Does anyone fancy a puppy survival thread part 3

[BiteyShark]

Continuation of the support thread.... anyone is welcome whether they have new or older puppies, just want a chat or are battling with ongoing puppy problems.

I thought I would start this thread off as I am hoping it might be the last one I need support from as BiteyPup is now 9.5 months old and we have survived the early puppy months and his teenage antics seem to be subsiding. Still working on our relationship and recall but it's getting better and can finally see some light at the end of the tunnel (fingers crossed)

My god Wolfie I just scanned that quickly and just saw 'wolfhound heaven', I nearly had a heart attack!!! So glad you both had a fab break though!

Gorgeous puppy Primrose!

Pizza definitely a win on the being left alone front! Well done pizza pup :) we keep the curtains closed and have the radio on when we go out to try and prevent barking at random noises.

Thanks Cornflake I'll have a look at the FB group. I tend to go for the 1 nail = a treat approach which has meant my other dog will tolerate it now but definitely always looking for tips!

Oh skeleton I'm sorry. We also call it the puppy farm. It's isn't that either but it is a farm and sometimes (very rarely) there are puppies.

Hahaha no worries I was just so worried for a moment!!! Very glad that it is heaven in the other sense of the word xxx

The right breed is important as is the temperament. Our little lady is not pedigree. Her mum was a cross between 2 pedigrees of different breeds and dad was a pedigree stud. We were fortunate in that we knew who owned mum and if wanted could view dad.
When we got her it was Jan and she was so tiny so we let her use training pads until she settled and she was able to manage the garden safely. We put her in her crate straight away. She sleeps in it and stays in it if we are out .She adapted to the crate no bother and used the pads most of the time. But little dogs leave little mess. She really was easy to toilet train . Our problems were or should that be are? Recall. Despite training ., also biting shoes and opening laces.
Yes she has ate the post and got a good of a ball of wool and had great fun. We do restrict her to two rooms and have had to use throws on furniture, but I never was materialistic. She also a burglar alarm despite her tiny size.
She has helped us deal with so much stress.
She really is one of the family .

Please please be careful with the wool. Our last dog ate some wool and it wrapped around his intestines, and we lost him to it. He was only 5 and we were absolutely heart broken - I didn't even realise it was a danger but the vets said that wool, string, thread or similar is about the worst thing they can swallow as it wraps up inside them.

I've dipped in & out of this thread but hoping to join in properly now that the puppy shell shock has subsided slightly!! Our little lady is almost 4mths...rambunctious & clever, which proves a bit of a challenge sometimes, but we love her to bits. Now that we're out and about I'm wondering about puppy park etiquette! Dpup is desperate to make friends with all dogs & people, but clearly not everyone is happy about over enthusiastic puppies. Are there unspoken rules I should be following? Her recall is fairly good already, but of course she does dive in head first initially...

Hi
Last year we went to get a puppy Id lost my lovely old boy a few months before and hated not having a dog to come home to plus I wanted my child to grow up with a dog
So we went to have a look and came home with two collies it's been a bloody nightmare training two dogs together then I found out I was pregnant planned but quick.
Fast forward a year two babies and two dogs it's been really hard but I love them all.
The dogs have settled right down but are still little devils at times. But there great with both babies.
The only thing that drives me mad is I cannot stop the pulling on the lead even with the lead trainer leads on which can be really hard with a pram and 2 I can't stop them barking and people/ dogs even the odd car passing the house
Any advice would be great

PerfectlyChaotic I don't let my dog approach any dogs that are on the lead. When dogs are off the lead and I can see the owner I usually shout to ask if it's ok for them to meet, so in your case I would shout and ask if there dog is ok around puppies. Even now I supervise greetings in case they don't like each other so I can then shoo the other one away.

However, at an early age I tended to put mine on the lead if I spotted any dogs or people as his recall was poor and then depending on the situation I would let them meet or move on.

Leebee11 think it is very hard having two puppies together as I am sure I have seen that you need to train them separately let alone throwing a baby into the mix so you must have had your hands very full. I can't really advise on the lead pulling as I have a spaniel who are notorious for not walking nicely on a lead so I am still working on that one myself.

Well last night I put the medical suit on BiteyDog when he had his last pee and was sleepy. It got took off early in the morning when I was awake and he was still dozing so no major trauma other than it took him around 10 mins to settle back down plus he then licks most of his body when its on so it must really annoy him which is why we can't use it in the day. Back to having eyes on him all the time again today. Counting down the days

Poor PizzaPup isn't doing too well.
She has had a runny tum since we got her but the charity said she'd be like that due to travelling etc so to feed her chicken and rice for a few days. It didn't get any better so we were advised to give a fibre supplement too.
Yesterday she did a very runny poop then strained again and it was just water coming out (sorry, tmi) so we booked an appointment with the vet for today but she's been fine in herself. This morning she woke up to go to the toilet and it was semi-solid (sorry) but then DH left her to go in the shower and she had passed brown jelly on the living room floor. He wasn't sure what end it came out of and he said she was looking a bit sorry for herself :(

Poor PizzaPup. Runny poos tend to be common in the Bitey household since we got him despite what we feed him.

Ironically chicken/rice have never helped and it usually needs pro kolin if it isn't too bad or injections and tablets from the vets when it has been at its worst.

Some pups are just like that and that might just be the way she is which is fine. I would just rather make sure it's nothing we are doing. It doesn't help that she will eat everything in her sight.
What food do you feed biteypup?

Yes get some pro kaolin for pup. It helps big time

I've found since moving Lexa over to a grain free diet, her tummy has cleared up beautifully

I feed Millie's Wolfheart dry kibble. He was on royal canin when we got him but we still had the same issue with that food.

I wonder if he has a bit of IBS as he often has firm poos in the morning which get sloppier through the day (tmi ). However we do have the odd period which sound very much like PizzaPup where we need medication to stop it.

Rescues usually have very runny poos for the first couple of weeks.

Our pup is from Spain and we took her home minutes after her 48 hour quarantine as we'd already been vetted. She's probably very stressed from the journey.

Dh managed to drop a couple of raisins and she snagged one a few days ago. Luckily it seems to have no ill effects. I was not impressed and worried.

Poor pizza pup Blue puppy had a dodgy tum about a month or so ago complete with blood. Vet diagnosed colitis and after a dose of antibiotics be was fine.

Jealous of your Italian holiday Wolfie.

My current problem with pup is pulling on the lead. Any suggestions?

Roundtable, we expected a runny tum for a bit but it was looked like water coming out (sorry) so that's why we were a bit worried.

Vet didn't have any concerns, have gave some pills (Dh can't remember the name) and PizzaPup was well behaved at the vets so hopefully in a few days she'll be fine.

We are to keep going with the chicken and rice. Surely she'll get bored of that soon?

Chappie canned meat is very mild tummy friendly dog food - all my dog friends who do agility swear by it when they've got a dog under the weather. Any supermarket sells it. Not good for long term but good for getting them back to normal.

Hi guys, looking back with a 14 month old pup, life is much different now. We had the runny tummies too, the recall problems! Runny tummy sorted by age,routine, grain free food....Cocopup has naturediet in the morning and cold pressed kibble called Gentle in the evening plus raw marrowbone once a week for teeth cleaning, occupation when we are busy plus kongs etc. Recall and over excited greetings sorted with help of one to one trainer, daily training at mealtimes and walk times plus lunchtimes and group socialisation walks. Am only posting this
because I hunted the internet for help and other people's experiences and feel I should give back. The best advice I read on here was the best results are from going slowly and consistently with training. We are still a work in progress with over excitement on lead still to work on, off lead no problem. Felt a real high today when our trainer on the group walk described Cocopup as having no issues at all, lovely social dog just comes along to reinforce polite behaviour around other dogs! We are moving on to agility classes now. At home, she is calm and chilled now regardless of whether we have had a busy day or a quiet one.

Our pup is 12 weeks today. Hes doing very well - only thing he hates is being brushed. He goes wild for the brush.

Today another dog went for him and he was terrified poor thing. Has been very wary of other dogs since but he had a nice play with another puppy.

@getthepartystarted

I know exactly what you mean and I've had the same. Some people have encouraged her to do what I've just told them I'm trying to teach her not to.
I feel rude asking them to back off as I know they don't mean any harm but i don't want to teach puppy that she gets rewards in strikes and hugs etc for ignoring my commands.

Once when puppy was about 12 weeks, this man kept trying to stroke puppy but she was terrified of him, I asked him not to try stroke puppy and just let us past him as he was scaring her, he said "nonesense" and kept trying to reach the puppy, asked agin for him to let me past and which point he said "she needs to learn" and tried to pull the leash and dog towards him to pick her up. I picked my puppy up and walked in opposite direction and said he needs to learn that when a woman says no she means no.

I asked dh how he handled this as he's always been the one to do this part of the training and he said it's never happened to him, people don't approach him at all, I think it's something to do with him being a big, rugged angry looking skinhead!

A little puppy jumping up maybe cute and adorable now, but she will get bugger one day and I don't want the type of dog that runs and jumps at strangers. Most people are happy to wait a few seconds, but the odd one will whistle her etc so I started using a bit of an extra firm voice with puppy when I think someone is going to encourage her to ignore me and come stroke, I'll keep repeating sit etc in a firmer voice and she almost always stays sitting, most people hang back a few seconds and then stroke, but if they still keep trying to distract puppy and she goes to jump, I'll firmly tell puppy no and put her back where I had her, and encourage her to do what we were doing before they distracted her, once people realise I'm going to keep insisting puppy listens to me, instead of them they either give up and walk away or wait a few seconds and then stroke and fuss.

I'm no trainer but it's working for me so far, being assertive with the puppy and focussing on her avoided confronting strangers who get arsey at being asked not to distract her and puppy is learning it's me who is in charge, not strangers.

Bygum some people are so rude and ignorant when it comes to dogs. Not all dogs and puppies are friendly and they have teeth.

More doggy drama in the Blue house. Bluepuppy was playing in the dog park last night when some bigger dogs ganged up on him and forced him into a corner. He seemed fine but about 10 minutes later another dog owner noticed he was bleeding. On closer inspection the blood was coming from his nose. I took him home and just assumed his nose would stop bleeding and be okay.

Four hours later his nose was still bleeding and he didn't look happy. Of course it was 10pm by now but I decided to take him to the after hours vet. He threw up in the car so now I have a car with blood and vomit in it delightful. The vet put some adrenaline in his nose and it started to slow. Not before he managed to leave a trail of blood through the vet surgery. Delightful!

It was probably an overreaction to not wait until morning but it's so hard to know. Bluepuppy was meant to go to daycare today but obviously can't go now. He has to take it easy for a few days and I have more adrenaline to put in his nose if it starts bleeding again.

It's Glitterpup's second night here and he's not selling at night. He's been crying for the last twenty minutes (he's in the front room which is attached to the dining room and patio doors, which is where he goes for wees/poos).

He's got a create but hates it and won't go in for longer than five seconds. He spa crying if I'm in the room. Should I be sleeping on the sofa?

Glitter I'd either sleep down on the sofa near him or take him and his crate upstairs into your room. Contrary to popular opinion you won't be making a rod for your own back and once he's settled and sleeping through the night you can either retreat back to your room or gradually move him to where you want him to sleep long term.

If you've only had him a day I'm presuming he's only eight weeks old or so? He's still a very tiny baby and it's a massive upheaval for him to go from being with his mum and littermates pretty much 24/7 to suddenly being expected to sleep completely alone in a strange place. The last thing you want is for him to associate being on his own, or being in his crate, with these feelings of distress.

Another advantage of sleeping near the puppy at night is that it makes night time toilet breaks much easier. If you hear them moving around you can nip them out and back inside before they've even properly woken up so you don't have to contend with settling a wide awake puppy back to sleep.

This list has links to some great puppy related guides, including on early sleeping arrangements and crate training.