Puppy Support Group 2

[DuchessDarty]

A continuation of this:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/the_doghouse/3600375-Young-Puppy-Support-Group

All age of puppies (and owners ) welcome

All training on hold here as forestpup has been in and out of the vets again. Hes got to stay the weekend but hoping to have him home by Monday. Our little rescue is turning out to be very unlucky. Hoping this is the end of it as by Monday he will officially have spent more nights in the vet than at home

How did everyone manage socialising pre vaccinations?
We want to take her out to see people and hear different sounds
But between house training, meals, being asleep and the zoomies there’s approx 15 min bursts where she won’t try to escape if she’s in arms or go mental if she’s restrained in the car

Since we are at least 15-20 mins drive from anything this is not easy. We’ve made it to a pet store once but she went a bit crazy as I made the mistake of rewarding her good behaviour with a treat - making her all excited and looking for more treats and trying to escape
We have people coming over each weekend. But Monday - Friday all we can do is go in the garden, walk up our street (with her in arms) or listen to desensitisation cds

She isn’t free to go out until 1 week before Christmas, at which point there will be lots of family events etc. Which I don’t want to be the first big loud noisy loads of people and children things she experiences.

Sorry to hear about forest pup
He’s landed on his feet with you though it sounds like, hope he feels better soon

Snuffles pre vacs I had a rule that we took our puppy out every day, that might have just been a walk round the block, trip to friends house, garden centre visit or pop to a coffee shop. I really wanted our dog to be well socialised and feel confident in lots of different situations.

In the book easy peasy puppy squeezy there's a comprehensive list of places, people, situations your puppy should experience before 16 weeks plus they're meant to meet 100 different people by then as well!! That sounds a lot but puppies do get a lot of attention ime when you're out and about!!

Our puppy is a small breed and that probably made getting out easier as he wasn't heavy to carry and we had a dog sling to carry him in!!

Anyone else's pup go on hunger strike when they came home? Our boy has lost 100g since his last weigh in (last Thursday) and I am struggling to get him to eat anything like the amount he should.

Whitecat our puppy didn't seem to eat much when we first bought him home, after he went 16 hours without eating his kibble I cracked and got him some soft food which he gobbled up 🙄 he's still on two trays a day now with biscuits in between which he eats if really hungry!!

@bloodywhitecat ours didn’t eat for the first day or two, it’s common, don’t worry. You could try hand feeding a few bits, or putting something tasty in with the kibble (assuming it’s dry food) such as a bit of wet food or a tiny bit of gravy etc to tempt them.

@Snufflesdog you can also bring your pup to the homes of people with vaccinated dogs. So if you know anyone with a nice calm dog that will tolerate an annoying little puppy you could invite yourself around. Most people are more than willing to have a cute little puppy visitor. But don’t worry too much, we didn’t get ours til 12 weeks so had to hardcore the socialisation (breeder had hardly done any but he was very used to kids which was good) in the first month we had him and he is generally pretty good now.

Well it happened, I knew it would, today I had my breakdown. We’re on day 13 and there’s so many positives-he’s sleeping well, doing great with his toilet training, settling in his pen while we eat tea but oh dear god I’m so overwhelmed.

-what if he kills the cats?
-what if I can’t train him
-what if he never calms down and is always hyper and bitey
-what if I’m not socialising him enough
-what if he stars barking at cars/people
-what if his barking at home gets worse and the neighbours complain
-what if I can never leave him for longer than an hour

You can see where my minds at. I’m just not enjoying him, I wish I could fast forward the puppy stage. I’m actually dreading Christmas

-the tree
-the presents
-not being able to relax
-being stuck in the kitchen/dining room (rest of the house is carpet)

😫

Yes I'm dreading Xmas too. I have quite a few people here this weekend and if it's bad I might be tempted to cancel.
I'm also going to try and start to close her crate for short periods to get her used to it in case I need to.
I feel pissed off at times when she just craps everywhere and occasionally on the puppy pad.the weather has been to horrible to be out for long in the day.
My two girls do a lot tho so I'm not coping on my own.
I find alcohol helpful 😂 and in not even joking that much

@SunnyUpNorth honestly how?! Maybe she’s too little still, but I couldn’t imagine her now howling if I tried to restrain her in a coffee shop, as she’s not allowed on the floor.
And getting to other people is quite a drive, at which point if we ever made it without her throwing herself around in the car, I’m sure she’d likely shit on their carpet

Hey spotty well done for making it to day 13.
DH Is ill in bed so I’m on puppy duty alone, along with such Dh duty and mum duty.
I got to day 4 before sobbing my heart out on the floor whilst she tried to chew me
Then we had two great days, and I thought yes! This is hard and tiring but I can do this.
And then today has been a nightmare from start to finish.
I think it’s a lot of ups and downs and sometimes they’re a pain in the arse. Try to find any positives and any quality time together, a little snuggle when he’s falling asleep and less bitey and unlikely to wee!

I hear what you’re saying about Christmas though! I honestly don’t know what all those people getting puppies for Christmas are thinking, seems like the worst idea.l (aside from morally - I mean I can’t even remotely see what the appeal would be!)
Mine will at least be a biit settled by then and
I’m already writing it all off!

We carried Clownpup round the block--it isn't just about seeing people, but cars, buses, trains etc. If they don't experience a variety of noises and things before 16 weeks they can become fearful. The vet who runs our puppy classes has a rescue dog that is terrified of postboxes!

What sort of dog have you got snuffles? We used to put our puppy on the floor of coffee shops you have to weigh up the very small risk of the dog contracting a bug vs the much bigger risk of having an under socialised, fearful dog. For me it's a no-brainer, if you're in quite a rural area then I would be making every effort to get him used to people and places otherwise there will be a real risk of him not coping outside of your little bubble.

I hear you though re being overwhelmed. I think I made it to two weeks in before having a complete breakdown, sobbed on my bed that we'd made a massive mistake. Our puppy wasn't even that bad really!!

It does get easier, we're at the 6 month mark now and I'm really enjoying him. He's slowly getting the hang of walking and enjoying the walk, the biting is less, the toilet training pretty sorted, he's very friendly and so far not been phased by anything we've thrown at him. We can also now leave him for 2-3 hours at a time.

I can't imagine not having him now!!

Snufflesdog thanks for the kind message, I’m finding pup life so hard. It’s just relentless.

Spotty me too.
Today my day off has been spent shut in the kitchen so I can watch pup like a hawk and get her out for toilet.
So regular trips she did nothing but shiver and way leaves .
Then I caught her twice and picked her up ran out and she did nothing so I then felt guilty for stopping her.
Then my Dil popped in and took her out where she immediately did a wee
Have handed over to dd now who is fab with her so I have come into the lounge to drink tea and watch Netflix.

Eat leaves.

Biteypup will be 7 months old on Sunday and things are sooooo much easier now. I hear you all on the crying, wanting to give up and alcohol assistance My DH actually commented when I had managed to go 2 days without sobbing it was that bad She was the most horrendous bitey fuck that I have every known. Biteyshark was a constant source of reassurance for me, as I was convinced she was going to grow up to be an aggressive beast

Going to training classes, but also having some 1-2-1 sessions with the same trainer has been invaluable and helped me forge a fantastic bond with her. She still has her stroppy moments and we still have to enforce some rest if she gets overtired, but we're getting much better at reading her signals and she's turning into a fantastic little monster

Stick with it guys - I promise it gets better. If I can get through it (with the help of alcohol), anyone can

Thankyou bitey, I can’t tell you how much the reassurance means. I think that’s my big worry-that pups going to get bigger and stronger and still be going bonkers and biting. I just can’t imagine the end result! What breed is biteypup? Ours is a terrier.

Clownpup has been a bitey dickhead today. Met another puppy, but older than her. His owner reassured me that it gets better. She said one day she realised he hadn't bitten her all day.

Once toilet training is mostly cracked it gets a bit easier, because you don't have to watch them so carefully.

Thanks BiteyMcBiteFace genuinely googled today how much boring was normal in case it turns out there’s something wrong with her as she’s so ‘aggressive’ and bitey.
Nice to hear the reassurance, same too to
Ledkr you could be describing my day
Whaaat is up with those leaves?!?!

Girliefriendlikespuppies she’s a terrier. Who had also just developed a fear of the car in the last two days for some unknown reason. I actually don’t even think it’s fear, just a tantrum as she is super happy to scoff any treats that come her way still. I even offered to let her out, but it meant she had to leave the treats and she chose to stay in the car instead. Crying and eating.

BiteyMcBiteFace it's wonderful isn't it when you suddenly realise how much easier it has gone when you thought you would never get there. So glad your BiteyDog is getting easier

Yesterday I had wires trailing everywhere, my laptop on the floor, everything was out, I had dropped sweets on the floor and was picking them up and I actually thought back to the early days when that would have been a complete disaster but instead BiteyDog wasn't bothered by any of that and was just lying there watching with complete disinterest.

Is that something that happened naturally or did it take a lot of training to teach him to leave those things?

I would like to say my excellent training but I would be lying .

We had to keep things out of his way as a puppy because otherwise they would have been chewed to pieces but as he got older we started to relax it and found that he just wasn't bothered by them anymore.

Well that’s a huge relief, it’s the thought of having to train all these behaviours out of him that’s overwhelming me. Obviously we’re teaching him sit and leave it etc but with limited success so I’m hoping he’ll naturally loose interest in laces and wires and buttons and labels etc etc etc

I think the biggest factor is age and also not letting them get into any habits so whilst we didn't do any of that 'leave it' training we made sure things were kept out of reach so he didn't have the opportunity to get into the habit of destroying stuff (we lost a kitchen rug and a couple of other things but nothing major).