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)

towel, our old terrier hated having his feet touched, luckily didn't need grooming. Cocopup does every eight weeks. She always needs drying off after walks so I have done a lot of paw work with treats. I thought she was pretty good a while back, then noticed she was licking her lips and a bit stressed. Started doing treats again and making giving me her paws fun. I also brush and comb her every night regardless of how short/dry her fur is...she enjoys this and then gets a tripe stick. We eat, tv goes on and that is her day done, a sort of bedtime routine! She loves our groomer who does clicker training with the dogs. I take her in, she is madly excited, I collect her, she is madly excited but I have peeked through the window when she is on the table and she is still, alert but calm, I think they hypnotise her😁 I would definetly find a grooming parlour you are happy with, ask around and leave your dog cos maybe he is picking up on anxiety from you. Def agree that groomer should have stopped though.

DH is a SAHD so thankfully no need for daycare.

No Prime here as live on a Scottish Island so everything takes for ever to arrive. Sheep and seals at the end of the garden.

Hey guys. Me again.

i pick my girl up on Thursday evening. I'll be child free until Sunday / Monday and have booked a week off work.

Is that enough time to get her mostly toilet trained?

Also, I was really hoping to have days out with the kids from Monday with our girl coming with us for walks. But have realised she doesn't have her final injections until 10 weeks.
Does this mean she cannot go on walks? I've also read it's really important to socialise her from a young ago. So I'm a little confused on that.

Mine took weeks to get toilet training. If you work full time a week off won't be anything like enough. They need you a LOT when they are little. Pup may be on three meals a day for a while still.
No you can't take the dog for a wal until some time after the second jabs. Carry to socialise.

iPhoneAddiction it took weeks for my pup to be fully housetrained. It varies by puppy, some house train easily whilst other take a lot longer. I had 1 month at home and he still wasn't housetrained despite taking him outside all the time.

Socialisation is recommended to start asap and can be done before vaccinations by carrying them in your arms. I had to wait one week after the second set of vaccinations to be able to walk him on the street. Prior to that I carried him to get him used to cars noises etc.

Agreed it takes a while - one week won't do it for 99% of people and pups. We had someone off full time with pup for first month and then gradually built up time. When you go back to work, who will have the puppy?

You can't take it on walks but you can get it out and about in your arms for socialising :)

How long toilet training take varies depending on the individual but as a general rule they don't start getting properly reliable until about six months old. Some get it quicker and take longer but it's certainly not going to happen within a week, they just aren't capable of that level of bladder/bowel control at that age.

How long will you be leaving the puppy for after a week? You need to factor in teaching them to be happy being left, it's a very big change for them to go from being with their mum and siblings 24/7 to being expected to settle happily completely on their own in a new place.

Socialisation wise you can carry your puppy out and about before their vaccinations are complete and it is very important to do this. At the same time you need to keep things positive and make sure it's not all getting too much for your puppy, a few great experiences are much better than loads where they're overwhelmed by the experience.

If you've not already I'd recommend having a read through the various articles on this list, they cover pretty much everything you need to know to get started.

Hello, can I join? After a looooong time discussing and planning and searching we brought home our chihuahua puppy on Friday! He's everything I wanted since I was a little girl so I'm thrilled to bits, still no name though.

I have a question about crates if anyone can advise?

He has a crate, it has a blanket in it to sleep on, he seems to like it in there and will happily snuggle down and nap for a few hours at a time.

I have read conflicting advice though,

Should he have his food and water bowl in with him? Should this be at all times or just set times a day?
Should he have access to food all day or again once or twice a day (obviously water is always out)
Toys - is it wise to give him his own dog friendly cuddly toy or will it encourage chewing of the kids soft toys?
He has rubber bones and a puppy sized chewy bone but today has started chewing his blanket in his crate, should we remove it in favour of an actual bed or leave him to it?

Here's a picture of puppy no name. :)

I just put food down at set times of the day and then remove it after a while. This way food times are 'special' rather than him grazing on it all day. Having meal times also helps in that you can then work out when they are liable to toilet (my pup pooed around 30 mins after feeding when he was very little)

Some people advocate having water in the crate at all times but mine didn't and still doesn't but I encourage him to drink in the evenings and he is never thirsty in the morning.

Expect pup to chew things when young. Mine liked zips on beds so we had to avoid them. If he chewed something he shouldn't it was removed and we encouraged him to chew on what we wanted.

Thanks, currently we're leaving water out and giving him access to the recommended amount of food during the day but putting it away at night, we've not yet had an accident of any kind (probably jinxed that now!)

When he chews the children or any socks left out or similar I take them away and replace with his puppy kong but if I remove his own blanket he'll have nothing to sleep on, his toys are in the crate with him.

We really need to settle on a name, I wanted to call him Newt (Scamander) but the rest of the household said no, I also like Walter (O'Brien) we like to Ames our animals after characters we like, we ha e 6 chickens named after the members of SHIELD. 😂

I have a crate matress type thing which fits into the bottom and is waterproof and also a bed in his crate for my dog to sleep on. The thing with blankets was that I found he would drag them around the house rather than use them to sleep on.

We do give him water in his crate. Our personal pet trainer recommended we do so so we did.

Id agree a week isn't long enough to toilet train though our bulldog has learned it fairly quickly. Usually it's human error when he wee's in the house.

Titsalina they should always have access to water, including in their crate. You can get special crate bowls which they can't tip over if that's an issue.

Vet bedding is brilliant for putting in their crates when they're little and destructive, it's lovely and soft but surprisingly hard for them to shred.

Food wise he should still be on four meals a day for a month or so. Normally you'd swap a puppy from four to three meals at about twelve weeks old but Chihuahuas develop slower than other breeds due to their extreme size (hence why breeders don't let them go until twelve weeks) so I'd keep him on four meals until sixteen weeks or so then drop him down to three. I find mine start losing interest a little in their lunch time meal at around six months, at which point I swap them down to two meals which is what they stay on through adulthood.

Just to add, toilet training is much easier when they have set meal times as it means you can much more accurately predict when they're going to need to go out.

Could be worse. Wolfie pup was on five meals a day at first! She does have water in her crate. (Didn't when she was tiny as it was winter. She wasn't in there unless actually sleeping and I slept next to her so she came out to wee or drink (or cuddle) but now she's in the crate all night I would hate her to go thirsty.
Thinking back toilet training was certainly a month of watching her every move!
She has to have set meal times. Wolfhounds shouldn't graze and need to avoid exercise for an hour before or after food. Bloat risk.
Vet bed is awesome. Easily washable. Too heavy to drag around. Surprisingly sturdy to. It lines her bed and the back of my car too!

Ahh, thank you lovely pup-people: I almost didn't tell you as I felt so shit! I spent a long time googling muzzles and thinking I'd just have to muzzle him all the time from now on ... luckily even my behaviouralist who is uber-careful said nope to that idea! I think new groomer is a must - old groomer (who was recommended by a friend with a schnauzer) said that she thought he was 'being a dominant male' which did make me [hmmm]

I think the key thing was that she held him down - and whilst i groom every night (we do toothbrush first - which he lurrvves) then brush/comb time, plus I have a couple of dog 'rakes' that pull out the soft under fur to leave his guard hair ... but I never hold him: if he wants to escape, he does, I work round him. And she wasn't giving him that option. So, I suspect the key thing I have to do is a bit of constraining him and getting him used to having no option and just having to have whichever bit of him groomed, groomed. Iykwim!

iphoneaddiction: we had one week with the whole family off work, then I had 2-3 weeks work free (I work from home) - our pup toilet trained very quickly (I think we only ever had about 1 wee inside a day over the first couple of weeks) but even so, one week would not have been enough!

Titsaline: Newt is an awesome name: I think of the lovely Newt in Alien films too (the little girl in the second film)

Oh towel don't feel bad. Wolfie HATED her legs touched or being groomed at all. I started doing a quick leg touch or just running a brush over for a couple of seconds. Gradually did more. Tonight she stood and let me zoom groom and brush and then do a bit of combing too. She got a treat straight afterwards!
We had a lot of wees inside!
I love the name Newt!!

Newt is a fab name!! I've never really mentioned it as it's hugely outing (in fact I think I adapted it to begin with and said we called him something else) but our pup is called Obi Wan Kenobi lol, Obi for short 😂

Fab! Thanks everyone, I'll get some vet bed and start looking at mealtimes.
The kids have vetoed all my name suggestions and collectively have named him Sherlock, not the most original name but now I have something for the vet & insurance paperwork and microchip.

And she's bleeding again. Not much but I'm guessing walk with DH and DD tomorrow morning is out. Infection risk?!
Remind me if I ever forget. NEVER CUT ANOTHER NAIL!!!

Have you got any flour or cornstarch to dab on the end? I've heard that can work quite well to stop the bleeding.

Sherlocks a good name too I reckon! Not one I hear all the time :)

It's not dripping. She scraped the floor and it left smears of blood. She lay down and I could see a bead of blood at the end of the claw but it didn't drip (she had been lying there maybe 10-20 minutes)
She hates having her feet messed with so I would rather leave her if I can. She's in bed now. Hoping it stops overnight. Just worried about getting stuff in it if we do a proper walk today (stuck to soft surfaces today.)

titsalina, just to add to your question re mealtimes...I know a few dogs belonging to family and friends who have food down all day and each of them have become incredibly fussy eaters. My SIL's staffy ignores its dried food all day cos she has learnt that by doing so she will get all their leftovers in the evening which they now cook extra to make sure they have some☹️ Also mealtimes are a good time to teach sit and wait to a young dog.

6 puppies arrived safely overnight. I am in love