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.

Autumn broke her good toileting run and weed on my bed last night, right through our winter goose-down duvet that can't be washed - sob. She was excited and we were playing with her. Never again.

Puppy socialisation class number 2 tonight. She is definitely the least social puppy there, but at least she has stopped barking at every dog.

Oops. Why do they always have accidents in the worst possible place to clean? Can you get it dry cleaned?

When Pip had an accident (because ds1 had shut the back door) last week, he did it right behind the door, then ds didn't notice, opened the door and the draught excluder brush was dragged through it - and back. Eurgh! Worse still, we'd run out of Simple Solution, because we haven't needed it, so were daft enough not to buy any more.

Meant to say, good luck at puppy class.

Oldgirl was the cockiest, naughtiest puppy I've ever owned. She used to mercilessly beat up our 9 stone Boxer x by hanging off his jowls with her needle sharp puppy teeth and torment our Wheaten girl by hitching a ride the length of the living/dining room by hanging onto her tail with her teeth - but, when we took her to puppy classes, she shot under a massive stack of chairs in the corner and refused to come out for the whole lesson. Instructor said to just leave her and she'd come out when she felt safe - and she did ... on week 4!

She would however, come out to play with the instructor's collie puppy and one other cocker spaniel pup after everyone else had left. That many puppies in one place was just too much for her.

We ended up taking her to the rest of that course, then another whole 8 week course of puppy classes and bringing her to watch at our Wheaten girl's classes once a week as well. She came along to dog club, as a spectactor, for a couple of years in the end and ended up really well socialised. As an adult she was never interested in other dogs. She'd say hello nicely if they approached her, but then come straight away. All she wanted was to be with us or chase her frisbee. Dream of a dog to walk as she never went further than 6 foot from us, unless we threw her frisbee and then she'd bring it straight back.

Ring NFU Mutual. I spoke to a lovely girl this morning. NFU do a thing where you can claim up to £2k, 3k and 4k per claim unlimited times through the year. They do a loyalty discount for whole life which knocked the premiums down to the equivalent of Petplan. Manky teeth aren't covered though, but then we were crap with Sally's teeth in retrospect so I plan on being much more on the ball. Petplan said in their policy document that they won't cover pts or cremation/disposal. At least that was my understanding. www.petplan.co.uk/assets/pdf/terms_conditionsCFL.pdf

DH weighed Toby this morning. He is now 6.2kg. The tubster has put on 1.3kg in 12 days.

Pet plan gave a quote of £46 per month for £7000 lifetime cover for Fitz which seems a bit steep! Any ideas as to why it's so expensive???

BB - What breed is he??
Toby is a Labrador and we had quotes of £27 for £7k vet fees Petplan, £35 for £7.5k vet fees John Lewis and NFU which was a bit complicated but would cover up to £2k per claim unlimited times through out the year and were £28.

Interesting Sally, unfortunately pointies are often a bit of a slave to their teeth in later life, although Lurcherboy's are beautiful, as he's raw fed, but not sure I can risk insuring them with a company that doesn't cover teeth at all. It's so complicated isn't it, different insurers suit different owners and different breeds with different tendencies - nightmare.

The other thing is cruciate injuries. Again more common in sighthounds and often cost over £2k per claim, which would mean I'd have to go for a higher premium with NFU.

basildon, I'd say it's because he's a rare breed in this country and therefore will have a high value. They asked me if I wanted my dogs' values insured in the event of death and I said no, I'm pretty sure that reduced my premiums, even though neither is worth very much to start with.

Scarily in 2000 Monty did his crutiate and it cost about £800 max. Mum's dog did hers two years ago, same vet £3500!! We are going to do the £4k policy at £31.

I think it depends on the severity of the injury. There are two ligaments, anterior and posterior. The anterior one is the most common one to injure and the most easy to fix. The posterior one isn't damaged as easily but if it is or heaven forbid they manage to injure both, you're looking at serious £££s.

I think pointy dogs are more at risk of injury due to their speed and turning on a hairpin etc, whereas breeds such as labs and goldies can have a genetic predisposition to cruciate rupture, even through just general wear and tear.

I thought I was doing pretty well with those quotes, but blooming dh still balked at the price.

I think you have done well with the quotes too - our last cocker did his discs in his neck and needed speciallist orthopaedic surgery. It cost us 7k and we werent insured idiots. this pup will certainly be insured!

Ouch! £7k!!!

7k!

Urgh - someone pass me the - the larger the glass the better. Pip has decided that today he does not like being in his crate with the door shut - again.

He's fine while I'm in the room, but literally the second I step through the doorway he starts complaining and within seconds is full scale screaming. We've done sooo much work on this and he was perfectly fine. I don't have a clue what's caused this backslide.

I've just spent ages walking in and out of the room, throwing him a treat when he was quiet for more than a breath, but every time I'm out of sight for even a split second he starts up again - even though all three dcs are in there on the Wii. So, I've given up, plonked myself on the sofa and what does he do? Promptly fall asleep, in his crate, with the door shut. Apparently it's absolutely fine for him to be in there, as long as I don't leave his line of sight.

I thought we'd cracked this.

I know, 7k. We were paying it off for years but it was worth it and he did fully recover. Though noone would insure him after that so we have learned our lesson.

moose how disappointing, what will you do? He sounds like he luffs you very much.

I guess I'll just keep on keeping on Awks, same as Lurcherboy's SA, we'll get there in the end.

You wouldn't know that he loves me at any other time - with the possible exception of dinner time. He's such an independent little so and so most of the time, quite happy to go in a different room or up the garden without me and for me to go all over the house, up and downstairs without him. Of course he's fast enough to rush back to me if something worries or scares him! He only objects to the crate with the door shut and I have nowhere else that's safe to leave him until he's out of his chewy phase.

It's not actually like he can't stand to be apart from me, more that he's cross that I'm going somewhere he can't. It sounds far more like temper than distress to be honest, but I can't let him yell it out because I don't want to upset my neighbours.

Daft thing is, he actually loves his crate most of the time. He goes in there to play and nap, he gets fed in there, has treats in there and generally it's his choice to go in. He sleeps in there with the door shut in the day no problem, as long as it's his choice to go in and then I shut the door once he's settled, but I need him to learn that he has to go in there on my terms sometimes. Like school runs for example.

He's sleeping through the night in there now as well, but only because he thinks one of us is still in there sleeping on the sofa. We've been working up to leaving him while he's awake and last night he didn't object when we went up while he was snoozy, rather than properly asleep, so I thought that showed real progress.

Training is never linear though. I suppose he could just be having an off day.

My Mum popped round today, having not seen him for a week and was really shocked at how much he's grown. You don't notice it so much when you're with them every day, but she's right. He feels so much more solid now than he did a week ago and he's definitely taller.

Glad your boy recovered. It must have been a really stressful time for your family.

That's just the sort of thing I dread happening, as we couldn't find the money all that easily these days. Ironically, before we had the dcs all three of our dogs were insured, but we could probably have found the money from somewhere if they hadn't been. Since having the dcs, the dogs have been uninsured and we don't have access to large chunks of money like that.

Had a busy day. Took Jess to a steam fair. She got a lot of attention. There was also a lot of of other dogs there. She seems to be gaining a lot in confidence. I know what you mean about thinking you got something under your belt with them . Jess has started to bark while being the car. Drives me crazy. I so want her to be a chilled out dog in the car. It will give her some more places to go rather than just local.
The insurance seems like it will need abit of time to work it all out. I had a cat for 12 years without insurance he never really cost me anything.quite lucky I guess.

Is there someone that can sit near her in the car and toss her a treat for calm quiet behaviour happy? That's what we did with Pip at the weekend and he seems much happier in the car now.

Pip got to hear a few steam rollers and traction engines blowing their whistles last weekend. First time one went off I nearly jumped out of my skin, but Pip didn't bat an eyelid. Same with the Spitfire flypast - just took it all in his stride.

Then again, he heard a dog barking in the park behind the house this afternoon and ran all the way back down the garden and into the kitchen with his tail between his legs.

We've had our pup for about 10 days and she is sooo good.

Still getting the occasional accident but no chewing or biting. She is calm but lovely and gets on with our current dog. Hope this carries on!

Hi Singlediva, do you want to swap?

Only kidding, I wouldn't swap Pip for any other dog in the whole world.

What sort of pup have you got?, She sounds lovely.

... and we neeed pictures.

Toby's poo is still dodgy. Bits of blood in it and its whippy. He's on Burns puppy. He's only had chicken in a kong over the last two days plus a bit of white fish and some peas courtesy of a messy ds4. Vet tomorrow for jabs. He likes chomping on chipped bark, and I can't be certain if its cocoa free as its been down years, though the large bits that he favours for chewing are British, as they're specialist play bark.

try no chicken - our Westie was sensitive to all "bird" products including fresh poached chicken for his first 9 months.

We moved him on to a different dry food - Symply, (lamb) from Pets Corner, his poop -( mucousy, frothy and blood streaked) became solid and "proper" within 24 hours and have not looked back since.

Ok. That's interesting. I will obviously talk to the vet tomorrow about it. We think that he's straining to get the last of it out. I will look for some chicken free feed. Thanks.

I think its colitis. Bollocks. My poor Toby. Help!!!