Young Puppy Support Group

[DuchessDarty]

I’d been looking for one of these but the only puppy support thread currently running is for older puppies. I’ve seen a few threads recently from posters who have new puppies like me, and thought I’d start our own group as I’d love to compare notes. But all welcome!

To kick off -

My pup, DartyPup, is a female poodle cross who is nearly 11 weeks old. Very sweet, friendly, fairly calm, sleeps a good stretch at night in her crate no problem and is happy to play in the garden by herself if I’m in the kitchen/conservatory and we easily have eyes on each other. She has a lot of naps and is doing well with house training.

But- she has the usual puppy traits of being needy and nippy. She loves biting bare toes and has a witching hour in the evening (as another poster aptly describes it!).

I adore the bond we seem to have bit am finding it draining. My children are old enough to be hands on and are keen to be, but their periods of peak energy don’t always correspond with the Pup’s. And when it comes down to it, she often wants me and so will whine if left with them downstairs while I escape for a rest. If they mistakenly leave a door open giving her access to the stairs, she’ll leg it up to find me. A stair gate isn’t an option unfortunately due to the design of our stairs.

Both my kids have never been particularly early risers and I’ve always been secretly pleased about dodging 6am wake up calls ... until DartyPup.

Thanks 3teens that's a good idea - will try that. I suppose then the new smells etc keep them occupied without having to chew the lead!

Yes Dlpdep they're fab aren't they! A good family friend of ours has always had cockers who were all lovely family pets, part of the reason we decided on that breed. Yours both sound gorgeous.

Thank you for the advice as well - that makes sense to give them a bit of a trail to sniff things out.

We've just had a new floor put down in our living room and our pup just walks around with his nose and to the ground the whole time he's in there - funny to see.

My puppy slept all by herself last night!!!!. She put herself to bed around 8, got up pretending she needed to pee at 10 and then slept until 4.45 (I get up at 5 anyway). After a week on the kitchen floor it was so nice to sleep in my own bed!!

Please let it not have been a one off!

Well DartyPup is in the doghouse...

Left her alone while went to short hospital appointment for Child No. 1.
In excitement on our return, when Child No.2 (DS - 10) sat down on the carpet, DartyPup jumped up at from behind and leaned round and bit his ear.
Cue scream.
DS runs into kitchen with bleeding ear.
DartyPup shut outside bathroom whining to get in, while I tended to DS who was moaning in pain.
Big fish of blood.
Cut on ear lobe looked potentially deep and nasty.
Trip to A&E - 2nd hospital of the day.
DH had to come back to work from home in order to look after fluffy jaws.
Great female hospital consultant who has a 5 month old puppy.
Dr and I exchanged stories and she gave me both child and puppy advice, which is the NHS going some.
(I wanted to ask her if she’d like to join this thread but I was too shy.)
Rupture was superficial luckily but still needed to be glued back together.
Ear can’t get wet for 5 days.
DS on course of antibiotics for 5 days.
DartyPup clearly remorseful as when we came back she trotted on straight past me (unheard of) to DS and was licking his hand.
DS and DD now under firm instructions to be much stricter about not letting DartyPup jump up at them.
Gin.

lol at ‘big fish of blood’. Typo, should be ‘gush’

We have a baby monitor camera where our puppy sleeps. Last night our puppy (who isn’t able to jump up on the couch by the way) climbed up on her crate and jumped from there on to he worktop!!! Cue a mad dash downstairs to save her from jumping down from the worktop and the end of the crate!!! I’m considering DNA testing to make sure we don’t actually have a cat rather than a pup!!!

How's child today @DuchessDarty is he healing ok?

@Dlpdep we have a climber too. He's a horror for it.

MarvelPup is not a fan of ran so don't think we'll be walking anywhere today. I'm off to look for new training things we can try to tire him out later!

Hello all I hope it’s okay to join. About three years ago I started a thread that became the puppy support thread when I was on my knees with Skeletonpup (now very much SkeletonDog hahaha). In feb this year we lost our older dog, a border collie, and the house hasn’t felt the same since. On Friday we are picking up a little girly border collie, and I’m a mixture of insanely excited and petrified to do it all again!! I’m going to read through this whole thread this evening to refresh my mind of the realities haha!

Oh and here’s the little munchkin!

So sorry to hear about your bigDog Skeleton. I often wonder how you are getting on 😁

Ah thanks Bitey, Skeletonpup is doing well and loves his agility. I lurk on the general dog chat thread sometimes to keep up with Biteypup! Not sure I’m ready to go through it all again haha

Thank you @MsMarvellousfor asking after my poor bitten child, he's doing grand today. Pain subsided. He's taking his 3x day antibiotics like a trooper, and is reminding me that her needs them. We just need to wait 4 more days for the glue to set.

I'm trying to stop myself from feeling like I've done wrong as a mother and a dog-owner but things are so stressful ChezDarty at the moment as eldest child has very big serious health problems right now, I don't really have the luxury of self-reflection right now.

I am though having pangs of guilt for having left DartyPup for a few hours alone. But that was for last-minute emergency hospital appointments for eldest, it really couldn't be helped. And we have left her for a few hours alone before. She's 19 weeks. And she really doesn't like not being in the same room as me. It's getting to be a problem tbh, which is stressful because my children need me so much right now.

Sorry for sad stuff

Duchess you are doing your best juggling everyone's needs and that is all you can do .

Skeleton you are very brave doing it all again . Can't believe BiteyDog is almost 3 soon. Seems like only yesterday when he was a peeing, pooing, bitey monster 😆

@DuchessDarty I know the feeling. We don't have health issues but have other things causing stress and at times I wonder if a puppy was such a good idea right now. It's horrible isn't it.

But then I think that he's 15 weeks now and growing fast. He already settles a little better on an evening and chews a little less. Seeing progress helps.

The bit wanting to separate is a killer. I settled him in his crate as if we were going out to do bath and bed for the kids last night. Seemed to work ok.

I hope things start to get easier and I'm glad boy child is healing xx

@duchess, how scary for you all. Sounds like you have a lot on your plate right now. Welcome to the new pups. Our boy is now 20 weeks and in many ways he is easier but we still have our little issues as to be expected. He is happy to be left alone for a few hours, I recorded what he gets up to while we are gone and he mostly sleeps. He loves being outside playing and I worry he doesn't get enough rest so I make sure he is left alone for a sleep, even if I just go upstairs for a bit. Tricky now it's school holidays and youngest is in and out with his friends all day. For one reason and another, mostly due to the delay in his vaccines, we did not do puppy classes. I am thinking of booking a couple of one to one sessions with a trainer just to boost my confidence and check I am doing it right? He is not my first dog so I feel I should know what I'm doing but, like parenting, ideas change over the years and each dog is different. Has anyone else ever had one to one sessions?

Has anyone else ever had one to one sessions?

Yes and far better than any group training sessions I have attended.

Thanks biteyshark. I have found one through recommendations on Facebook and her prices seem pretty reasonable. I just want to boost my confidence really. He has always been quite a bold and confident puppy yet recently he has started to be nervous of things he previously had paid no attention to. I hope if I feel confident in what I am doing he will feed off that.

I think a 1:1 session would be good, as you miss out all the irrelevant waffle and can just focus on what you’re after and get new ideas.

Leaving them alone is one of the biggest challenges because there’s so many conflicting opinions on how it should be done. SkeletonDog was awful , AWFUL at first, cried even if I was in the same room but he was in the pen! Gradually I just left him and got on with what I needed to do and he did get over it. I always leave him with something to eat when I leave, a kong, a stuffed bone, a carrot, and that seems to have helped. I joined an fb group called ‘Beyond the bowl’ which has some good ideas for Kongs.

Tomorrow’s the day, think I’m pretty much ready. Got toys, playpen is up, need to set the crate up in our room but will do that once she’s home and use the same one she’s travelling home in. Got lots of natural chews too. God help me haha!

3teens yes we've had a 1:1 training session and are having another tomorrow before we start classes. (The trainer who came to us does her own classes but too far away for us unfortunately).

It was great, she asked us what we wanted to focus on, so it was completely tailored to what we needed. It was early days and we hadn't been out for walks etc, so we just did some basic commands at that stage. We're going to do lead stuff tomorrow I think. Our pup will do anything for her

It was £30 for an hour which is probably good value really.

I think I will persue it. Round here a puppy course costs £70/80. The trainer advertises £25 per hour. So for the same price I could get 3 1:1 sessions which I think would be far better and anyway he is too old for the puppy class now he is 20 weeks, even though he is still very small.

I’ve booked pup in for an assessment with a trainer next week. She does some kind of Kennel club good citizen scheme, hoping it’ll be good.
@Whywhywhy1 my pup is 10 weeks now. She had her first injection last week and the vet said to wait 5 days before letting her mix with vaccinated dogs. It seems like the advice is different in different places. She has her next jab on Monday and then it’s 2 weeks before we can take her out.
One thing I’m struggling with is how much to feed her. The packet says for a pup who’s going to be a medium sized dog aged 2-6 months she should be having 100-390g daily which seems such a massive range.

She always seems to look for more when I feed her But then settles fine and sleeps/plays once she’s forgotten.

newpup the kennel club good citizen scheme is quite fun to work through, they have different levels that’s you work towards that they learn different things for, like stay, walking past food without taking it, greeting people nicely etc. It’s good fun.

Mouldipup is growing - surprise, surprise! Ankle biting and toilet training slowly getting there, but OMG the walking! He thinks he’s a Duracell bunny - pulls and hops constantly till he strangles himself, then lies down while he recovers - then up and off again! I know the theory of lead training is when they pull, stop and when lead is slack change direction, but what do you do when they start off with a lunge? I can just see myself standing in one spot spinning round for an hour! I think I might try one of the harnesses where you can attach lead both back and front as that apparently helps. He’s just in such a hurry all the time. Thank God he’s a small breed!

@SkeletonSkins ooh good! I’ll look forward to it then. She is NEVER going to be able to walk past a bowl of food!!