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.

13 weeks old here. The UTI has really set us back with the toilet training and it’s really getting me down. We were almost there but I feel like we’ve taken a real step back, plus when DH is in charge he just doesn’t take her out enough. It’s so frustrating. Just going to keep going with it and hope she gets it soon.

Her recall training is going much better however. She’s turning away from dogs more often to get a treat and we’ve been practicing calling her to get some treats. So that’s a positive.

In terms of leaving her - well from 15 weeks she’s going to be left about 4 hours per day 4 days a week but this will be split up at 2 hours with a wee break. I’ve also booked her in with a dog walker friend of mine for two afternoons. So far we’ve left her an hour at a time so hoping to build this up ice the next week or so.

I attempted to leave our pup for 3 hours today, he was in his crate and I knew he was knackered. It was too long though as he had wee'd in the crate when I got back and wasn't very happy 🙁 I might look into getting a puppy camera so I can get an idea of how long he will sleep for.

He was good this afternoon though, it was a nice day so I left the back door open and he just pottered in and out and played nicely with his toys. This meant I could actually get on with work!

Taking him for walks is a bit of a work in progress, he is pretty hopeless on the lead and off the lead spends most of the time attacking my ankles as I try and walk 😳

Puppy class tomorrow so might see if they've got any ideas for nice walking!

How's everyone doing?

We had a good second puppy class, was given lots of tips to help with the walking to try.

Puppy slept loads Ystd and looks visibly taller today 😁

@Girliefriendlikescake glad you had a good second puppy class. It’s really helpful to get new ideas and practice with some distractions isn’t it!

We’re still battling with the toilet training. It’s so disheartening to be honest because I feel like we were very much almost there until the UTI fiasco and now I feel we’re back at square one. I’m setting an alarm on my phone every 30 mins and taking her out in the hope that we get back to where we were again. The carpets are going to need a serious shampoo!!!

I’m off tomorrow and I’m going to take her to the park because she is just a delight out and about and I feel like that will be good for the both of us. She’s starting to jump up at people a bit so working closely on making her sit. I’d love her to be a PAT dog when she’s older and go into schools, old people’s homes etc so it’s important she has good manners to do this.

One thing we haven’t mastered yet is stairs - she won’t even try!! Might try and master this this weekend as she sleeps in our room and is getting heavy to carry up and down!

I’ve just been doing some googling about how long you can leave a puppy for and come across the 1 hour per month of their age idea. I really don’t think I could leave Sunnypup for two hours let alone four. That seems so long for such a little pup. How old are yours now and how long have you built up to?

So glad Skeletonpup is ok!

Lovely to read how you're all getting on, sorry it's not all good.

Well Grassypup is now fully toilet trained, doesn't bite anymore, has excellent recall and NEVER jumps up on anyone. Oh and doesn't jump into the dishwasher every chance he gets.

Yeah feckin' right!!!! He's a bloody disaster!! He couldn't care less where he pees and poos despite major high fives when he bothers to do it outside. He's chewing EVERYTHING. Howling at 6:30 every morning just because and basically he's just a brat. He's grabs at everything he can, washing is some feat with him trying to grab everything, then he tries to get into the machine before I can close the door.

I'm trying to come up with positive points besides the fact we're mad about the little nutter.

He sat for me with good eye contact yesterday even though the cat he was squaring up to was still sitting behind him. Only because I had cheese of course.
He's getting a little less nervous of passing cars but it's a work in progress.
He pulls a little on walks, though sometimes I have to drag him but he's not doing too bad. I might look into getting him a harness.

Grassy 🤣 you nearly had me!!

That's a shame re toilet training skeleton hopefully she'll catch on again soon though.

Sunny that's interesting re an hour per month of age. I left puppy for two and a bit hours this morning while I went to work and he was fine. He is used to going in his crate for a morning nap though. I then worked from home this afternoon, have any of you got a puppy cam? Wondering about getting one.

We took him for a run over a local field after work and he was very funny, found two much bigger dogs to chase - considering he only has little legs he can move pretty fast when he wants to 🤣

I'm not saying anything about toilet training as I will jinx it....

Grasseynoel I was just about to enlist you as our new trainer! That made me chuckle a lot!

SkeletonSkins It's disheartening I'm sure, but all the hard work you've put in won't have been forgotten and you'll soon be back on track.

Took Biteypup for her weigh in and she's 16 kilos at 19 weeks old. She's going to be a big girl!

Hi all! Bella has been really coming on well with her recall and her sitting,she’s still very young (9 weeks) but she is making me really proud of her,obviously she’s obsessed with toes and feet so we all have teeny bite marks on slippers and feet! Toilet training is going well,too.Its just so exhausting.

Wow bitey that is big! Our pup was 2.6kgs at his last weigh in 🤣

He got a bit of a bollocking last night as he got me up at 4am, I let him out for a wee which he did and he then came back in and poo'ed in the living room!!! I wasn't impressed and normally I just ignore any accidents but this time I did tell him off a bit 😐 I know he doesn't understand but we're 5 weeks in now and I was hoping he'd got the hang off not pooing inside!!

So we've now had mantrapup just over a week and he seems to have settled well. The first few days he had no accidents but as days go by there are happening more and more. I guess we're not as vigilant as we were at first, he does usually cry to go out but also cries if I leave the room so hard to tell when it's a 'I need a wee' cry .
He's generally pretty good at going in his crate for the school run etc but hates it if he's in his crate and we're at home.

What do you do at mealtimes? He jumps up at us and wants the food, even if we've given him his food in his crate as usual. He has just learnt 'sit' but ignores us if he wants something better like our food. I'd like him to go to his crate when we eat but that seems impossible atm. He's just turned 10weeks old so still really young.

@Calmisthemantra presumably you have never given him any food at all from your plates when you’re at the table? We were really strict with the kids about that from day one and our pup has never shown any interest when we sit down to eat. Don’t think he has worked out what we are doing!!
But you could try and encourage your pup into his crate with a chew of some sort. Or get a mat/small towel and train him to lie on that when you’re eating, again by giving him treats or a favourite chew. The benefit of that is that you can then bring it to a pub or cafe with you and he gets used to sitting quietly on the mat when you’re eating. In theory anyway!!

We have come away for the weekend to our holiday home and pup has not enjoyed the change of routine. He was up every hour from 3am 🙄 not sure if it was just being unsettled, was chilly as I didn’t bring his heat mat, was too quiet - I usually leave the radio on at night etc. Am going to try and exhaust him today so he sleeps better tonight!

Poor little thing was sick in the car this morning too but was so good and didn’t make any noise. I only discovered it when we got back. I had to do an early morning drive to the supermarket and took him straight after he had breakfast so my fault.

@SunnyUpNorth no we've never fed him anything from our plates. I think the smell of the food drives him crazy! Until recently I was treating him for training with his dog food bits and then tried to train him with some chicken- he was SO excited by the chicken that all training went out the window!

I'll try the mat/blanket idea thanks

@Calmisthemantra when our puppy fussed around the table while we ate our trainer told us to put her in her crate but leave the door open.
Obviously the puppy then came straight out and continued to try to climb on our chairs. Trainer said that’s what he’d hoped she’d do!!!! It took 3 or 4 times of popping her in her crate before she got the message and pottered off to do her own thing.
She still needs this occasionally but more often than not she sees we’re at the table and settles down in her crate.
We were REALLY surprised it worked!

We are still in house training hell! In fact we seem to have gone backwards. We had been putting puppy pads in his pen when we leave him and now he just seems to wee and poo anywhere he likes in the back room. I am pretty tired of it all to be honest and can't be bothered with it any more!

He has also learned to climb out of his pen so when we do leave him he climbs out and lies on the couch. I have no problem with that but it obviously means he has more opportunity to wee everywhere.

3 weeks in and I'm definitely not enjoying it!

Calm hmm that's a tricky one, could you give him a kong or similar in the crate when you sit down to eat?

Sunny we're going for a wend away next week so that doesn't bode well! I was trying to think whether it would be worth taking the crate or just stick him on the floor near our bed?! I think he'll sleep better if he knows we're near by iykwim.

Keep I'm not surprised you're fed up, that sounds like hell. I wonder if you need to go back to basics and take him out every 30 mins? I'd have a treat he really likes ready to give him when he does go outside, also we had a word we used when he went outside (we say busy busy) which helps I think. Personally I'd bin the puppy pads as I think they just encourage them to pee inside. There was a poster on here that said she improved things by literally living in the garden for a week and the puppy was only allowed in on a lead or in the crate, would be a ballache for a week but worth it if it worked!!

That said girliepup is still not perfect, I'd say we're 95% there but on average get one accident inside a day. It's a lot easier when the weather is nice like today and we can keep the backdoor open.

We've taken him out to a local garden centre this morning and he was very good, said hello to everyone and had a kip when we had a coffee!!

Tired puppy now though!!

Yeah my DH is off this week so is going to concentrate on toilet training but I'm not that hopeful. The problem is if we don't leave a pad down somewhere then when we are out he has nowhere to go. We are building up the time he is by himself and he seems to be ok after the first 10 mins. He hates being in the crate in the daytime but is happy in it at night.

Everyone I have spoken to in real life said they used pads and their dogs were great at using them. They just eventually moved them closer to the door then outside yet SmileyPup hasn't got the memo!

Gosh it’s all young ‘on the thread now it seems - makes me a bit sad as in comparison DartyPup seems ancient at nearly 6 months and I feel I’m gatecrashing my own thread, sob.

I also realised today that I foolishly have become confident enough in my dog owning abilities to silently judge other dog owners. Well, one, whose manners and dog’s manners in the park were shocking, as she stood chatting while her dog off-lead ran around stealing other dogs’ balls and sticks and barging into picnics. Her response to the picnic-ers? “If you have any food, she’ll want it so it’s best if you put it away”. When told that her dog kept chasing after the stick thrown for another dog, aggressively beating the other dog to it and refusing to give it back? “Oh she’s not allowed to play with sticks so please don’t let her.”

My pup is probably annoying our neighbours though with her consistent barking at aeroplanes when they fly over our house- she’s definitely annoying us. I have making her watch YouTube videos of planes flying to accustom her to the noise, but it has t yet worked.

@DuchessDarty that’s so funny about making the pup watch YouTube videos. Ah the things we do! I also totally get what you mean about judging other dog owners. I’ve never particularly paid much attention to other dog owners and now I feel like all I see are people being dragged down the street by their dogs which is making me determined to get the pulling on the lead under control. We got one of those collars that does a figure of eight over their nose. I’ve only used it twice but seems to have really helped already.

@Girliefriendlikescake we put his crate in the room with us last night and he slept amazingly well. I kept waking up wondering if he was ok and he was sounds asleep. My son fell out of bed at 5.30 so I thought I may aswell take him out for a quick wee then and he was so unimpressed and then fell back to sleep til 8am when I got up. But he hadn’t actually woken up. Miracle!! It was also very dark in the bedroom whereas at home he is in the kitchen which wouldn’t be so dark in the mornings. I cover three sides of his crate at home but leave the front open. Not sure if he would freak out if I covered the front to make it dark.

Should we start a new thread? This one is almost full.

Yes a new thread would be good,glad you got some sleep sunny. Girliepup has me up at 6.30 this morning but then he slept with me then (after going to the toilet) til 8.20 so not too bad really.

He has randomly wee'd inside twice this morning in the same spot 😩 no idea what that's about. Ystd he was perfect and we had no accidents so I know he can do it!! Both times the backdoor was open so he had no excuses.

It's a nice day here again so plan is to take him to a local dog friendly beach.

How did the beach go? That’s one thing we haven’t got around to yet, hope I haven’t missed the boat in his early days exposure. We are about 45 mins from a beach so has seemed a bit too far but should do it before it gets too cold.

@Keepsmiling1 we're 2 weeks in today and I 100% feel the same!! Plus a side order of guilt

@SunnyUpNorth yes definitely try the beach if you can before it gets too cold and your puppy past the 20weeks old socialisation window. DartyPup loves the beach, such freedom to run around. Obviously you need to check that you’re going to a dog-friendly one or section of one first, but it means there’s going to be quite a few dogs to play with and meet and greet.

@namechanged984630 & @Keepsmiling1 - the first week is ok because it’s all new and the puppy’s cuteness keeps you going. But by the beg of week 3 the relentlessness and tedium and tiredness has kicked in. It’s really hard and full-on. FWIW, I didn’t use puppy pads very much - was advised best to start as you mean the go on. Don’t put them in the crate as the aim is to encourage the pup to hold it in during the night, or at least for several hours. My advice would be to keep taking him/her out regularly and saying your toilet word, and praising when they go and reinforcing the toilet word- eg well done, you did eliminations!

I will start a new thread.