Is there a new puppy thread?

[FiveHoursSleep]

If not, could this be one, please?
We have just agreed to offer a home to a 6 week old GSD x collie? pup whose mum was rescued from an Irish dog pound.
We pick him up in a couple of weeks. Time to drag out the crate and chew toys...
He's living in a kennel atm with his mum and siblings so we''l be starting from the top when it comes to toilet training too.
Who else has new puppies and what stage are you up to with them?

Oooow that sounds painful! My leave it command (with a lure) seems to reducing the intensity of the attacks! I am hoping that if I can get him early enough each time eventually he will forget what he was doing..... Well maybe...

On the food Fan, it is really hard to know what to do for the best, there is just a bit of trial and error involved I expect, do you know what you would like him to eat?

My puppy's tacking is broke.

I have taught her to roll over. But she can only do it to the left regardless of where the treat is she can only go left.

I intended to attempt dry but didn't really know which one. As I say, he's on eukanuba at present but he's still on the bag the breeder supplied. I've roughly weighed him (on kitchen scales until vets next week!) He's not eating anywhere near their feeding guide amount. He goes utterly nuts after eating too, is this normal? I've grown up with dogs but I was young when we did puppies!

I never had success with dry food with the cat either. I'll never forget spending fortunes on big bags of Hills and the only way the little blighter would eat it is if I rolled it across the kitchen floor a piece at a time.

I don't know whether to try a different brand before I cave.

Does he feel thin? The feeding guides can be way out for individual dogs I guess?

Mine doesnt seem to go nuts particularly after eating, maybe try a different brand? I did read somewhere that too high protien can make them barmy (someone was talking about feeding huskys high protein food so they went nuts!) i have no idea if there is any truth in that though. Regardless it might be worth just trying another one to see if it is any better?

I havent had a puppy since I was about 14, I had forgetten how much work they are - especially when you dont have your mum around to do most of it!!

Wow rolling over is impressive! Lol re dodgy tacking

He's dinky (was the second smallest in a litter of seven) but he's definitely not thin. If protein makes them nuts then I guess it's most likely the chicken I'm adding as I suppose that would upset the protein balance!

I know for our breed of puppy, the optimum protein level is 25% and 15% fat, which is why I thought I would try Taste of the Wild initially. I have forgotten what he will be eating at the breeder, will ask, the breeder did suggest too much protein will make puppies hyper. Although, it's bloody expensive I now realise, having bought a bag, then compared it to other brands so might be having a rethink! I agree, it's such a bloomin minefield and you want to do what's right for them too.

Thing is, I don't really know how much per month it costs to feed a puppy, so I can't really see how much more expensive this food is, if you understand. If it's only a few quid per month, then I would prefer a higher quality food, if it's a lot more than that, then it's prohibitive.

I've got a few hours to mull it over but going shopping this afternoon. As ever all I get from dh is 'I dunno, whatever you think', usually followed later by 'well, it's your own fault' grrr!

Don't know whether to by a different dry to mix in with eukanuba and chicken whilst change with a hope to drop the chicken later or go for a wet puppy food to mix in the hope that it will entice him to eat but at least be balanced. Gah, it's so hard!

2 teaspoons of a JWB pouch on top of the eukanuba and he absolutely wolfed the entire bowl down. Hurrah! I've bought JWB dry too and in a couple of days I'll start to mix the two together ready to make the switch and hopefully we'll do mainly dry with a spoonful or two of wet on top.

Hurrah! I have just started mine on JWB as well - fingers crossed!

Our pup came eating Arden Grange I think, and we had to buy a bag of it when we take the pup, but will be changing him over to Burns.
He's had a bit of runny poos today, due to the excitement of travel yesterday, I hope.

Hi everyone :)
We have just been and picked our puppy from a litter. She is 4 weeks old so have a whole month to wait. Boo.
Plenty of time for reading up though as my last 2 dogs were rescue so not done the tiny puppy stage.
Very very excited but cannot think of a name for her yet. How did you all choose names?

Congratulations Jemima.

Ds named ours, after his favourite Man City player!

Hooray re food! I have all this to come!

Jemima. We chose our puppy last week. We had loads and loads of names on the list, but not one that we all could agree on. As soon as we chose him, we all said 'Alfie', and that hadn't even been thought of, it just seemed to fit him. Haven't even got him yet but can't imagine him being called anything else! What breed have you chosen?

Our puppy will be ready on the weekend that coincides with bonfire night, well just before, the 5th November is a Monday. All our friends who have dogs seem to have different opinions on whether we should collect him then or wait a couple more days. Some say it's too much to get used to, others are more of the opinion just to go with it. What do you guys think?

The 16 year old cat we had to have pts we last year we had was called Alfie Doublemocha. Pup is Mario.

Don't know what I'd do with regard to pick up, I think it would depend what was happening with the rest of the litter I think.

Thanks Fan and Double.

Alfie is a fab name. I think I'd have a few to choose from if we were getting a boy but stumped for girls names, DH suggested Luna.

I hadn't asked Dd as she's just 2.5 but have now done so and she suggested Poppy. Hmmmm.

We've gone for a Rhodesian ridgeback, we have a nearly 9 year old ridgeback boy and did have a girl the same age but list her last year to epilepsy :(
We thought we'd stick with what we know and adore!

Not sure what I'd do about pick up around bonfire night. Have you asked the breeder?
Our pup will be ready the week before & we always have a party. Think pup will go to grandmas for thd evening.

16 years old is a grand old age for a cat Fan, but not easy at any age to lose a pet I imagine.

Luna is nice and so is Poppy, although maybe the former will suit a ridgeback better, they get reasonably large don't they? Fab looking dogs, not unlike a Vizsla, which is what we are getting. She will breathe a new lease of life into your 9 year old!

Technically, our puppy is ready on 31st October but we are away. I will ask the breeder, good point. Probably she will be glad to see the back of 12 8 week old puppies by then!!

Hi all - can I join in? I have a 14 week Golden pup, we have had her since she was eight weeks old and it already seems like forever! I thought I'd share my experiences with those of you who are still waiting - I remember it well!

I was also very prepared, had had dogs before (but never a young puppy), knew what I wanted to feed her, had a schedule worked out etc etc. But when she arrived, I found it was just like having a baby - you are never really prepared for the actual baby, because it is a real, new member of your family and not just a fictional being! Sorry if that makes no sense - I just mean that even though I knew what I was doing, it was very overwhelming at first! The difference was that unlike humans, dogs groe very quickly, so we have never been stuck in any one phase for very long.

Things I wasn't prepared for:

1. She sleeps a LOT! Enough that it made me worry before I came to my senses and enjoyed it :)

2. Upset tummy in the first week. It is very common in young pups, but that doesn't make cleaning the floor eight times a day and night any more fun. I even had to clean the LAWN with babywipes fgs. Yes, a hose too, but that just spread it out and I didn't want my toddler to run through it with bare feet...bleurgh. Lots of vet visits and a food change made her all better, but it wasn't a great start.

3. The nipping, the very sharp teeth. Yes, I had read about it but it really really HURT!!! She tore holes in DH's jeans on several occasions and our hands were (are, still!) covered with scratches. Some of friends must have thought we'd accidentally bought a crocodile in lamb's clothing, they were pretty horrified when they saw her in action tbh. The first two weeks were awful, then we started getting through to her and now she's great most of the time. She goes a bit crazy in the evenings and that's when you have to watch out, but otherwise she's not too bad now.

4. That the DCs would be scared of her. She clearly saw DD5 and DS2 as her new littermates and would treat them as such - lots of jumping and nipping and scratching. We were extremely careful and never left them alone together, but she still scared them quite a few times. DS developed this awful hunted look whenever he was in the kitchen or garden (her territories) - he would leg it at speed while looking everywhere for the fluffy white demon. I felt dreadful, it was all my doing! Luckily she soon realised what was what and now she's really gentle with DS and he loves her - in the past few weeks he's got really into throwing toys for her and giving her treats and it is very sweet to see. The hunted look is gone! Obviously we are still careful, but it is a relief that things improved so quickly.

5. That I would lose my precious evenings. When the DC are in bed, I can no longer collapse on the sofa - it is puppy time, and I have to play in the (freezing, damp) garden, do training, go for a quick walk, and just generally play and let her climb all over me and love me! If I try to watch telly with DH in the living room, she goes absolutely nuts - running, grabbing everything, flying onto the sofa and nipping us, driving our poor old and tiny dog crazy - it sounds funny but it's not! I have to spend my evenings sat in the kitchen with book/iPad as she is much calmer in there. Oh well, I am sure it will pass in a year or two

So, wow, that was a lot! Having said all that, she is a sweetheart and I can see that she is turning into exactly the dog I wanted. She loves everyone and everything, is very easy to train (expert at sit, down, roll over, shake paw, leave and fetch for weeks already - very proud!), and sleeps and stays dry at least eight hours a night without a peep! She is a real darling and I love her. But if DH had known how much work she was going to be, there is no way I would have been able to talk him into it . So I'm glad he didn't!

They do look similar to Viszlas but bigger I think - my ridgie is nearly 9.5stone. I love Viszlas, but don't think we'd keep up with one!
Have you had one before?

My ddog is still quite playful sometimes but sleeps a lot (as ridgebacks do) so he's going to be in for a shock I reckon!

Think the name Luna is growing on us.

Hi Berry, that's a really helpful post. I'm hoping to get a lot of training & her walk done during the day as I'm a SAHM at the moment but have a feeling I too will be spending my evenings in the kitchen & garden.

Hi Berrypie, could i just ask how you approached the nipping? Thanks for your post - gives me a lot of hope! And if my DH has known about what the puppy would be like we wouldn't have one either!

Hi Jemima and ijustwant - I have found nothing quite as helpful and reassuring as reading about other people's puppy experiences online. I have spent hours late at night reading page after page on topics such as "my puppy is a landshark"! My girl is by no means perfect - very far from it, and I can see that we have other challenges ahead (size! I have only ever had tiny dogs that I could pick up and move away if they were being troublesome! this one is going to be huge but the fact is she has improved tremendously when it comes to biting and that gives me hope for the future.

With the biting, we tried so many different things, and I am sure there is no solution that works for every puppy. For us, it was definitely a question of making her understand that we didn't want to play rough. No amount of yelping, or stern NOs, or any other word at all, made any difference. Her puppy mind interpreted every sound we made as Yes! Yes! This is great! Bite more! Bite harder!! It just escalated every time and she would constantly attack our ankles, hands, anything really. Having seen her play with other puppies at puppy class I now know that they do play really rough - she was just doing to us what she would have been doing with her litter mates.

We moved on to just getting up and leaving the room every time she nipped hard, and that seemed to make a difference. She definitely got the message, but still carried on because it just wasn't practical to leave the room every time - tricky when you're cooking etc. I didn't want to put her in the utility room (used as a crate really, small, dark, where her bed is) either as I didn't want it to be a place of punishment.

Somewhat ridiculously, what really turned the corner for us was ... drumroll ... the Magic Tennis Racket. It's just a red, plastic racket, one of those cheap ones that come with various summer games from Tesco, but it has made a huge difference. I grabbed it one day in desperation when I didn't want her to shred my trousers, but also didn't want to burn the onions . I simply pushed it between her nose and my leg, firmly but very very gently, and said No, I don't want to play right now. Somehow, it worked! She looked really sulky, and walked off. I did it a few more times that day, weeks ago, and now I just have to show her the racket if she's getting rough and she simply walks off.

I have been very, very careful not to overuse it though, only when she's getting really worked up and won't listen at all and I can't just walk out. Plus I play with her a lot, spend quite a bit of time training her, and she has plenty of chew toys. Also, our kitchen is covered with little bits of cardboard because I am forever throwing a few biscuits in an old cereal box/kitchen towel roll/egg carton and letting her rip it to pieces. So I try to keep her busy, which also seems to help.

What else...oh yes, tricks that remind her that I am her boss seem to help calm her down. Current favourite being placing a treat on her paw and telling her to Leave It for a good ten seconds. She is very good really, she just needs things to do.

Oh and I am also a SAHM so she has plenty of attention and playing during the day, but I find actual training almost impossible when the DC are around. Also lead walking - she walks fine when it's just me but pulls like a train when they're with us...

Sorry to ramble on, but it feels surprisingly good to sit down and think about how far we've come!

Check me out on mumsnet at this hour! Who's feeling like a fool for crowing about having a puppy who has gone to bed without whimpering from night one now? He woke me up positively howling at 1am when he'd been in bed an hour and a half.

On night one I was all geared up for it to happen and me to ignore but it hasn't happened before so I genuinely didn't know what to do. I went to check nothing was wrong. He'd wee'd on a pad in his crate (has been clean last two nights). I ended up taking him out for a wee and changing his bed. He obviously thought this was marvellous.

He has finally gone quiet. I however, was laid in bed stressing and getting myself all worked up as I could hear my neighbours crashing about (I presume annoyed as despite being noisy at late hours themselves at times they were clearly not used to having a family next door and weren't best pleased!). To cut a long story short, pup is now quiet in hallway/kicthen doorway and I'm stranded in bathroom upstairs wondering how to get back to bed without setting him off again. Tempted to just get in bath with dh's rather soggy towel rather than unleash the hell hound sounds again. Arghhh!

Where did you sleep? Lol

Mine goes to bed fine mostly, but you get random nights where he decides he should howl.

Aaargh - just lost a really long post!

In summary, brilliant posts for 'expectant puppy owners' from Berry, please feel free to offload more often! I kind of thought it might be like having a first baby in that nothing can prepare you for the reality!

Where did you sleep in the end fan?! Do you think it was the wee thing that started that off?

Jemima - never owned a dog never mind a Vizsla! However, kids are 13 and 11, I work only a few hours from home, we are busy family, we live in the countryside and have a large garden and we are all up for the challenge (apart from DH who goes for the 'wing it' approach and is in for a shock!) She says rather hopefully!

I managed to creep back to bad though wished I had,kt when DH started snoring at full volume an hour later! I don't know what set him off to be honest.

I bumped into my neighbour this morning though and he said they didn't hear him so maybe it was just his clattering about that set the pup off. We rub along ok now but they weren't keen when we moved in. Annoyingly they have never said a word in person but used to bang on the wall when 2 year old ds was walking up and down (suspended wooden floors so admittedly not quiet) but I think they thought we were doing something unusual without it occuring to them that we could also hear them! I think they had. Been lucky as previous owner was a single elderly lady. It makes me a little paranoid now we are finally putting up with each other! I've asked him to bear with us if he does hear him though as don't want to end up wrapped round dogs little paw, responding to every whimper!

Agreed that your post gives us hope Berry. I can't imagine how we get from here to well mannered obedience at the moment!