Does anyone fancy a "puppy survival" thread part 2

[Soubriquet]

Here we are again

Just jump in and join us

The rule of thumb is 5 mins for every month of age. However, I did more than that as we mostly did off lead walking so if he was tired it was easier to tell as he could stop.

Off lead walking with a four month old whippet isn't going to happening any time soon

Sounds like I can at least up it to 20 minutes. He's about a week off four months but I think he'll be okay.

bluetongue I only really limit formal walking and avoid doing too much stuff like throwing toys for them/allowing free play with other dogs (because of the sudden turns/stops and the fact they may continue playing longer than they really want to) with my puppies.

Gentle bimbling about on a soft surface at a slow pace having a good sniff here and there doesn't really need limiting that much. The same goes for letting them run around (again on a soft surface) as they wish, just keep an eye out for him getting tired and put a stop to it if you need to.

A typical whippet puppy walk for me would be a couple of minutes down the road to a local field (including a little lead training) where they go off lead. In the field I'll stroll about very gently for a bit and the puppy will usually do some zooming around. After some zoomies I might sit on the ground for a bit and let the puppy explore/sniff/noodle about at their own pace for a while. Then it's back on the lead and a couple of minutes walk on lead back home. All in all I might be out for up to an hour but the actual proper walking only takes up maybe five minutes of that.

This exercise chart is quite handy. Bear in mind it's much more conservative than you'd need to be for whippet puppies (it's specifically written for bull terriers who are obviously much heavier) but even so running around on their own isn't restricted at all, right from eight weeks. There's also a good accompanying article about different types of exercise. Again though, remember this is written with bull terriers in mind and is much more conservative than necessary with whippets.

Is there any specific reason you can't let him off lead bluetongue?

Ideally you really want him off lead as early as possible to start recall training. Whippets do tend to be at the trainable end up the sighthound spectrum but even so they can have very high prey drives and it's much easier to start working on recall and impulse control when they're tiny and don't want to stray too far from you than when they're adults who can run at 35mph+.

It's also important for young whippets to get used to those legs as they grow, watching them work out how to move them all in order to go really fast is one of the most entertaining things about having a sighthound puppy

Can you find a 'safe place' to let bluepup off lead. Try a long lead with a harness if you are worried about him running off. The sooner you can get him off lead the better. If I could turn the clock back I would have taken him off lead earlier than I did.

Lexa is 18 weeks and I walk her between 30-45 mins every day with lots of off lead time.

If she's really energetic, I take a ball with me and make her chase that too.

She sleeps well when we get back

Agreed that the sooner they are off lead the better, for your sanity too! We drive the field as it's a bit far and donsome running around but I take treats with me and also do lots of training, just fun things but things like hiding a toy in the long grass and getting them to find it, asking them to stay (built up from literally one second!) and then throwing the ball as reward. I've found that this tires them out more.

Bitey I googled flyball and my town name and found a few suggestions which I then googled to find their website. To be honest I've done agility before and prefer that but he's too young at the moment!

Is anyone else's dog really struggling in this heat? He can't settle and keeps getting up to try out different spots to see which is cooler. He has drunk lots of water (mainly from the watering cans whilst we watered the plants ). We have wet his paws to help him cool down but he's still finding it hard.

We are only walking early morning and evening.
Plant mister to spray pup.
She likes ice cubes to crunch!
Ordered a cool coat.
Shady spots
Blackout curtains for her bedroom!
Lino or laminate are cooler to lie on.
Windows open and curtains shut.

We only walk in the morning too

And I chuck her in the paddling pool on a regular basis

She isn't thrilled by it but it cools her right down to the point she does zoomies

Thanks for the walking advice everyone. Bluepuppy does get off lead time in fenced areas for proper runs and his daycare has a very large grassed area where he can do zoomies and play with other dogs as much as he wants.

I'll be taking him to a basic level obedience course in the next month where recall training is taught.

this pup is crazy

She's jumping in and out of the paddling pool, zooming around the house and garden, and going crazy over everything.

Soubriquet we are going to try and set up some sort of pool today if it gets as hot as yesterday.

Now I know I was expecting the teenage months to be hard but god it is driving me to . Yesterday he was really good on the walk, he ran far but he did come back to recall. Today we have woken up to 'kevin the teenager'. Took him on a walk and we had NO recall. When we finally caught him he was back on the lead and back home. He knew he was bad as he had head down and tail between his legs. Waited a bit then took him back out again. Recall was going well for 30 mins then he decided he couldn't be bothered anymore so had to catch him again, back on the lead and back home. When can I start on the

Oh that can be so naughty can't they!! We're having real problems at the end of a walk. I've followed all the advice - don't only call them back at the end of the walk, take tasty treats etc but he KNOWS when it's the end and honestly stays just far enough away that I can't get hold of him to put him on the lead. We can't stay out walking forever (as much as he'd like to!) it's a nightmare and not sure how to fix it.

Skeleton we have a bit of that as well. On one occasion I actually walked back to the car, changed my shoes and started it up before he decided that I might actually leave him and decided to come back to me. I now try and change the finish of the walk a bit so I might walk back and forth or past the path to the exit and then put him back on the lead a bit earlier than normal if it looks likely that he is going to rebell. However, at the moment we don't even get to the end of a walk before he is back on the lead being marched back

I think I now know why people have a puppy again after having one previously. I have totally forgiven the horrors of the early puppy months and look back fondly compared to him as a teenager

Bitey cutting a walk short as punishment for poor recall isn't likely to make it better, if anything it's risking making it worse as although he won't associate going home with the instances he doesn't recall he will know that sometimes when he comes back you're angry and take him home.

Rather than continue putting him situations where he's regularly blowing his recall (after all dogs get better and better at behaviours they practise more often) I'd be putting him on a harness and long line so he can't fail until his recall is much more reliable.

is a good one showing and explaining how to use a long line, you can either let it drag like in the video or keep hold of the end of it. It'd give him a reasonable amount of freedom on walks whilst setting him up for success at recalling.

CornflakeHomunculus I don't like the long lines although I know others do. He does get put back on the lead when he doesn't recall and then I practice recall with him attached to the lead. If he does the recall right again he gets to go off lead again and run around so he does understand how to recall and has worked out if he comes back he gets more play. Today he wasn't interested in paying attention to anything right from the start. I wasn't going to drag him round pulling my arm off for us both to have a miserable time.

Blue: it's so amazing that bluepuppy coped so well at the vets: you should be SO proud of getting him so calm in that sort of environment, which is pretty high stress for any dog. I'm planning on doing loads of resocialisation with my barky monster around vets when he's a bit older: he definitely wouldn't manage that!

Just had to come back on after an awesome puppy class walk this morning, where towelpuplet was impeccably behaved :-) He was brilliant off-lead, recalling like a demon, and super-calm round football games, toddlers and runners :-). I was so proud of him, given that 5 weeks ago he couldn't be near another dog or person without barking madly at the end of the lead. It's the first time I've had him off-lead in a really busy place and it was just really lovely to see him manage it so well.
He didn't like the little puppies on the walk much (only a few weeks younger than him, but he's started cocking his leg and thinks he is a BIG boy now!) but just ran out of their way with his tail between his legs, and stayed with the grown-ups. It's a while since he's been nervous around dogs, but I think puppies being a bit full on was too much for him!

Like a few of you, he wasn't keen at the end of the walk, so I ended up just sticking him under my arm and plonking him in the car. Easier with a little dog, I know!!

towelpintpeanuts aww glad it's going well and he did really well.
Ha! I can just about pick mine up to put in the car boot but definitely can't put him under the arm anymore

Sounds like your pup is doing well towel What breed do you have?

I take Bluepuppy to the vet to weigh him once a week at the moment and the vet nurses fuss over him so he really has no fear.

He had an off lead run at the beach today. He enjoyed it but one of the adult whippetw he was playing with started getting a bit too growlly so I had to put him back on lead once that happened.

This is him helping Dh at work :-) He's a black and silver mini schnauzer. Run on the beach sounds lovely, blue! It's scorchio in London today: paddling pool later I think!

blue the run on the beach sounds fab. I wouldn't go anywhere near our local beach right now in this heat as I can guarantee that it would be heaving with huge numbers of people.

It's actually officially 'winter' where I am but not really that cold. Not really swimming weather though.

He's super cute towel

Bluepuppy was 'helping' me earlier while I put some IKEA outdoor furniture together.

Sounds like a lovely temperature blue. We are having a bit of a heatwave in the uk so the dog is struggling although he is still demanding to play ball in the sun

For those of you in hot conditions, don't forget a few cold treats - freeze carrots (or carrot sticks) for them, or freeze ice blocks with treats inside (liver treat anyone?)! I also give frozen chicken necks, but that is mostly because I forget to defrost them, LOL.

We had a puppy reunion today from our litter, 4x 6 month olds all had a ball - hard to tell if they remembered/knew it was their siblings, or just had a ball playing with puppies all afternoon!!