people, lots of exploring, dcs fussing over him and of course, still being a baby is what caused all the snoozing, even now he will go off for an hour long snooze a couple of times a day.

She is 8.5 weeks old. Sorry for the delay, but I just took her out and she refused to do her wee in the rain, so decided to do it on the mat when she came in. Only a little one though, so hopefully I won't be out there for ages for her last wee as it's pouring. Do they do this normally, and how do you overcome it, especially with our weather?

WB did that last night, stood outside for ages with him only to bring him back in and he weed straight away on he floor . the wind and rain is definitely puttinghim off going out today. i am just wrapping up warm and pulling my hood up, grinning and bearing it. i tend to stand out for only a few minutes and if no joy bring him in and then about 5 minutes later try him again, I've got pretty adept a reading the signals so i usually know when he is ready to go but sometimes he just isn't quite ready . and i go overboard with treats and praise when he does go outside just to reinforce that he is doing the right thing.

also, i have rolled up all my mats until i am sure he is trained

iloverhubarbcrumble I am feeding Teddy 3 times a day but haven't been measuring it. I just fill the bowl a certain amount each time. I will weigh his morning food tomorrow and let you know roughly how much he is eating.

He weighed 8.4kg on Saturday, he is now 13 weeks old. The vet didn't comment on him being too big or too small so I assume its fine.

He was the devil dog this morning, I was so unimpressed with him. DD started secondary school on Friday but today was the first day she has ever had to take herself to school. Well Teddy chose today to make a hole in her brand new tights. Luckily she had a spare pair, but thats all there is now. I desperately need to get her some pairs but its so hard timewise.

Teddy is still barking randomly at us. When we tell him no and point at him, he will continue to do little barks or groans. He is like a teenager with attitude. It can be funny, as long as I'm not trying to watch something on TV.