Puppy - idiots guide please!

[Notmybag]

We have a new puppy after losing our dog last year but I honestly feel clueless and don't seem to remember a thing even though I have owned a dog all my life! I feel stupid saying this!
Spaniel Pup is 9 weeks old seems quite bright but is currently a mess of poo and wee. Needing to be let out at night once or twice too (DH sleeping downstairs)
Feeding 7,12 and 6pm does that seem ok?
Is this ok? When will it end?
Have created a play pen area with bed, water bowl and wee mats in it so that puppy can be safe while I pop upstairs to shower!
It is like a new born baby!

Any idiots guides I can read to refresh my memory as I seem to have blanked puppyhood from my memory altogether!

'This too will pass' - quicker than it does for a human baby.

I can't remember it all either... hopefully someone else will be along soon!

House training - hopefully you've got the anti-odour spray, clean up any indoor messes rigorously. Put some used wee mats outside so that the smell of the correct place to 'go' is clear and praise lavishly when he gets it right.

Of course, no one can advise properly without some puppy pictures...

Battendog is a 1 year old springer so, despite all dogs being different, his timings might help give you a guide...

• He was clean through the night from about 11 weeks old onwards.
• He was mostly clean during the day (odd accidents if I wasn't watching closely enough) from about 4 months old and totally clean from about 6 months

I fed four times a day for the first 4 weeks then moved him down to 3 times. So long as he eats well and keeps the food down (i.e. the volume isn't too much for him) then 3 is also fine and I knw some people who only do 3 from the start.

Anything else?

We have a 12 week old. Like you say, it's amazing how much about puppyhood you forget, but it does come back in light bulb moments .

We use a crate and that is inside a pen. We didn't use puppy pads as I thought they might actually just train the puppy to go inside. I slept downstairs with him for 5 nights, got him up every 3 hours or so in the night to go outside then put him straight back in his crate. After that I moved back to our own bed. He whines and barks at night if he needs to go out (which was every one and a half hours last night as he had an upset tummy, but at least he let me know), and he usually needs to go out just once now.

The crate/pen is in the kitchen so he has access to the kitchen, conservatory and outside, but nowhere else in the house yet. I read that makes toilet training easier. I'm going to introduce him to other rooms gradually and when I know he's just toileted so hopefully no accidents.

He's still fed 4 times a day - 7,11,3 and then 7 ish. I'm going to drop him down to 3 times a day in a week or so as he's a large breed so I think he can keep the larger amounts down now.

He's been able to go out for walks for the last week which has been lovely. I let him off lead straight away and he doesn't stray more than a few yards from my side as it's all so new to him. Before that I carried him everywhere and took him out as much as possible like that to socialise him. He's a very sociable little guy and doesn't seem phased by much at the moment.

Hi - my Cockapoo is now 20 weeks so we've just emerged from intense period of early puppyhood. These were the things that helped us

• last feed 5pm enabled her to empty bowels before bedtime so stopped night poos.
• fussy feeder initially - added a bit of cooked chicken for just a few weeks.
• outside for toileting at least every hour. We used a clicker and a tiny bit of training treat for every wee and poo done outside. First toilet 6am to last toilet was 11pm. This has now lengthen to 7am - 10pm.....pretty civilised!
• Cockapoo loves Barking Heads puppy food.
• lots of chewy toys essential to reduce house and garden damage....split antlers are excellent.

Hope this helps.....very best of luck, they grow so quickly!

When can we stop sleeping with the puppy to let it out?

We've done the hourly outside in the day too Tinkobell but he's fairly reliable now inside as long as confined to kitchen etc. Also yes to lots and lots of chew toys to divert biting away from us and clothing and onto something he's allowed to chew.

I would have thought now would be fine to stop sleeping downstairs. Just set an alarm for just before he's been needing to go out and get up and take him out. So if he's been getting up at 2am, set an alarm for 1.30 and get him outside. I'd also say don't leave water in his crate at night if you are doing, especially now the weather has cooled down.

He may well need to go outside at least once per night for a few more weeks now. Has he been waking your DH to go out at night? If so then I'm sure he'll continue to do that if he happens to need outside before your alarm goes off. Can you hear him from upstairs?

No can't hear him from upstairs so DH has been on an air bed in the hallway!

My cocker as a puppy would not last through the night without a pee break when little. I worked on the principle that he could hold it at night for 1 hour per month of age plus 1 (so at 8 weeks 3 hours, 12 weeks 4 hours) and I set up an alarm to take him out. Some people prefer to just take them out when they awake but despite having a baby video and monitor he would wake silently and I wouldn't hear him so I went with the alarm.

Similar to missbattenburg's pup we had the odd accident in the day but from about 5-6 months I would say he was clean.

I never used puppy pads anywhere as I never wanted to encourage any toileting inside so I put playpen on a hard surface and any accidents I just moped up.

Did feeding three times a day and he naturally started to eat less around 5 months of age so at 6 months I cut down to two meals a day. Ironically we are back to feeding three meals (BiteyDog is a few months off being 2 years old) as I find it is better for his digestion.

Feeding three times doesn’t seem enough, he’s just left his mum and most people feed four meals for the first few weeks.
Agree that baby puppies stay close so safe off lead. They don’t need walks when very young, it’s bad for their joints.

Can you get a baby monitor so that you can hear him in your bedroom? Amazon have them from around £20 with next day delivery. I can't imagine that your DH wants to spend the next couple of months on the air bed!

I think they do need walks for socialising, lead training, recall training, but age appropriate in time/length ie 15 mins at 12 weeks, 20 mins at 20 weeks.

Notmybag you could train him to ring the doorbell when he wants out. You can get some brilliant dog door bell trainings aids that just hang from the door. Ddog2 picked it up within 48 hours and was housetrained from that moment on

Should we be making sure he doesn't sleep too much early evening so that he sleeps well at night?

At that age they need lots of sleep. All you will do by trying to keep him awake is make him tired and overstimulated.

Ours will be six months old this week. He's a beagle.

We brought him home from the breeder at 12 weeks old. He needed the toilet once or twice a night until about 15 weeks and since then he's reliably slept through from about 10.30pm-7am.

He's been dry in the day from about 14/15 weeks but that was with us taking him out constantly - after every meal/drink, nap time, playtime and every thirty minutes while awake. He hasn't had an accident for about three weeks now.

Puppies sleep - a LOT. Don't try and keep him up, all you'll do is end up with a massively over-tired and over-stimulated dog. They sleep around 18-19 hours a day at that age and they won't be awake for long. I can't give much advice about crate training or anything as ours sleeps on the bed with us, and he goes to daycare when we're at work. He has separation anxiety and as a pack animal he gets distressed when he's on his own. I'm sure we could train him to tolerate it if necessary but we have a fantastic daycare provider, plus plenty of family members who will help out for a few hours here and there.

We found we needed a LOT of chew toys, far more than we ever imagined. Ours has zero interest in fetch/balls, though. You'll need to find what works for your dog and use it to your advantage in training as well.

And get signed up for puppy classes once he's had his vaccines :)

Are raw hide chews okay for puppies?
Other chew recommendations?

Nylabone, rope chew toys, puppy teething toys, stuffed Kongs are especially good. We stuff ours with cream cheese or puppy wet food and freeze them to make them last longer. Also frozen carrot batons.

Raw hide are not recommended for dogs these days.

We do use rawhide chews - they're not recommended without supervision (yes, I do know how they're made but our beagle isn't remotely interested in anything else except pigs ears which he's certainly not having everyday) and it's the only thing that stops him chewing the house.

I would never leave him with one unsupervised and always remove it when it gets too small for him. He shows no interest in Nyla bones or antlers, pizzle sticks and the like last about 30 seconds, and he has no interest in rubber chews.

The edible peanut butter and chicken bones are great but they don't last much longer than 15 minutes.