New Puppy Mommies in here *blerk*

[Awks]

Got our new puppy on Saturday. I was in tears this morning and I'm a pretty experienced dog owner. Its just so hard moaning cow that I am He is a 9 week old cocker and is a beautiful, cuddly boy but is a massive shitting machine. And not in the garden either.

So any new puppy owners want to weep in here then please do.

My mother just told me that I'm a puppy bore...... This was after I told her that her enormous Labrador would have to wait another two weeks before coming over to meet Toby.

He's vaccinated but hasn't had the second shot and tbh Ella is a pita so I'm happy to wait for him to get a little bigger, and she doesn't live here so there will be time enough for that in a week or two.

I'm a puppy bore too Sally, we can all be puppy bores together in here.

I've got horrible pmt and an approaching migraine today and ended up both shouting at and crying all over dh when he phoned at lunch time.

I'm really worried that we're not doing enough socialisation with Pip and he's gone and booked up the whole weekend. He's working all day Friday and holding one of his work related user groups until very late Friday evening. Has a friend coming over to help him weld the campervan on Saturday (meaning I will have to spend all day Friday cleaning, plus come up with something to feed his friend on Saturday, as he's actually doing us a huge favour) is actually home Sunday, but has a list of chores he wants to get done at home and is working Bank Holiday Monday.

I don't drive and Pip is getting so heavy to carry, so is only getting to see the same places in and around the village all week.

On a less grumpy/pathetic note, we've moved from giving him 7/8 feeds a day in his bowl to giving him breakfast, lunch and dinner in his bowl and making him work for the rest via clicker training. We've been doing lots on settling quietly in his crate with the door closed, as that's what I'm most concerned about due to having to leave him for school runs in a couple of weeks.

I've also discovered that I can use his probiotic paste to help stick the chicken pieces into his kong, which means we're up to about 10 minutes for kong empyting at the moment.

Think I'm going to curl up and watch some Kikopup videos for a bit now he's fed, played with, trained and finally sleeping curled up next to Lurcherboy at my feet.

Toby asleep in the crate. I've locked him in it, only because he's so tired I want him to stay rather than escape for 20 minutes. He slept in it with the door shut late morning and now with the bolt slid over for the past ten minutes. All I want to do is empty the dishwasher and restack it!!

I'm standing in the utility room folding washing and guess who's asleep ON my feet?!

We have a couple of children coming round next week to play with the dcs. Different ages, 4 year old to play with dd, her 9 year old brother to play with ds2 and ds1's best friend who is 11. None of them are very confident around dogs though, so I don't know how they'll react to a bonkers puppy.

I have done a fair bit of taking him up to the end of the drive to watch the traffic. We live on a very busy road though, so he sees traffic every time we go out. So far he's only been fazed by the bin lorry and a very noisy motorbike that shot past us on the way to the vets. He did a parrot impression at the motorbike and tried to climb onto my shoulder.

I know I'm being too stressy about the socialisation thing, PMT is probably making it worse, so hopefully I'll be feeling better by tomorrow.

I've watched loads of Kikopup videos this afternoon and feel better that at least I'm getting the clicker training aspect right, although it has made me feel that perhaps I should be working on more behaviours.

Sally, that's what I've been doing, just shutting the door when he's very sleepy and wants to be in there or making it as attractive an option as possible using clicker training, his nylabone or a stuffed kong. He's come on in leaps and bounds and we no longer have the loud screaming every time he's in there and I dare to step out of the doorway. Leaving him for 20 minutes for the school run seems an awful big jump at this point though.

Moose my school run - 4 kids to 3 schools round trip in the car takes me 50 minutes. I'm dreading leaving him, and today he discovered the stairs. Oh bugger.

Can you take him in the car with you Sally or do you have to do the whole lining up in the playground thing?

Ironically, last year would have been a quicker school run for me, as dd's nursery is the closest door to the school entrance and the boys pretty much ran off as soon as I dropped them in the morning anyway - although I had three a day instead of two, as dd was afternoon nursery.

This year, dd is in reception and you have to walk around the whole of the school perimeter to get there and then they're always late taking them in and letting them out - and they've changed the school timetable so that the Juniors are going in earlier as well.

I used to be able to be there and back in about 12 minutes on a good day, now it's going to be at least 20.

I wouldn't be so worried if we didn't have attached neighbours to be honest, although obviously I don't want Pip getting distressed and building up to Separation Anxiety like Lurcherboy did after we lost Oldgirl.

We had the letter confirming ds1's transport this morning. We have to call the transport company to find out what his pick up and drop off times are and find out who his driver and escort will be. I am so nervous about it, not least of all because the SENCO at his new school said our LA use the cheapest possible option and they've had no end of trouble with them.

I just want everyone back at school now so I can stop stressing and get into some sort of routine. Then I start to feel sad, when I remember I won't have my little girl with me for half the day anymore.

I am very lucky in that I don't have to do that anymore thankfully! DS4 is at a Special School and I won't do school transport as it would be too time restrictive, so I drop off/collect etc. All three schools finish at the same time. It's a 15 mile round trip to get them all, so in the morning it's the twins at 8.25/30 at their sec school, ds3 at his Primary at 8.40 and DS4 at 9am at his Sp Sch. They all finish at 3.15 so its the reverse of the drop off. DS3 waits in the school office and the twins just loiter.

I hadn't thought about taking him with me as SallyBear hated the car, always did from her first trip. DH works from home when he's not travelling in Europe, so I suppose there's no reason why I can't, besides I can take him out for different walks rather than the same one every day. What an inspired idea Moose

Just added a new photo of small pup onto my profile if anyone is interested.

Sally he's gorgeous! What a lovely photo.

Oh just look at his gorgeous face - how could you refuse him anything with eyes like those?

He's such a cute dog!

I've put a new photo of Stanley on my profile - I can't believe how quickly he's changing, he's gone much darker and looks less like a puppy every day .

Aw TMB, he still looks like a puppy to me - and like Toby, he's doing a great job working the huge eyed, mournful look.

At least he started out looking like a puppy. Pip has always just looked like a miniature lurcher.

Dh and ds1 just took Pip for a socialisation carry around the village. He managed to venture further than I could, despite Pip's increasing weight. They met a cat, that apparently Pip was terrified of and visited the level crossing to see the trains going past, as well as actually standing on the bridge while a train went under them - to which he didn't bat an eyelid.

So little furry cats = terrifying. Enormous, noisy, smelly, high-speed trains = no problem at all.

Stanley looks adorable and very puppy like.

Well, our weaning started earlier than it was meant to! I vomited suddenlt (pregnancy related) very suddenly, couldn't even reach the bathroom which was through the room with the puppies- who are now roaming free, they don't get far- and the youngest, Callie, managed to gulp some down. Not the solid food I was hoping to introduce her too.

I'm

Oh, Callie revomited it. Still going to have to wait a whole week to wean, I think.

Gorgeous Stanley!

Morning, glad everyone is well and am loving the cute puppy pictures! puppies seem to be settling down don't they, it's nice to see them do different stuff every day.

Jarvis goes to bed in his crate at 11 and we get up at 6 and he's clean now but that's the good news. in the day it's a different story. He wee's in the sitting room in front of us and believe me I take him into the garden every ten minutes to wee and usually he does a dribble there for me too. I have no idea what to do (when he wees indoors I say noloudly pick him up and put him on the back door step outside without acknowledging him while I claen it up). Any ideas what to do?

Have ordered some clickers from amazon so am wondering if that might help?

I got to sleep until 7 today! When the alarm went off. Was so pleased that pup hadn't cried for loo & dry again... Until dh said that he got up about 2 & took him to loo. But it was because dh couldn't sleep not because Olly cried. Anyway I'm calling it a massive victory.

For all the pupstar mums

Can't believe how much my hairy baby has grown in a few weeks!

Gorgeous puppy pics everyone. Sadly it IS Winter here, so our toilet training hasn't been as fun as yours, although nowhere near as bad as a UK winter.

I slightly lost my rag at Autumn today as she had 2 very annoying hours where she got into every sort of mischief possible - she found slippers, and eyeliner, chased our more nervous cat, shredded a log from the fire basket, tried to kill her bedding, learned how to jump on the sofa and developed selective hearing. I kept offering her toys that she could play with, a pig ear chew, took her for a walk, but it took her ages to calm down. I shouted at her for the first ever time when she chased the cat, then felt really bad. Sigh.

Parent fail again! Went to bed with him asleep and then he woke up at 1.30, rushed upstairs to find us. DH went down and waited with him to go back to sleep after taking him to the loo. Cue 4am, I get up to go to the loo, getting back into bed when is feel a warm hairy body. We are both tired so just go and bring his bed upstairs and a pad. He slept until 6.30 then went down for breakie and a wee/poo. But! He didn't make a mess in the house ALL night!