Puppy Survival Thread Part 6

[Elphame]

As thread 5 is almost full!

@duplodancer how was the rest of the weekend?

@marioncole he's 12.5 weeks now.

Can I ask how you are all handling training as a family. DH didn't take the time to read the same book as me. So then I hear him growling "down" at the dog 5 times in a row when he's jumped on the sofa. Or reacting to barking by saying shhhh, rather than ignoring. It's getting my blood up more than the puppy.

Can I ask how you are all handling training as a family.

DH and I only got on the same page when we had a 1-1 lesson with a trainer when someone other than me explained why letting him jump up wasn't a good idea

@MuddyWellyNelly still relatively good! Thanks god! Yes I have exactly the same problem with training. I try to teach DH and DC stuff in short sessions over the weekend and explain why it's important but essentially there's a lot of gritting my teeth and raging inside. I find other people can be infuriating too. All the DC's friends try to 'train' him.

Oh yes, everyone else's ideas about 'training' pup 🙄

Gahhh I was feeling so smug about this weekend. Totally thought we'd nailed it and then he pooed on the kitchen floor in protest last night because we didn't cuddle him to sleep before going to bed ourselves 😆.
So close!

@duplo muddy and bitey YES YES YES, we have the same thing in our house. Britepup is very good with me and doesn't bite or beg for food, but when with the rest of the family she is a nightmare. I spend more time yelling at the kids or DH, or at least trying not to yell at them....

I am enforcing compulsory attendance at puppy school this week!!!

Compulsory classes sounds good!

Oh no @duplodancer what a shame. Naughty pup.

I'm on such a steep learning curve here! Maybe the downside of not getting him till 11 weeks. I want to carry on his socialisation but not sure what to do next. He's 5 days post jabs. And I think he's already getting too big for the only crate that fits in my car. Well at least for sleeping. He's probably ok for short journeys for now. But how do I transfer to the boot? I don't have a dog guard. And don't get me started on clicker training. I've nailed sit. But been trying to work on not being on the sofa. I've rewarded for jumping off and being on the floor but I swear he's worked out that if he does the naughty thing first it will ultimately lead to a reward. And not sure the anti-biting training is working either. Sigh.

On the plus side he is a bit more settled and he will voluntarily lie down once in a while now. And the last 2 nights he's been dry all night.

Can I join? We got a labradoodle puppy yesterday. It's the first time I've ever had a dog so I feel I am on a steep learning curve. To make matters more complicated we also have two kittens (aged 3.5 months). Both cats seem curious about the new puppy and keep approaching her, although one of them hisses at her if she gets too close. She wags her tail at them. (I'm told they spent their first six weeks in a house with a dog - my SIL also visited a few weeks ago with their small dog).

We've had a couple of wees in the garden and the rest in the house although I take her outside regularly (she loves the garden, particularly the leaves).

Adorable @ghoststomonsoon. The kitten too. Is the carrot for the donkey? . Do you take her on the lead to go out

I've been watching some youtube videos and realised that it is in fact possible that I've trained my dog to do a bad behaviour before the good. Also I know in reality it must be 100% operator error, but I'm beginning to think my adorable puppy is a bit thick . I'll do a few repetitions of something so I think he's definitely getting it and then he'll massively regress until he's just barking at me for a treat. Sigh. Just now I'd done a heap of "no biting" training which seemed to go well, then a minute later I reached my hand down to him and he did his snapping turtle impression immediately (it's not biting but it sometimes accidentally catches one of us)

The adult dogs snacked in a carrot when we went to visit the breeders. I'd never seen that before. I've been taking her out on the lead - she wasn't used to one - but she also has a run around off lead as the garden is enclosed. Must have a read-through of the thread to get some tips.

Hello @GhostsToMonsoon 🙂

I bought a 15 metre lead from Amazon and took pup out into our garden with that today. He had a great time. Recall training didn't get very far off the ground 🙄

Aah it feels like 1 step forward 2 back. Thought he'd made improvements last night on the mouthing and grabbing my dressing gown. Stopped the session, went to get something and when I came back (30 seconds later) he lunged straight for my dressing gown. He's also pee'd inside once this morning already despite having been out several times, nearly did a poo which I caught in time, and is relentlessly behaving like an arsehole. Does anyone know how long it takes them to learn (I know dogs don't generalise well and you need to proof the training etc).

Thoughts on separation? He seems happy to go in his crate and snooze and doesn't seem to mind when we go out. But as I can't puppy proof well (all rooms have electric storage heaters) we don't often walk out and leave him in a room. Recently when I've been plonking him in the utility for chewing me, he's got a lot more whiny and barky. OTOH he seems to be happy to be away from me to amuse himself both in house and outside so he's not the insecure pup I'd expected.

I suspect once he can go out and about properly it will get easier. I hope.

Hi Ghosts - cute pup!

duplodancer - poo in the house definitely gets harder as they get bigger doesn't it - birdypup's absolutely stink!

marioncole - we got a harness about 2 weeks ago as birdypup was determined to strangle herself. She walks so much better with it but, like yours getting it on is a bit of a struggle. I go for aiming it under the chin to start and then whipping over her head.

Sleepwise our tough love approach seems to be working - birdypup has slept until around 6 for the past 3 nights and she was still lying down when I got into the kitchen at 10 past 6 today. First time I have been woken by my alarm since mid-July!!

It's such a shame that we are going away for 4 nights tomorrow and she'll probably get all out of sorts while we are away - although at least she'll be in our house rather than somewhere else.

Today I bought pup an antler filled with peanut butter. Best thing I ever bought. He's been completely preoccupied with it for about three hours now and hasn't attempted to chew anything else.

Reading these posts I've realised I'm very lucky with sleeping - puppy has woken just once in the night each night. She sleeps in her bed on the floor by my side of the bed.

I was wondering if most puppy owners work from home or are retired/SAHPs? I work in an office about 6 hours per week, sometimes a bit extra, but even that seems too much at the moment. Fortunately my mum has been able to come and look after puppy despite not being a dog lover at all.

@GhostsToMonsoon I work from home, although I've got far less done than normal over the last few weeks  Eventually when pup is toilet trained and he can have the run of the house he can come into my office. At the moment though I'm sitting in the kitchen with him during the day and only really working when he's asleep.

Marioncole - I sometimes work from home but the study is definitely not puppy-proof! I think I'll have to either use a laptop in the kitchen or work when she naps.

Yes I do what I can on my laptop in the kitchen but it doesn't have most of the software I need.

😣😣 I am so fed up with the biting when I'm getting his harness on 😣😣 I've bought another which the legs go through rather than the head but he's still biting.

@GhostsToMonsoon I work two x short days a week and am definitely finding it tricky.
I also think a lot of the training / advice given is ridiculous - there must be room for some pragmatism. All this take your pup outside every 15 minutes and never leave them alone for more than 5 minutes or whatever.
I can't see that anybody can live up to that, certainly not anyone who works or has children.
@marioncole I feel your pain. The amount of stuff we've bought and then had to replace because it didn't work / he grew out of it. I'm broke!!

@duplodancer I'd certainly find it easier if I were at home full-time with no children. It's hard when they all need attention. Two mornings a week doesn't sound much but it feels it with a puppy!

I'm going a bit stir-crazy at the moment as waiting for vaccinations on Friday before going on walks - has anyone taken a puppy out before the second vaccination? Fortunately our garden is quite big.

@GhostsToMonsoon I'm afraid I did a bit. He was far too big to carry so I was missing that option and the garden wasn't working for him.
Spent the whole time worrying about him picking something awful up though so not sure it helped me much!
The vet said dry clean pavements were better than anywhere wet / doggy but best to avoid altogether if you possibly can. Again I felt I had to be pragmatic. Probably depends what your area is like for the illnesses it protects against too.

One of my puppy books said dogs are more likely to be put down because of behavioural problems due to lack of socialisation than because of a dog disease, so in that respect getting out and about early could be worth it - fortunately the second vaccination is at 10 rather than 12 weeks. On the other hand in the unlikely event she did pick something up, I would feel very guilty.

My SIL's little dog is staying this weekend (he's not much bigger than our puppy) - will be interesting to see how they get on.

@duplodancer @marioncole our pup has SO
MANY TOYS 😭😭 and only plays with a few of them. So I only bring a few out at a time now, then he gets a bit more interested.

Morning. Quiet on here - must be the puppies taking all our time .

Things are better here now that we can officially go out on walks. I totally breached the 5 minute rule on Friday but had a lovely walk off lead and a very quiet evening haha. We've been working hard on socialisation - cafes, supermarket, farmers market, horses, sheep, other kids, cows, heavy traffic. Last night there were fireworks and he was asleep - didn't bat an eyelid!

I have questions, of course...

• what insurance did anyone go with? We went with T-bank in the end. The cat is with MoreThan and they've been very good, but their vet policy was only £4k per condition (£12k per annum total) which would be easily breached. Whereas Tesco is £10k per year in total. I went with Lifetime policies. My horses are with NFU and I've heard they are very good too (they are with the horses, certainly).

-Coats. Our vizla puppy probably needs one. I'm going to get an equafleece but also looking for a waterproof one. I might just get a cheap secondhand one, but has anyone got recommendations?

• Treats. What does anyone put in the kong (the cone shaped ones?). Currently using primula. We've also got one and no idea what to put in it!

Talking of toys, one of our most popular has been a tip I read on here - buying a couple of cheap cuddly toys from the charity shop. The tip said to remove the eyes - which we tried, with tweezers, pliers, scissors, the lot. Given how hard this was, we've left them in but don't let him have the teddy overnight. He loves it though .

I still need to address toilet training properly as we've got a very inconsistent approach. We don't have too many accidents in the day but I'm not sure we are making life easy on ourselves!

Anyway hope everyone is enjoying the weekend with puppies. It was so warm yesterday. Today it's raining but I'm quite looking forward to a soggy walk.