New Puppy Mummies, Part 3

[DharmaLovesDraco]

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

Finn goes to bed about 10pm and we get up around 6. He's four months old and has never woken us up to go out. He gets fed at 6pm and we take him out at intervals throughout the evening on the lead and wait until he does a poo.

Meg (BC21 weeks) sleeps in her crate from 10pm- 7 ish. Last meal at about 6.30pm.

NCIaddict, I skimmed the rest of Total Recall last night to see if it had any tips for you. 3 things jumped out at me, although overall I don't think its possible to fast track recall, it takes time and work. So the 3 things were: ensure treat really is high value (maybe time to try something else?); there was a lot about PROOFING your recall, so basically just because its good in the garden or whatever, doesn't mean it will be good anywhere else, so swap and change locations frequently & practise recall; also if not reliable maybe try using a 'long line' until recall is better.
Hope that helps a bit:)

NCIS, trainer told us not to treat for recall until you have a hand on collar and to get them used to this every time. Primula is a less 'instant' reward- lots of licking (although a tube lasts us a month at least) which is supposed to be calming.
Meg is very funny- she comes belting back licking her chops.

Queen - if your puppy doesn't poo in the garden in the evening, have you tried a walk round the block? Might get things moving! We had a few nights of poo on kitchen floor, then it stopped after we started regular night time walk.

I'm at work so need to be quick - in tears this morning as puppy keeps getting on sofa and the only way to get him off is to lift him or if he has collar on to lead him off (tried treats, just eats them and jumps straight back up or ignores them completely) each and ever time he goes for me, is really snarly and snaps at me. This morning he drew blood as he got my arm. I just don't know what to do :(

I sit on the floor with him, play games to distract him when he's doing it (only morning and early evening) try getting his attention etc and it only works for a few seconds/mins if I'm lucky. He also gets very jumpy and snarly if we are sat on the sofa and just keeps going at us :(

I need ideas, I don't want to get it wrong like I did this morning.

Meg went through a very rough bitey snappy stage and drew blood. I was horrified. But we realised what we were doing was trying to control her when she was doing it, which just gave her lots of nice noisy attention, when what we should have done was either moved off ourselves, or moved her to her crate to calm down.
This works pretty well- it's no longer a big problem. It was always early morning over excitement or evening tired times we noticed.
It's horrible though, so sympathy.

(I've a bit gone off puppies myself today.)

Have you tried putting him in a crate with a high value toy at these particular times of day if it only happens then? Dharma
We found that Finn was far more nippy and less amenable to being told what to do when he got over excited/tired so started putting him in his crate with a kong then. Now we enforce naps three times a day, straight after breakfast. lunch and supper. He always gets fed in his crate and has a rest afterwards. He's either a toddler or an elderly uncle, not sure which!

I join you all on Sunday with an 8 week old pup. Eek!

Thanks or your advice on routines. Can't take her out walking at night as dh is at work and kids in bed. Going to try early evening and see if that makes a difference.

Welcome to the madhouse Mimsy what breed? And we need pictures.....

Basset

I'm simultaneously excited and worried. Apparently they're a pain in the arse to housebreak.

Oh but their ears, they are so cute. We are going backwards on housetraining atm although still not had any accidents over night ever. Think I'll have to go back to basics for a while during the day.

Aw Bassets are adorable, we definitely need pictures. Does he/she have a name? And as for housetraining, I've got a 12 year old yorkie who's still not housetrained, so anythings an improvement on that

Dharma - we've had this too for weeks. Minty gets hyper when more than one of us is on the sofa, jumps up onto sofa, hates being pulled off so nips, lunges and is hard to control. Really stressful. We had a trainer visit us at home who watched us interacting as a family + dog and have us advice.

Basically we were giving attention when he got like that instead of ignoring bad behaviour. So we were to put a house lead on him (short, easy to hand lead - we started that evening with string) use that to pull him off sofa. No attention, no eye contact, ignore, ignore. But also prevent as much as possible so in the evening she suggested we brought out a rawhide type bone or antler which we never use in the day, we save it and bring it out when we want to sit on sofa and teach him to settle with it.

Would any of that help you Dharma? I must say the £50 we paid for a 2hour home visit was well worth it.

Thank you all, yesterday was a massive low point. I don't stick him in the crate purely because it has taken us so long to get to the point where he's really happy in there that I don't want him to even slightly associate it with punishment iykwim?

Mint that is exactly what happens here too, I have this morning attached collar & short lead (well an old one I've taken the scissors too) and led him off twice now with no communication with him what so ever. I am also going to keep the kids out the living room in the morning as he's much much worse when they are around which I think is because he sees them as his litter mates and after all, they're allowed up there.

We are also going to get him a nice comfy bed so that he's got his space but also somewhere we can put him to chill out.

Thank you all so much x

I think the antler have him a really upset tummy but I could try a different type, he loves those filled bones so I might try a new one of those.

Thanks again x

I've just had a fabulous walk with Finn, kept him on the long line which helped my confidence as i knew I could get hold of him if necessary. We met a bouncy lab whom he's never seen before and he wasn't scared but did all the right things for a puppy meeting an older dog and they had a nice play. He didn't do any bolting for the car but came back to me each time I called him.

We also met the army on a quick march, he wasn't quite sure if he was supposed to be scared, say hello or round them up but I got him to sit and wait while they marched past. Quite a lot of them would have liked to stop and say hello, there were quite a few shouts of 'lovely puppy' but discipline prevailed on both sides.

Well last nights routine went well. Dinner at 5 pooped at 10 and asleep at 10.30. All going well at that point until 6am yapping for a wee. Wouldn't mind if she then went back to sleep but nope that's her up for the day!! Am knackered. Will do same tonight but will be going to bed 10.30 with her!

Bloody dog!!

Toby went to meet two of his sisters yesterday at the breeders. Toby is in the middle.

db.tt/sowIUMWn

Well just to warn you all that dog walking is a dangerous activity - was walking ANgus on teh golf course on Sunday night when I slipped on some leaves and broke my ankle. dd was a star as she walked across teh course in the dark (she's only 11) to get dh. I've not to weight bear on it for at least 6 weeks and may be as long as 3 months...help! So that's no dog training for me for a while so goodness knows how ANgus is going to get on now. Luckily I have a puppy walker who will take him for me during the days when no-one else is here and she will do a bit of clicker training with him - and the kids and dh are just having to get on with the walking / feeding etc at the moment. Really could do without it though.

Aw Sally, he is such a gorgeous boy. I really don't go for Labs, as you know, but Toby would totally win me over. He has such a gorgeous face - those eyes!

Interesting to see the three different shades of coat as well. Toby's is definitely the nicest, more red toned than the other two.

Oh haggis, I'm so sorry to hear that - you poor thing. Ankle breaks are the pits. I did mine the year before last and was in an Aircast for just shy of 10 weeks - non-weight bearing for 6.

Angus will be fine, you can clicker train lots from the comfort of your sofa and it will do the rest of the family good to take on the responsibility for the rest of his care for a while.

Hope you heal quickly and are up and about before too long.

You poor thing Haggis, hope your bones heal quickly. It's reminded me to make sure I always take my phone on walks as I don't follow particular paths on our common and could be there until the army trip over me on exercise.

You'll have to make the most of directing operations from the comfort of your sofa.

Ouch haggis!! I hope you recover soon

Can I be a little bit proud if my boy? At puppy class tonight, Fitz was promoted to the Bronze good citizen class, skipping the rest of puppy foundation . Poor little sausage is shattered, having done two classes back to back - by the end of it his eyes were out on stalks ...