New puppy thread, where new puppy owners can come for help and advice and hopefully clever people like minimu, midori et al will check regularly (please) to help us...

[Happymm]

Exactly what it says on the tin really. Kings idea, that we have a thread where we can all come and ask for help, advice, support or just to vent and that the much more experienced people will come and help us out :)

Well this weeing inside is getting worse.He has just peed 3 times in 5 minutes -now giving us no warning.I'm just wondering whether he has a urinary infection.But he hasn't peed in his cage yet.We have just changed his food from Eukanuba to Bakers complete.Could this be causing it?.He has just done another pee!.

teta, my pup is around the same age as yours (born 2nd April) yet he's finally getting the hang of peeing outside. Still accidents if DH someone neglects to take him out and remind him, ut in the main he's getting more reliable. So if yours has gone backwards to the extent you describe, then it could well be down to another factor, such as diet. Some foods, for instance are more salty, leading to them drinking more, hence more peeing. But I'm no vet, so monitor it carefully, and if it gets worse, maybe a trip to the vet?

Hi Teta - yes agree with clam. Gosh don't worry re accidents - they will happen for some time I think but agree keep an eye on it. Also - sorry - none of my business really but... have not heard great things about Bakers (full of sugar and colours and not good quality meat etc) ... has it been recommended to you? DO tell me to piss off and mind my own business but just thought I'd throw it out there!

And yes if high salt and additives then it could def be causing him to pee more a high salt content food caused my puppy to pee loads and wet his crate as he was taking on so much water over the course of the day...

I know nothing about foods other than what I've read on here, which is that Bakers is considered the MacDonalds/Greggs sausage roll of dog food!!
But then I use Beta puppy food which, for all I know, is just as bad. But that's what the breeder fed him on and I don't know what else to switch to!

I have done quite a lot of research into dog food etc - yes I know - loser - and clam yes, I have read it's not good. Supermarket sold brands apparently are frowned upon and Bakers is multi-coloured - which cannot be a good thing. I now have my puppy on Acana Wild Prairie as it is like Orijen only slightly lower protein as I wasn't sure he needed such a rich food and it might give him even more excess energy (!) and also because it is even more expensive . It is made from 60% protein - chicken, fish and some eggs and 40% veg and fruit. He is sooo much better on it than any of the other foods I have tried - JWB didn't suit him at all - loads of not very hard poos. Whereas now he poos less and they are super firm which makes life soooo much easier. The runny poo was not fun. It might be the grains in it as this Acana is grain free. Although as we discovered above, different dogs seem to thrive on different foods as two people above (can't remember who!) said their pups are dong fewer poos on JWB. So there's my two pence worth!

Orijen and Acana come v highly recommended as does Fish4Dogs but that was the one which was incredibly salty and made our pup drink loads, pee loads and wet his crate overnight. So not for us! Burns is also considered good as are JWB and Arden Grange. They contain grains though - there's a bit of debate re grains vs no grains which you can find out about online. Unless by this point you are bored to tears which you may well be!

So, have just done a bit of looking around and Beta's number one ingredient is cereal (so depends on what you think about cereals and your dog) then next is meat and animal "derivatives" which I suppose means leftovers and bits and bobs of animals. Beta Puppy food ingredients

Acana says to feed a dog of 6-10kg 95-140g per day for a less active dog and 115-170g per day for a more active dog. For a dog 11-20kg (probably the size of my cockapoo when grown: 180-300 for more active and 150-250 for less active. Whereas Beta for eg says for an adult dog (ie on the adult food) 12-25kg 210-350g per day and for a puppy (when feeding puppy food) whose expected size is 12-25kg, up to 480g per day. Which is quite a lot. ie it can even work out more expensive anyway as you feed less of the acan/roijen type foods...

Hope that helps a bit!

We took him for a walk and he did nothing.Now we are home he has peed twice and pooed in the utility.Have thrown the bakers away and i'm hoping i've got the doggy equivalent of a hyper-active child on tartrazine!.I will feed him chicken and rice tomorrow.The info. about all the foods is really helpful ,thank-you.He is drinking masses today which may be the problem but i have also caught him eating his poo just now.At what stage do Cockers become teenagers?.

Yes apparently it can have that effect ! Hope he is better tmrw and good idea re chicken and rice whilst you decide which food to feed. Ooh, just another thing - Iams apparently do horrid animal testing - there is a website with pics. That didn't appeal to me!

If he is suddenly drinking loads I would think likely to be the food. My pup was tucking into some nice cat poos which he had lovingly extracted from the litter tray before I had a chance to this morning.... NICE. Hmm - well doesn't adolescence hit dogs at around 6-8 months? I could be wrong but think it might be around then - when they are usually neutered/spayed? Nightmare. Ours is a cockapoo and I swear would easily walk 3 hours a day. argh.

kings, maybe our two cockapoos aren't twins after all, then! DH had to literally drag him up the road for a walk this morning. Usually loves it once he's there (at the park, which is where they were headed) but he clearly wasn't in the mood. Eventually, he (DH) caved and brought him back and wore him out with games in the garden.
Better this evening when DS had a go taking him out, but I've no idea what makes him arsey about it sometimes.

I have taken him for 2 walks today and each time as we got near home he started running faster and faster.He was perplexed by the multitude of sheep we met though -just refused to move,sat down and watched them for several minutes.Nice about the cat poos .My cavalier always used to eat sheep poos which are plentiful round here.Cockerpoos are meant to be brilliant family dogs.Is he really good with your kids?.Now puppy is whining -i have put him outside where he has refused to wee due to heavy rain and has come in and pee'd in here instead.Is now in the crate as i have had enough today.

Clam - perhaps not! Mine is sadly like a steam train's smaller relative when on the way to the park - I keep him on a super short lead...

Teta - erm... well, he is sort of good with my daughter! He jumped and nippe A LOT at the start and clearly adores kids and any people really - still jumps and bites when out though as too excited. But yes, in our house he is becoming v gentle with her and I think they will be best buds soon!

With you there Teta, devil pup was being vile again, jumping and biting generally being obnoxious, so DH decided she was like a toddler and overtired, so she's gone to bed early! As she never wakes up, it'll be OK am sure :)

OOh also Teta - rain often affects the puppies, especially if housetraining isn't 100% established. We have had probs but (touch a lot of wood) when it has rained recently he has still ventured outside...

Happy - sounds about right there! Over tired. Ours went a bit mad earlier with chewing so I put him back in playpen until he calmed down.

Howdoes..... still chuckling over your poo incident. Love it! One of our favourites is when our Dalmatian used to eat lots of grass then when she pooed a bit would not come out properly, so she would run round like a mad thing. Was always DH's job to pull small piece of grass from her bum - which is nice .

Happy, have you got the lead on devil pup the whole time. Its really been my saving grace with my 'dark destroyer' as she is lovingly known! She pushed a lot more boundries today, but the lead saved the day each time. When she starts the leaping if I am on the sofa I grab the lead then stick my foot on it and there isn't much she can do. The kongs have been working well also. Fancied a TV dinner tonight, so she was quite happy with a kong with marmite smeared inside and completely left us alone. Had swimming lessons after school, so she had been on her own for 2 hours. When we got back, dragged the poor tired kids out again on their scooters so we could frog march round the streets to try and take the wind out of her sails a bit. Can't believe how tired its making me.

Yes,but it only started raining this evening its been dry all day when he did all his indoor wee's .I like the over-tired toddler analogy ,this might apply to mine..I will have to try to take him out for a wee though before i go to bed.

Normally mine gets the message about going out for a pee before bed. Not tonight though. I ended up sitting on the sunlounger in DH's bathrobe and slippers (only things to hand!) in a howling wind whilst dog wandered about sniffing things for bloody ages. Nothing.

But DH's turn to get up with him in the morning and deal with any mess!

Well so far so good.Chicken and rice this morning and only poo's and wee's outside.3 wee's on the floor this morning as i didn't have the heart to close the door last night as no wee's outside due to the 'monsoon' weather conditions.Dd cleaned them up.Also much calmer and less nipping behaviour as yesterday he was very manic.Lets hope he carrys on this way.Still ignores me when in the garden and call his name.But will respond to sit and roll over and starting to respond to stay.

I love this thread, so useful to compare ideas; surprised no-one has leapt on my 'picking poo up in hand' tip though?! Possibly there is a small flaw in this plan..hmm..

We had a calmer evening yesterday - we also had a tv dinner wags. She sat on her bed with a brand new toy, saved for the occasion, and was quite good for half an hour or so before starting to get agitated. This usually starts with eating the edge of our hearth rug and then gets quickly worse when told to 'leave it' (although generally follows this command). Anyway, instead of raising my voice or trying to grab her, we all just stood up and left the room. We lurked outside the door for a minute or so and when we went back in she was sitting staring at the door, tail wagging, and was calm for the rest of the evening. Hurray!

Glad things are looking up this morning teta.

Howdoes the picking up poo by hand well, not sure there was much to say on that!! :) how good of you, I would have kicked it I think!

Puppy had a playdate today with a bulldog, oh my he was like a sherman tank compared to Maggie who is only about 9 lbs. He is absolutely gorgeous though and so gentle with her she had a ball, thankfully she is mega fast so when he was haring about like a loon at seven stone, she could get out of his way when needed! My friend owns him and is going to have Maggie for the night later in July so we thought it was a good idea if they met, I was well reassured they are going to be fine

Her eye is clearing up so thumbs up there - no more diarrhoea as have not filled the kong since the other night.

Not much else to report other than the snoring - do yours snore as much and as loudly as mine - she rivals my husband's snoring and that is no mean feat! and also doggy smells - she stinks, I haven't bathed her yet other than in the sink with water if she is mega muddy or if there is a diarrhoea accident [boak]. I am fairly house proud and don't think the house smells doggy but perhaps I wouldn't know? I have washed her bedding when it gets really dog smelling.

Still ok.A couple of wee accidents but no more extreme behaviour.Seemed to sleep a lot today.Read the reviews on Bakers dog food-very bad food- especially for puppies.I have thrown it away.One more day of chicken and rice then i will try james beloved.

Spam can you not bath her in Johnsons baby bath?.I used to do this with my cavalier [and my kids!].Puppy was bathed on the day i picked him up and so far i have only washed his dirty paws,[likes playing on a muddy bank thet he slides down with lots of laurel bush roots to chew.my mum commented that this is his equivalent of a teething ring.

I seem to remember that Vosene was OK for dogs but that was when I was 11 so might not be right!

We have had an OK day - started off with a mega strop by me mainly because DH seems to have shirked all dog responsibilities and I am the only one doing anything. He redeemed himself later in the morning by taking pup for a walk in the pouring rain - she did well apparently and really enjoyed herself. It zonked her out for an hour or so which combined with my DS watching some TV meant I had a quiet morning! (DS is 20mths and never really watched TV so it was a 'moment' iykwim )

She still has manic moments where she seems to turn into a devil dog but I feel a bit more confident in dealing with them.

Puppy class was good - it was sit, stand and down(lie) Pup did well although the way to get her to lie down was to get her to crawl under my legs whilst I was sitting on the floor! This needs work!

We still have a major car nerves issues though! She messes everytime! It's grim! The trainers said to pop her in the car just to sit there and build it up so it looks as if me and the DS are hanging out on the drive for the next little while!

Sorry been typing so long I've forgotten what everyone else days were like! Hope they were good!?

ps. Do your dogs fart?

Another good evening here, left room when she started chewing the rug - now officially recognised as precursor to puppy madness - and stopped her in her tracks.

But before that we did have a seriously frustrating walk - the worst ever. I do the stop/start thing when she pulls and she pulled pretty much the whole way so it was absolutely maddening and took ages; sad when they seem to regress with something I think.

Ours doesn't fart but I do worry about the doggy smell - I ask trusted friends to tell me the truth on this. Mind you I came home one day last week and was bowled over by the doggy smell as I opened the door but quite liked it (worryingly).

Anyway I try my best to keep her out of carpeted rooms, don't let her upstairs or on the sofa, and wash her blankets regularly so I can't do more than that really. When I have bathed her - many times following poo/bed incidents in the first couple of weeks - I used products from the Animology range because they are specifically for dogs and smell so so gorgeous.

No farts yet! No poo picking up with my hands, or my tasting dog food either for that matter! :o

Devil pup has been...................not so devilish! though DH has gone away again today, and inlaws coming to help so not looking forward to next few days.

Wags, have a lead on her a lot so can grab her, but she still does the feisty thing to try and bite my hand, and so far, haven't been able to calm her by holding her with her collar-seems to wind her up more...

Does anyone use a whistle in training-is it just for recall/attention when out?

Considering getting a gentle leader or halti, but confused over sizing as she's growing so quickly-a kilo a week! Is 10kgs already Problem is walking her when have the DC's and stroller to worry about too. Don't want her to get into bad habits(well more than she does now) as she pulls like a steam train so spend all my time pulling her back, and stop/starting. But this means I can't walk her as much as I'd like...