New Puppy Mummies Part 2

[SallyBear]

Just thought I'd start the new thread!

Toby (foxy coloured yellow Labrador) is now 13 weeks old. Long, lean and lanky. Still wonderfully tempered and is sleeping through and no longer messing in the house.

Moosemama - sounds good well done Pip at puppy class. I swear by Rizatriptan for migraines, hope you get some sleep and it goes soon. And your DD feels better too.

Update from us had another lovely walk today met a few nice adult dogs and then a 13 week old Doberman pup who made Nala look tiny, they had a great time playing together.

I'm going to up her food again, she's on Burns as that's what the breeder weaned her on for a dog 5-10kg she's supposed to get 100-200g a day, I've had her on 200g plus treats but she's still so skinny, you can see her ribs and her hip bones, I just want her to have a bit more coverage on her bones. I'm also switching her across to Eden as soon as the Burns is finished. I like the fact it's got no cereal in it.

Thanks sweetkitty, I can't take triptans unfortunately as I have neurological complications. The only thing that worked for me was a course of Topomax/Topiramate, but the side effects were too much to cope with. It significantly reduced the frequency and severity even years afterwards, but they've returned with a real vengeance this past year and I'm back up to regular full on complex migraine nowadays. I need a brain transplant.

Your walk with Nala sounds lovely.

Canagan goes on predicted adult weight, rather than puppy weight and based on a 25kg adult (so a bit heavier than Lurcherboy who is far more solidly built, but much sorter of leg) Pip is currently on 240g a day. He also gets at least one, if not two chicken breasts and a pouch of salmon mousse a day, plus training treats and he's still skin and bone.

Toby is er.... well covered on his home cooked diet. It's agreeing with him thankfully

Oh shame you can't take triptans, I call them my miracle pills. I suffer badly from migraines and can get a cluster that lasts for days. One triptan and it's gone.

Nalas predicted weight is 30-35kg but I think she'll be on the smaller size for a RR as she was one of the smallest at birth and still is dainty, she's so skin and bone though weighing her she is putting on weight must be in her legs.

She's had a poo and pee accident today maybe as she hates the rain so much.

Aw so sad about Jess LIfeisontheup. Thanks for taking the time to inform us about the dangers. I knew sticks wasn't a good idea but never thought it could do that. So will be careful in the future.

Yay good luck with puppy classes Pip and Moouse. It sounds like I have the opposite with Jess she seems to have no fear at the mo where big dogs are concered. She is really small but wants to play with them all and thinks they all want to jump about like her!!
I would like her to get use to young kids. Mine is a teenager. Anyone got any ideas on where might be a good place to take her. There is playgrounds but dogs are not allowed in around here.

Much calmer day here today and no accidents yay! I managed to get him to do spin today following the kikopup fade a lure video and he did it perfectly! Have also been doing lots of attention building stuff and not letting him focus on the clicker (it also helped that dh was at home all day and played with him while I had an emergency trip to Claire's Accessories for dd's dress-up day at school on Friday ..)

Going to meet a friend at a national trust property for coffee tomorrow - I'm just counting the days until I can take him out for walks - I think it will make life much easier

Thanks so much moose, mint and ncis for your words of encouragement - it is very very draining and not helped by my mum being desperately ill :(

Same here with the migraines that last for days. At their worst they can take out a whole week. Can't tell you how angry I am that they've come back full force.

Pip had a wee accident this evening as well! I can't remember the last time he did that - I think it was when he was still under 11 weeks old. Took me totally by surprise. He asked to go out and I was dealing with dd, so opened the back door for him and out he went. He usually goes out, does whatever he needs to and comes back in these days. He came back in, I shut the door and popped to the loo myself, came out and felt something wet and warm underfoot.

I assume he must've heard a dog barking in the park and come charging back in before he'd had a wee - despite obviously being desperate. I think the combination of it being wet and dark outside and then a dog barking must have been too much for him after his busy day.

Typically, we have no simple solution or biological washing liquid, so have had to clean up with anti bacterial cleaner and hope he doesn't go there again before I can get some more ss tomorrow.

Happy, take her for a walk near a primary school close to afternoon pick-up and she'll be guaranteed to get lots of attention. Similarly, go to parks with play areas and just sit on a bench near to the play area with her - you'd be amazed how many people will approach you.

Never let the pup approach a small child, wait for the child to approach the pup with a smily face. Some small children are terrified of dogs even tiny dogs.

Oh I could cry this morning, Nala was yelping in her crate (at the cat) at 5am so got up and went to open the door too late wee by the door, DP must have taken her out at 6 when he got up then I got up at 7.30 and she had pooed in her crate, of course let he out the DCs hadn't shut the door so she runs upstairs trailing poo. Got her down went to let her out and another wee by the door. She was doing so well too

We're on Oct break here so the DCs are home and we will need to go out in the rain later.

Anyway moose hope sleep has cured your migraine.

Oh dear that sounds a bit messy Sweetkitty. Think we're all having the odd set back like that, then back to normal progress.

Moose - hope you're feeling better. Sounds like puppy training went really well - what a fabulous start!

We took our puppy on his first walk to school - it's a mile each way so only done on bus or car half the way so far but now he's allowed the 20mins walk for now 1 way, with the bus home!

Would have been fine, he's better at not jumping at children (or maybe now I'm keeping a really short lead) but a husky dog with no owner appeared and came with us he wasn't well behaved and kept launching at puppy, really sniffing around him, bit of growling from puppy as he obviously hated being trapped on a lead while this dog was leaping about.

How should we deal with that? We couldn't shake him off for ages and DS2 was getting upset and I was a bit panicked. All fine in end, the husky ran off but no collar, no owner. Should I phone the dog warden?

I would have carried the puppy for a bit whilst trying to shoo the dog away. At husky being out on its own though.

DS had done an explosive poo in his night pull up think he's not well and I have just cleaned out the cat litter tray suffice to say it has been a morning of poo!

Madam Nala is now asleep and we are all chilling in our PJs

We had a bad evening last night with Finn being very nippy and jumpy. Looking back I deviated from his routine when a friend came over, he seemed tired so i put him in his crate and he had a short sleep. This meant I didn't leave him to have a sleep after his supper and he was overtired all evening and couldn't switch off.
I really think puppies, and in particular Border Collies, need their routines. I will be better prepared tonight.

Yes I would call someone about the husky mint. Not sure who checks them to see if they are microchipped possibly the vet, so i guess if you report it could get back to its owner.
Maybe they have been let of the lead and have run off. Read that they shouldn't really be off lead as they can run off for miles.
It was abit of on usual situation as most dogs are with their owner who would of been in control (hopefully) of the dog.
Sounds a good idea about the primary school moouse I will give that a try.

Been trying the dog warden - just rings and rings. Seen a few threads on local chat rooms about how they are down to 1 dog warden for the whole city - the city in which I live is one of largest in the country - 1 dog warden that can't be right. Anyway, clearly busy at moment.

On the positive side, puppy did cope well

Vets do have the equipment to find a micro chip and have the means to find the owner if there is a chip.
Some dogs do feel vulnerable while on the lead when another dog bounds up to them off the lead.
However, I saw 2 golden retrievers both on the lead and one was aggressive so the other reacted the same way. My little girl on the lead has a crush on one of them and wanted to chase off his aggressor while on the lead too.
Then today we met, within minutes, 2 male dogs she is very friendly with, but the males hate eachother. She just looked but didn't react. They were barking at each other aggressively, but as both on the lead the owners kept a good distance between them.

Got my total recall book today and looking forward to putting it into practice.
Does anyone find it can be difficult to get everyone on side with using the same commands etc? I've a feeling DH will be a little difficult to persuade, the problem is our other two dogs were trained by me with a lot of help from very good training classes. By the time he was regularly walking them they were pretty much bulletproof but this time he will be walking Finn from the start.
He is going to come to some of the training classes so at least that's a start but I've a feeling he has no idea how much work is involved in having a well trained dog. It doesn't just happen overnight.

For people that have trained "leave it" using kikopups YouTube videos - how many sessions did you need before you added the command?

I have had 3 sessions of a few minutes each over 3 days, where I held the treats in my hand despite lots of licking, then click and treat as soon as he backs off. He has totally got the idea that he gets a treat as soon as he stops the mad licking and moves his muzzle back and sometimes gives me eye contact. So great, but when do I start adding command? I think it's too soon as he ALWAYS has a few seconds licking madly before backing off and the licking is not getting any less.

I tried the treat on floor, dog on lead and click/treat when he came away from floor treat, but he barked at the treat and strained at the lead so I'm not going to return to that yet as he's too excited by a treat on the floor!

I'd be really interested to know how others have been getting on with this?

I have this too NCIS - my kids and DH can't seem to get their commands obeyed! DS1 says SIT in a really high pitched voice and is ignored, DS2 shouts commands and DH is better but doesn't put the time in with treats etc so puppy doesn't really see the point of working for him.

I keep saying about treats but DH had a GSD 30 yrs ago in the days when treats weren't really part of training and NO & nose tapping seemed to be the style!

Dh talks to him as if he was an older toddler, I keep saying 'he doesn't understand, No don't do that, you know you're not supposed to do that' all delivered in a 'nice' voice. He needs clear and consistent commands that we all use and praise/treats for correct behaviour.
I'm generally the only one Finn obeys 90% of the time. I think they are both a work in progress but Finn is easier.

I am mean and don't let any of mine use cues with Pip yet. I have told the dcs that once he has learned the cues well enough and is able to generalise them enough to understand they mean the same thing regardless of who says them and in what tone/pitch etc, I will do a couple of sessions of training with each of them involved so they're all clear what to do. In the meantime I have told them that they are actually un-training the dog by giving cues that are then ignored.

Dh used to come training with me, but still says 'shut up' instead of 'quiet' and 'stop it' instead of leave and endless other combinations of words that are completely meaningless to Pip, then looks exasperated when I use the cue and he responds straight away.

Mintchoc - I wouldn't add the cue until he's reliably able to leave food on the floor/sofa/table etc. Somewhere on the food on the floor video Kikopup actually says it's one exercise where you really do have to leave it until you're 99.9999% sure they're going to do it before you add in the cue.

I wish that could work for us but I'm at work quite a lot of the time so either DD or DH is in charge and in 2 weeks time walking him will be shared between us. Perhaps I can beat it into DH?

Been practising recall today with the whistle as per Total Recall. Lots of fun and Finn was really good and loved it.

Well first puppy class was interesting to say the least. I felt like I was back at school got told off for walking too slow, giving too many treats, telling her to sit nice instead of Nala sit, pointing at her no use of clickers which I have been using with her and I didn't like how they stopped an adult husky from jumping by kneeing it.

On the positives loads of nice dogs and people, it's not just a puppy class it's a beginners class so there's older dogs there too. I think it's good for socialisation and I'll learn some things but I think I'll be ignoring some of the methods.

She's been shattered since we got back, poor pup all that concentrating and new dogs.

On the plus died her brother lives in the next town and he's allowed out now too so going to arrange some meet ups.

Sad article in the Daily Fail. here

Hmmm poo in crate 3 days in a row ...

DH was on last toilet trip duty last night as I was knackered and was too busy setting up his new iPad to check whether or not Fitz was completely empty ...

This morning he went straight out for a wee, came back in, then asked to go out for a poo so it must have happened some time in the night. I'll scrub the crate with simple solution (again) but other than that (and being strict about poo before bed) what should I be doing? His crate is quite large and we were told we might need to block some of it off so he wouldn't have room to do a poo in there but as it's never been a problem until now we've given him the run of it

I'd definitely block it off BB. Poor old boy. Not pleasant for anyone. Toby was very distressed when he got trapped in DS4s room overnight. The smell was horrific.