New Puppy Mummies, Part 3

[DharmaLovesDraco]

New thread, because quite frankly I can't do without you all :)

No, not teething. Lurcherboy is 8 - it's Pip that's teething, he was 6 months on 1 December.

Those church animal services are awesome. Our parish doesn't do it anymore. Lurcherboy does the best haunted howls - he would have loved to join in with the Christmas carols!

Poor Meg - I hope she's ok - at least the owner of the patterdale which attacked Fitz had the decency to be mortified (although obv not mortified enough to keep her puppy-hating dog under control )

Fitz had his first day at puppy day care today - all fine - he came home at about 5:30 and was shattered - had tea then conked out for a couple of hours - he's just had a mad half hour, jumping on everything, chewing like crazy, humping my leg (harumph!). I managed to distract him with a quick training session and amazingly he was able to concentrate - now he's conked out again :)

Sorry Moose, of course Pip is the big-little pup. I hope LB is okay.
This is one of those days (she said, cleaning cat-sick from the sofa AGAIN).

don't worry about it barbarian, it's getting really hard to keep up with everyone. I spend half my time trying to look back and work out who people are and what breed their pup is.

I get that too moosemama when I say to people she's only a 4 month old pup and she bigger than their Springer

Sallybear what a brilliant pair of pictures!

I wrote a really long message and lost it!

Basically thanks Moose for advice about leaping in evenings,

and sorry for Meg - sounds awful. Could happen to any of our pups. Wonderful training though barbarian!

Sweet, Pip was the same size as an adult greyhound yesterday!

I measured them both last night, so now have a definite shoulder height for the pair of them. Both Lurcherboy and Pip are 23 1/2". Which means he's grown an inch and a half since I bought his last coat on 2 November!

Hows Meg today? Better I hope
x

Thank you for asking Juice, Meg's muzzle is swollen on one side and she is nervous about me looking at it. But she is still eating and bouncing. I can't get her into vets today unless as an emergency which she clearly isn't. Might go tomorrow though, if no better.

Will worry about letting her off with unknown dogs again though, but it is difficult to know when the owner has said okay. (Meg had come when I whistled and I had her on a lead). Owner later said his spaniel bitch was even nasty with his other dog so don't know what he was thinking of. So many people say "They don't like puppies, or whatever" and we keep away and it is no problem.

(Grumble grumble grumble.)

barbarian, sorry I should have asked how meg was as well. Been up since silly o'clock and hadn't switched my brain on when I posted.

I'm so sorry to hear her face is swollen. Was there any sign of blood? If there was I would say she is an emergency, as dog bites can get infected very quickly and could be at the root of the swelling. It's always better safe than sorry with dog bites.

We just met a young Labrador in the park that my two have met lots of times before and was always really confident and such a happy wiggly girl. We haven't bumped into her for a while and now she's really worried and submissive. Her owners are lovely, but never have her on a lead, so I'm wondering if she's had a bad experience too. Couldn't really stop to ask as she was clearly worried about Lurcherboy saying hello, so I took both mine away sharpish. Lurcherboy was so pleased to see her and really confused by her reaction. They used to play so well together as well.

There seem to be so many more dogs that will actually start a proper fight around these days than there used to. In over 20 years of owning dogs I've never heard of so many dogs getting attacked - let alone puppies, who adult dogs usually tend to give some leeway to, even if they are a bit rude and in your face.

More owners who don't seem to care either. Can't believe that guy lets his spaniel off, let alone near pups if he knows she's nasty.

Poor Meg. I hope it does turn out to be some localised bruising and she's better soon.

Poor girl. Hope it doesn't leave her with any lasting mental scars. When we had Bob and Jack Bob was attacked by an offlead dog. Jack waded in, we assume to protect Bob and we managed to get the dog off Bob. Bob, as usual, was unfazed by the whole incident, but Jack was never the same again.
After that whenever he saw another dog he'd go defensive. I assume he was 'protecting Bob' in his own way as he never did it when he was walked alone.

Poor Jack. I will have to be more careful. Vet is squeezing her in tonight if he has a gap. Thanks for asking.

Yes, even at 13 months, after a couple of incidents, Harry is generally more wary of other dogs. He's just more mature and slightly more aloof in general, he prefers his humans for company. He ignores most dogs, but will still play with any puppy and any form of Spaniel.

Lovely walk in the countryside today, 2 hours of non stop scenting and running for the dog, I am shattered, he's up for more

There was a JRT that hated Harry when he was younger and would go for him, now they are best friends, I wonder if some dogs do dislike pups? Not that this is any excuse tbh.

I am considering agility or gundog work seriously now, he's a placid little soul but clearly able to take a lot more work too.

Ah, now I took my two for an hour and a half this morning, but did a lot of training and leadwork along the roads, as well as two free running sessions in rotating chunks, so there wasn't too much of anything all in one go. They both had a blast, but the beauty of sighthounds is that they are both still shattered and neither even bothered to look up when I picked up their leads this afternoon - in fact Lurcherboy made a point of curling up even smaller in his bed - so I didn't take them again.

I don't often do that, as Pip is still growing and although much of the stuff about restricting exercise has been debunked recently, I do like to exercise a bit of common sense. Poor boy was so tired when I was getting his afternoon school-run feed and kongs ready he was standing there swaying and blinking, trying really hard to keep himself awake!

Annoyingly, I didn't realise, but both neighbours were out all afternoon, so it would have been a good time to go for a coffee with Mum and see how Pip got on. Trouble is, even if they're both out, I never know how long they're going to be gone for. I only realised they'd been gone all afternoon when I went out to pick up the dcs.

Yep, that would have been a perfect opportunity to test Pip wouldn't it?

DS has the dog into the garden with this rubber toy thing that lights up when it hits the ground, so great for dark nights, all I can see it a flashing light every so often and a white dog streaking across the garden!

Our walk was very interactive too, I didn't just let him
wander around, I made him work for his scents.

Bloomin' Springers and their energy

I meant to comment on the animal services, DD's greatest wish is to have the pony in the house on Christmas Day, DH's words were not repeatable!

I used to want to bring my horse in for Christmas too - and every time it snowed!

Sorry, I didn't mean to infer that you didn't do any training. I know enough to know you are always working your lovely boy. I was just commenting on the different energy levels between the two breed types. My two are still sparko now and we've been home since lunchtime - lightweights!

Puppy class in the morning. Haven't a clue what we're supposed to have done, as I was off sick last week. Can't go next week either, as I don't have a lift there, so then I guess the next one will be after Christmas. I'm assuming they won't have one on NYD. Hope not anyway as I won't be able to get to that one either. We're going to stand very little chance of passing this class first time if we don't manage to get to any of the classes to find out what exercises we're supposed to be doing.

Ah well. It's enough for me that I got my proud moment with both my boys walking beautifully to heel either side of me all the way down the main road this morning. Not that that stopped people crossing the road to avoid us.

Hope Meg is ok at vets tonight Barbarian. Hard to know what to do in that situation - you assume that if someone's letting their dogs play then they trust them to behave.

We came across three horses today on an off lead walk and I was not expecting it at all - they were suddenly upon us! I could see minty stand bolt upright, really alert and thought he was about to bark, so got him on lead quick and praised him loads for quiet standing. Went well but I was fortunately close to him, I dread to think what might have happened had he been far ahead of me. The riders were great and stopped to chat.

I walk 'on alert' for challenging incidents and feel very relieved when we get home safe. Like your two Moose, minty is a real flop out dog after a walk! One hour out does him for the day, he barely raises his head from getting home at 930 till the kids get home from school!

No, it was me wording it very badly, I am multi tasking tonight (read supposed to be writing cards, which I hate!), therefore lurking on here when I shouldn't be

Our last training sessions were a bit like that, hit and miss, two of the three in the group doing Gold just couldn't train the 'stay, out of sight' command, we are fine with this but didn't really want to pay for sessions covering old ground, so had a break for a while before the exam.

Heard DH telling folk about the new puppy tonight with glee, but I am glad we are not getting him pre Christmas. Last we we did get Harry in December, but had an extremely quiet one planned, this year, quite the opposite and not fair at all on a new puppy.

I'm the same mint. Hypervigilant for every dog that comes in the park and how Pip is responding to it, also constantly scanning the perimeters of the park when they're off lead.

It's ever since we had that spate of off-lead dogs careering over the field and jumping on my two. I'm also worried that if he's off-lead and panics he might bolt and although he's come back every time so far, there's always that niggly doubt that one day, if he's really scared, he might not.

I used to walk Lurcherboy for 3 hours a day when he was at his worst with separation anxiety, but he gets a lot more worn out chasing Pip around and vice-versa than he did just walking and playing with me.

Wednesday morning walks are a little different. I have to keep Pip on lead, because I need to walk Lurcherboy before dog training and it's too close to Pip's breakfast and school run kongs, due to the risk of bloat. I tend to spend a lot of time trying to stop him bouncing up and down on the end of the lead and attempting to chase Lurcherboy while still attached to my arm. I'd leave him at home, but I fear the neighbours might not like it.

Moose - how long do you leave Pip after eating before an off lead walk. Minty is also at risk of bloat so I do worry about his breakfast at 745/8 and our walk to school at 820. The first 20 mins are on lead, slow walking with all the kids etc, but the next 40 mins are off lead woods so loads of running about.

I come down into kitchen at 715 so could feed earlier but don't because our trainer said not to appear and feed in quick succession as they'll then look for feeding as soon as you come in and we need to be more casual about their feeding time and do it when convenient for us, not stick to a rigid time.

Excuse my typos!

Something I meant to say is that I've worked out that I feel more comfortable with straight walks where we have a path to follow, than open fields. Not sure why but I feel more secure knowing I am heading in a certain direction so if I see trouble coming, I can march on ahead quickly and get us through it before it's begun! That's my theory anyway, I'm sure I make an awful walking companion though - sometimes other school mums come with me for the walk home through woods, and firstly I don't concentrate on the conversation as I'm being so stressy about vigilance and secondly I meander slowly until I see a challenge when I march off ahead calling minty and shoving sausage into him! Your walks sound a bit more relaxed Moose!

Needastrongone, it was the stay out-of-sight that nearly foiled my SCWT girl's chances of passing gold. She just couldn't bear it. The trainer at the time was a good friend of mine, so we just skipped it during class and worked on it at college and during walks. We used to just used to work on a normal stay while the others did that exercise in class. I was sooo proud when she managed it on the test, although it was touch and go if she was going to make it to the end without coming to look for me!

To be honest, Pip doesn't need as much training as the other puppies that are there, as a most of the other puppies are PFD's and our main motivation for going is for the socialisation. I have learned a couple of things and taken on board a few tips along the way though and I do really like the trainer in this class.

Lovely that your dh is so excited about the puppy. Mine was the opposite, haven't a clue why, seeing as it's me that does all the training and is home with them all day every day. Have to day he's a complete sappy, softy with him though and has been since the day he arrived. I knew he would be - he's been the same with every dog we've had since we've been together bar the first one and Pip is number 7.

Mint, I try to leave it an hour before he does any off-lead hooliganising. I do walk him on-lead at a fairly sedate pace within that hour if necessary though. I'm not sure what the official guidelines are, but feel an hour is probably plenty.

I'm not comfortable walking in the fields on my own with the dogs, never have been. I dislike our local park because of some of the dogs we come across, but if I pick my times I prefer going there because there's a defined route I can follow. I think, aside from the fact that I feel vulnerable out across fields away from civilisation, I don't like not being aware of all the possible entrance and exit points and whether someone is going to suddenly pop out of a gap in a hedge in front of us. At least in the park there are only two entrances to scan for - if you discount the handful of houses that have had gates put into their back fences.

I rarely feel like my walks are very relaxed. I'm such a daft sod and worry about making sure my two don't act up and do anything to give either Lurchers or dogs in general a bad name - hence me being a touch unimpressed that people still give us a wide berth when they're both heeling nicely and looking up at me as we walk. (I would like to add they don't always walk like that - hence it being a proud moment this morning.)

I actually find dog walking with dh and the dcs much more relaxing, as the dogs seem to be more focussed on us and dh adds another pair of eyes and hands to the mix if needs be, although it's still always me that does all the recalling and basic control.

Oh yes I much prefer walks with my DH - someone else to run after minty if needs be! DH has started a bit of the dividing up of weekend dog walks like we do with family chores IYSWIM? Sort of like "if I take DS to the party, you can walk the dog" or 'I'll walk the dog while you do the hoovering/mopping/cook tea'. Not my vision at all. I love bring on my own with minty in the week but really look forward to family/couply walks at the weekend.

Obviously I need to up the treats for DH too!