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.

Hello, can I join in please? I’ve just found this great thread!

We have Molly, who is an 8.5 week schnoodle puppy. We got her on Sunday and we are slowly getting used to each other. My nine year old is quite scared of the puppy biteyness so we are getting her trained up with how to deal with those moments, always having a toy on her, recognising those crazy times and knowing when to leave Molly alone.
Otherwise she’s sleeping well, she spent the first three nights in her crate in my room and she was settled with just one toilet break, so I moved her downstairs to the kitchen which is where she’ll stay and she’s done two nights in there, sleeping through. She did 9.45pm - 6.10am last night so I’m hoping that continues. We’re adding as much value to the crate as possible, giving amazing treats in there and so on. I have stopped crying every day 😂 and she has been toiletting outside well with only a few accidents and not for a few days now. Our biggest issue is when I need to do the school run she comes with us and she shakes and then whimpers. We’ve been advised to keep going and she will get used to it but it is sad. She also does it in the car! She’s good at sleeping in the day and I make sure I flit in and out of the room, doing jobs around the house and she’s seemingly fine with that - often has one eye on me but doesn’t get upset.
Anyway, that’s enough for now. Nice to meet you all!

Glad to meet a fellow schnoodle owner. Photo of mine up thread.
You sound like you are doing really well. Are you carrying her on the school run now? Or are you just talking about the car. I bought this great bag thingy for the car and mine is really happy in it. Ive put it on the front passenger seat and everyone else has to sit in the back .
Heres a link to it
www.petplanet.co.uk/product.asp?dept_id=151&pf_id=60733&campaign=127909211&adgroup=51941948141&content=268526550439&keyword=&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIloiTmOzo4gIV0OR3Ch2iNQRtEAAYASAAEgJ2LvD_BwE

Hi @KatinLondon! 8.5weeks seems so little now mine is nearly a 13-week old Id love to see a photo of Molly.

@lazymum99 Thanks for the link, just the sort of thing I’ve been after.

Hi all, after quite a pleasant morning with pup I have just received a full on explosive biting session I’m beginning to think this is something more than just puppy biting? Is this normal, she just goes crazy at latches on to my hair, pulling clumps out, grabbing onto clothes, sleeves, ankles, wrists, fingers anything she can find, it’s relentless and just got so angry I ended up screaming at her and leaving her downstairs for a few minutes whilst I calmed down, it hurts so much my hands are covered in scabs and scratches and nothing seems to stop her except a treat which seems to defy the purpose but sometimes it’s the only way I can get her to release my wrists/hair. She’s 10 weeks today and this behaviour is getting me down I just sat crying.

Sophy I would quiz the sitter again. When my dog ate a rag the vet did say it could have been sat swishing about for a bit in his stomach before moving and blocking his intestine.

Hi @lazymum99, another schnoodle! I will look for your photo! Here is Molly:

Hi @DuchessDarty! Has the biteyness eased at all yet?

The biteyness is so hard. What do you do when your dog starts? When ours starts, we pull our hands away and ignore her for a few moments and if she persists then we swap in a toy that she is allowed to bite. This generally works but sometimes, a few times a day, she has a truly nutty period and if she won’t be distracted by her toys, we may need to focus her with doing some training with treats - it sort of resets her and gets her brain working on what we want her to be doing. I find she has these moments when she’s not long woken or if she is overtired. If the latter then we encourage her to go to her bed and sometimes she does that herself if ignored. What doesn’t work here is getting stressed - she seems to pick up on that and goes crazier - or trying to stroke her or pick her up. In crazy moments she doesn’t want us to touch her! She has a teddy that works really well to swap in, in place of our fingers/toes/clothes and she can go crazy with that and try to ‘kill’ it. It’s important that they have time to chew and bite appropriate things but learn that is not us!

Beautiful pup @KatinLondon!
And great advice on the biting front. I have to say that IME DatyPup was so quick to stop once we told her “no” when she tried to mouth our hands at 8-9 weeks, but as she gained confidence she started to happily ignore us and got much more nippy.

@Spongebob79 I respond more or less how Kat does to the biting; provide a suitable alternative and ignore. However DartyPup has had a few episodes similar to the one you described - although thankfully didn’t pull anyone’s hair out!! - and on those occasions I put her in her crate and locked it. She quickly calmed down and fell asleep as she was exhausted. It’s like an overtired toddler who won’t go to bed but crashes straight away when they’re eventually forced to.

sspongebob puppy still does this if he is completely overtired and needs a pee, and is "holding it". At that age I used to put him in a crate for 2 minutes to calm, and then put him in the garden for a pee (in case it was peeing that was the issue) and then to sleep in the crate.

Spongebob79 Similar happening here. Pup is 13.5 weeks. In the house I distract/turn away with arms folded/walk away/put him in his crate for a few mins. It's definitely over excitement. The issue I have is on "walks". He's okish on pavement, delighted to get onto the grass for a wee then after a few mins of walking he literally attacks my coat, legs etc and won't stop and I can't walk away and then really struggle to get home. It's totally put me off taking him out. Slight improvement today when we took him to a gated park and let him off lead for the first time and threw the tennis ball for him and treated him every time he brought it back. He didn't stray far from us and only got mildly nippy before we took him off lead and at the very end when tiring. I really feel your pain. I admit it is putting me off him and I don't want that.

I’ve asked if anyone had any advice with my puppy preferring to poo in the house but no one replied so maybe it’s just me, but tonight it has really got me down.

We’ve tried to limit her going up the stairs as much as possible - we can’t put a stairgate up - but if anyone leaves a door downstairs open she darts upstairs.

DS found three poos in his room this evening. Although one of them, he said, had been there for DAYS but he’s forgotten to clean it up or mention it.

Clearly I now need to do intensive hygiene training both dog and DS.

Sorry DuchessDarty we weren't ignoring you! My pup prefers to do all toiletting in the house and he only isn't because I'm taking him outside very regularly still at 13.5 weeks. Even with back door open he doesn't go outside by choice (we have no grass which may be a factor). He'll poo stealthily on hall rug and wee anywhere. We can't easily stairgate either. I have door to downstairs carpeted room shut all the time and police the stairs. I think you need to keep all upstairs doors shut for now. Is there a pattern to when your pup poos? Ours does 2 first thing then one late PM so I'm more vigilant then.

Thanks @MrsEricBana! I’m glad it’s not just my pup. How often do you take her outside? I take DartyPup out into the garden a lot, but she doesn’t seem to like doing a poo in front of me.
And I have been trying to keep all the upstairs doors closed, but those pesky kids...

Outside every 30-60mins I'd say. My pup goes behind garden table to poo and I try to look away respectfully 🤣

One of her first outside poos was under the garden table. We’ll have to revisit the spot. She used to poo a lot in the garden and had no problem going with people around, but this has changed.

I am going to have to take her out more and turn my back.

Thank you all for your suggestions, I calmed down a lot after her mega bitey episode yesterday and we went on to have a reasonable day. The biting is definitely associated with being tired. Pooing wise, we’re still finding poo’s inside occasionally but beginning to know her routine and making sure she goes outside regularly. We’ve have open tread stairs so have got a stair gate to stop her going upstairs but we’re completely open plan downstairs so we don’t have an area where she can’t go. We have a crate in the living but will only nap there if already fallen asleep on our laps and we put her in.

Those that say you put pup in their crate do you put them in and then shut the door and ignore. Tbf we haven’t done this yet as contradicting advise about never using the crate for punishment. I think if we did this when she was all worked up she’d go crazy pawing at the door and howling, maybe we need to do this and let her tire herself else but she looks so distressed.

Sponge I used to put my puppy in his crate when he was overtired bitey in the evenings and shut the door. Yes it goes against the 'advice' but I viewed it the same as sending a toddler to bed for a lie down so no different to me. BiteyDog would paw his bed for a minute and then crash asleep and wake up a nicer puppy

DuchessDarty Yes pooing under garden table works for us too! (How did our lives come to the point where we are posting on an online forum at 1am about pooing under a table? 🤣)
Re putting biting pup in crate, I questioned this too and trainer said ok as is time out. If you sent an unruly child to their room to calm down they'd be annoyed about being cut off from the family but it wouldn't make them hate their room, they might just grumpily play with their toys till you came to check on them.

@MrsEricBana As well as posting about poo at 1am, which I never even did when my DCs were babies, my online shopping these days is 100% pup-focused. Haven’t looked at a pair of shoes or a pretty dress online for months. But puppy treats, puppy toys and leads - gimme gimme. Who am I?

🤣🤣🤣

The thing is the crate isn't a separate room, they can see you and hear you, and still get the chance to settle down without being able to bite you, so the analogy with putting a child in their room and leaving them isn't quite right, it isn't abandoning or punishing them it is giving them the chance to settle themselves. If you can get them used to settling in their crate whilst awake but showing signs of sleepiness, the associations will be good. It is definitely not the naughty step or locking a child in their room. And it is worse to feel angry with the pup because you haven't a safe place for them in "emergencies".

I put something that smelled familiar in the crate and perhaps one cuddly rather than chewy or squeaky toy, and sat next to it, whilst they settled. If things were very bad on the temper tantrum front, I did just cover the whole crate and leave them to it which did mean perhaps 10 mins of howling the first two times. This was often at human supper time, when the zoomies were worse in the early days and one's patience was frayed..

duchess mine used to race upstairs to use the upstairs landing carpet whenever he was out of our sight for a nano second. He did just see it as an "outside" area as he regarded downstairs as his "crate" territory, and therefore not to be sullied. And dd's room. I'm afraid you have to keep kids doors shut and put some sort of barrier at the top of the stairs even. We used a large flat cardboard box as a barrier - the one that the crate had come in. That worked very well. Better than chasing puppy upstairs all the time. And it is a good way of getting them used to you leaving the room, and coping, if you have to go upstairs without them sometimes.

Thanks @Nettleskeins I’d more or less resigned myself to putting a barrier up on the landing or by the stairs. She can go up stairs easily but doesn’t know how to come down, despite DC2 “demonstrating” the other day

My little Houdini managed to open the stair gate! He went upstairs and pooed in my bedroom.
He also can’t get down. I put him in position in the middle of the stairs but he just froze.