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 :)

I meant my heart!!!

Butting in here to say the grabbing and eating stuff gets worse with labs. My 11 month old has finely honed counter surfing skills, last week he helped himself to a large bag of raisins which I thought was out of reach right at the back of the kitchen worktop. Vet said to get him in ASAP as grapes (raisins, currants etc) poisonous for dogs and he needed to be seen within an hour of eating them. He had the injection to make him sick + charcoal, cost £80 which seemed a lot but less than Clam paid.

Oh my goodness! What greedy dogs!

Clam - don't feel guilty. As Happy said eyes can't be on them all the time. But £200 ouch!

It was that much as it was out-of-hours. Luckily before 11pm, when it hikes up even more.

Thank God for insurance!

I spoke too soon!

Got manic hyper pup this morning - didn't start too well as DH got cross before he left for work because Pup needed toileting and he didn't have time to wait for her to do it (she kept pulling towards indoors - but it is raining so thats probably new to her and he wouldn't have exactly been the most encouraging person to be with stomping around in his dressing gown outside) - so then she started a poo inside (Apparently she should be able to do it quicker!). I was asleep upstairs and it was all apparently my fault! Not sure how he'd forgotten about our discussion two days previously that he HAD to wake me up when he was going downstairs (unless DD was already up) so that I could take her out straight away and stay out with her till she produced...

Its also raining which seems to be making her more hyper when outside.

He also said he'd keep an eye on her last night while I put the kids to bed - but decided he could do this from the other room. So I arrived downstairs after a long snuggle and chat with the kids to find him completely ignoring her while she was circling and "asking" to go out to toilet - my job again. Response from him was "well I can't stay in the same room all the time can I?" Well - I had ALL day (except when DD was there to keep an eye on her while I popped upstairs) so why couldn't he for one hour!

I ended up then sitting in the kitchen all evening to get her to settle back down (she was hyper by then as doesn't sleep so well unless someone in the room with her) while he was in the dining room working on his laptop. I would have quite liked an hour in the living room watching telly whilst he did his work!

Oh well - he's off work from tomorrow for the following week (his parents are up) so no work excuse then. Think I'll have to train DH as much as pup!

It seems like its DH's expectations thats the prob not pup! He also hadn't figured that until injections all done we can't take her out and until then we can't exactly leave her home alone all day.....

Oh well - rant over! DD has managed to get pup to settle down and go to sleep on her mat so peace is restored again. :)

Pisky, I feel your pain. I've had that from my crew, about not being expected to "hang around all day" for poos/wees etc..
Which is why there've been so many accidents inside, and he's 16 weeks now. We could have had this sorted by now otherwise.

Words of wisdom, please! Our fairly brave 11 week old rescue pup is afraid of bicycles! Happy if they are lying unattended but terrified if they are being ridden. What is the best way to stop him being afraid?

Pisky - I'm right there with you. The first few days/weeks of having pup were a nightmare mainly due to DH!

I found a massive strop with tears and throwing things helped 'wake' DH up to the fact that he might need to help a bit more.

Having said that this morning he just opened door for pup without going out with her. She was them too busy wanting to greet everyone that she weed on the floor. 'but the doors open' DH says puzzled.......

Check out my new picture of Monty, just after he'd been gorging on chocolate! He'd been manically digging in a pot full of compost!

MoG - read a few posts back with a post from Daisy she has some good tips there about pups being frightened. The main just was carry on with a singy silly voice to show all is fine. Any pandering will reinforce the behaviour.

The stupid thing with DH this morning was that I'd asked him to wake me up so he didn't need to do anything at all - but he then decided to let me sleep and then was having a strop about having to take her out when busy getting ready for work......

Oh well - at least calm restored now and the vets have also moved her jabs forward a week so will be less of a wait till we can take her out with us. :)

I feel your pain Pisky.This happens in my house too.Our cocker is my eldest dd's dog and she forgets to put him out enough and he still has accidents,but never on my watch!.We are having major [problems with biting and scratching and growling].We definately have an alpha male dog who gets agitated by all the dc's being at home and playing and squealing all the time.Dh told him off at the park yesterday [another alpha male!] and puppy growled and got very aggro with him.He knows he is not allowed on the sofa but still jumps up several times a day- to be shoved off rapidly.He has his favourite spot on a furry rug and he spends a lot of the day there even if we are in another room.Stressed, i'm glad that i didn't get my puppy initially during the school holidays because it would have been a nightmare.He has also taken to pooing in front of the patio doors which is being paved next week.How do i get him to move?.

In defence of labs. The children that I look after can leave a biscuit or sandwich on the floor and lab won't eat it. I can leave food out on the worktop and he will leave it.

Pup however is a different matter. He will snatch anything out of your hand if Lab is close by as he's frightened lab might get it first.

This morning pup got hold of the mouse the cat had brought in (after I had chased cat and mouse outside) and started eating it. Yuck!!!

twojues - how old is your lab? Hoping that mine will grow out of stealing food, he's stopped doing it when there are people around but if he's in a room on his own and there's food he goes for it.

He's 7 now, but he's never done it. He's always been very good with 'human' food. He will gobble his food up in 30 seconds flat mind you. I bought him a gobble bowl which has lumps moulded in it, so he has to eat round the lumps which slows him down.

thanks twojues, you've given me hope that not all labs are food stealers. Will carry on with the training.

Pisky, my 22 week old pup still sometimes gets stressed if we are in a different room to her. She is fine being left if we are out of the house, but if we are in she cries until someone goes and gets her. At first we used to leave her in her crate for up to 30 mins whilst we went and had a shower etc or put my daughter to bed but increasingly she comes up and waits because I can just about nearly trust her with the wee/poo situation. However last night I wanted some space away from her whilst I watched daughter on the trampoline and pup cried the whole time - (pup goes mental at the trampoline )so I think I am going to have to work back up to leaving her in crate for a small part of the day because there are times when you want them somewhere else in the house not being stressed i.e. visitors coming round etc, lots of kids running around and getting her het up etc.

With regard to you and now though we used to move the crate into the room we were in so we could sit in peace, pup was comfortable and you knew they were in crate and not weeing/pooing on the floor. We started leaving her on her own for small amounts of time first 5 mins, then 10 and just being about somewhere else in the house. Despite my recent problems it really worked, I just haven't kept it up! Obviously your crate might be huge and not easily moveable, however I have an upstairs one and a downstairs one and they are quite small as I have a small doggy - if hubby was working in his office and I wanted to get on and do things I would put her in a crate in the office or move the kitchen crate to the lounge, door doesn't have to be closed but as soon as she got up from bed we all knew to take her out the back door.

By the way thanks to Daisy the lead work last night very good! the 180 degree turn worked very well and much better than stopping and starting, she was really getting the message and I think it was the best walk we have done.

I don't like giving treats for lead work because my puppy is a kangaroo anyway and spends quite a bit of time boinging up to my pocket!

Spam we have two bits of vetbed - one in her crate and one in the kitchen with us and she does curl up on that and sleep when we are there. Its just that I have to watch for when she is awake and gets up and may need a wee.

She does sleep in her crate but not tried shutting her in there yet (got run of porch with paper down at far end for toilet). All the advice online suggests they will do anything for food - but she would rather have company than food so how do you get them to willingly go in and stay calm in one?

Had more wee accidents inside today as trying to persuade the kids to play outside isn't as easy and she seems to be getting cold in the wet. Last two days when warm and sunny she was great and seemed to be asking to go out!

How much do you worry about them picking things up in their mouth? We have lots of baby windfall apples that she loves to pick up and carry around, also pieces of gravel and and mouth sizes bits of wood and sticks - I'm just worried that she'll choke on them - especially the apples as often its only the stalk sticking out of her mouth or the small sticks. We have a largish not very tidy garden so would be impossible to remove everything!

She is also hell bent on destroying the piece of vetbed we have for her in the kitchen and rips bits of the edge that I'm concerned she'll swallow - am I just being too paranoid?

My oldest DD is having surgery as I type this ... So it's DH with the other 2 kids WITH PUPPY!!!! it's his turn to see what I have to do during the day. Now I'll say this ... Pup is much better now than when I had to be on happy tabs, but DH is much more high strung than me. We'll see if my pill bottle has one less tab tonight!! I did discover the magic of freezing peanut butter in a Kong toy! wow! keeps pup busy for at least 30 minutes so I can fold laundry or load the dishwasher ...

Just checking in - we went away for a few days (in a hotel, with the puppy!) and now have house guests for a week.

I have been reading when I get the odd 5 minutes; it sounds like we are all seeing improvements with our pups, so there is light at the end of the tunnel!

Pisky - our pup similarly always has stuff in her mouth so I would love to know what the answer to that one is! The trainer said to remove the item and replace it with a toy, but I would spend my days doing nothing else! I now let her pick up sticks, stones, apples etc and haven't had any side effects so far...[tempts fate]

We haven't had any jumping, biting or mad behaviour for ages...still waking up too early though, and lead walking is rubbish - my fault for not putting in the effort, too easy to do harness/extending lead or off lead (am jealous of your improving lead work spam!).

She was really good in the hotel...I probably won't mention the early morning wee in the corridor as we raced for the exit (and shamefully I didn't tell them!). But she slept all night, waited in her crate while we went for breakfast etc so I was pleased with her.

Well, have taken devil pup back to the breeders. They were shocked at her devilishness! She was v subdued at first when faced with mummy and brother, but soon came too, and left them having a good old puppy fight as i left! Is very quiet here without her-haven't had to say no in ages :o

Off on hols tomorrow, so have a good couple of weeks all, will check in on return (am going cold turkey on MN).

Stressed, hope your DD is OK.

Pisky and Teta, feel your pain, having been there and worse! Did loads of things as posted above. Good luck :)

Good morning! We have had our 11 week old rescue pup for a week and haven't heard a peep from him overnight - until last night when he cried from 12.30 - 1am! We ignored him and he settled again until 6am. Did we do the right thing? He sleeps in his crate in the kitchen, with the door open and newspaper by the door for the wee he has during the night. Every morning he has had a wee on the paper and nowhere else.