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

Thank you all for being so nice. I feel so pathetic, he’s a frigging lovely ‘cuddly family friendly breed’ Labrador, not a pit bull

Our pup smells like shit most of the time 😆

I prefer the smell of my cat. Is that bad?

@Spotty528 😂
@DeathByPuppy, not all, our cat smells lovely too. Fresh air and biscuits all the time 🙂 I love the smell of our pup when he is clean and dry, not so much when he is wet and muddy. Had to bath him after his walk today because he smelt like death 🤣

It's strange as I used to hate how BiteyDog smelled but now I love sniffing him yes I know that sounds weird.

Death, I felt so responsible for pup it certainly wasnt love at first. Thinking that he was depending on me was a positive start. He hadnt chosen anything, I had. And then all his little habits and opinions grew on me...after kids poo and pee seemed merely incidental!

We’re having a good day (so far - fingers crossed!). He’s been less bitey and has slept a bit more (definitely linked!).

I’ve played my part in his biteyness in the last few days. I’ve not played with him as much as I could’ve done, mostly because I’ve been frustrated with him (even though ‘rational me’ knows that his biteyness is him asking to play (but unfortunately it has the opposite effect on humans ). I’ve made an effort to play with him when he gets bitey today, tugging games as well as brain games and it’s really helped.

Nettle, the poo/per stuff isn’t a huge deal really. He’s had a couple of indoor accidents but they aren’t that much of a problem (hard floors). It’s just wearing as another thing when we’re having a bad day.

Sorry for typos

How are you all doing leaving puppy alone?
We were told to make sure we do it from day one
But any barrier to us - even if she can see us
Causes her to lose her mind and nearly hurt herself trying to get to us.

I’m not talking about abandoning her for hours

Just giving her a treat
Then stepping on the other side of a baby gate for 5 seconds and stepping back.

@Snufflesdog, I’m no help, it’s not something that mine has an issue with, weirdly. I can leave him with a kong or a licky mat and he’s ok for 30mins. I have had to leave him for an hour and a half on one occasion, which was not ideal (unavoidable due to medical appointment and no one available to sit with him) and he was ok. He’s a very confident puppy, which is good in lots of ways (and can lean towards cocky in lots of other ways ).

All the advice I’ve seen is around building confidence in the way you are, so it sounds like you’re doing the right thing. Maybe it’s just going to take your girl a bit longer to feel comfortable? Easy for me to say, I know.

Glad to hear you’re having a better day today, Death.
Our pup is okay if we leave the house for a couple of hours, but he used to really whine and cry if I left him downstairs for a few minutes. I found that ignoring the behaviour and not making a fuss going upstairs or coming back down helped. I was making it worse by calling down to him when he was crying. He was getting a response so continued to cry. Now I say I’m coming back if he tries to follow me and don’t respond if he whines. It’s very difficult not to cuddle him though when I see his cute face at the bottom of the stairs!

Our pup can be left for a couple of hours if he’s ready for a kip so we tend to leave him 8-10am (work)
1-2pm ish
And this he’s ok for an hour or so in the early evening.

We give him a kong and then he goes to sleep. He’s not great at being left if we’re just in another room though, he wants to be with us then and I wonder what he’ll be like if when he’s older and not sleeping so much, I’m not sure how long he’d entertain himself for.

Death I find breaking the day into chunks helps me. So we’ll play for a while then I leave him to occupy himself whilst I potter around the kitchen. I also make sure I go upstairs and ignore the whining.

I made myself laugh the other day. If I want to look at crap on my phone when I’m with the kids I tend to open a book and do it stealthy (I don’t know why really!). Anyway, I was looking after pup and did the same thing then realised he doesn’t know the different between a phone and a bloody book 😆

I have been terrified of leaving her to whine in case it scars her for life
But I think we may be looking for some tougher love after hearing from you guys!

The first time I left pup was for 30mins to do the school run. He’d been out for a wee, he’d been fed and played with. I put him in his pen with his kong and I filmed him while I was out. He whined for about 4 mins and then stopped and went to sleep.

I have no idea if it’s the right thing to do or not but everyone in real life told me to just go for it. You do have to have a life away from pup, I’m just starting to realise that! For the first couple of weeks I felt like I needed to be there all the time.

Filming helps me, I film him every time I leave him and then just scroll through the video to see what he’s been up to.

I don’t think it does them any harm, as long as they aren’t left for a long time. The trick is not to pay them loads attention when you leave or return. Build up the time and try not to get anxious about the whining because they definitely pick up on that.

And I think if you’re going back to them after a second of whining you’re not giving them the chance to settle themselves.

Can you put a blanket over one end of the pen? I’ll attach a picture of our set up. I’d try leaving him for 30-40 minutes and filming. Go and get yourself a coffee. You must be getting some serious cabin fever if he hasn’t left your side since you got him.

Again I haven’t got a clue if this is the right thing to do but it’s what’s worked for us and I think it’s got to be worth a try.

We leave ours for up to 4 hours. She is in crate but with door open and run of the kitchen.
I always make sure she's had food drink a wee and a damn good play then she just falls asleep.
I've only don't this about 3 times but i filmed her and she sleeps or chews her kong or plays with her toys. She loves an empty plastic bottle btw.
I work two full days a week and dh is often around for all or half of those.
I have so far had family popping in to visit for an hour but I have a potential dog walker and trainer meeting us on Thursday so she will be doing any long periods for us.
It's weird tonight as the kids are out with dh and as I'm not well still I don't have the energy to play. I have just been chucking her toys around and playing tug but she's fallen asleep now probably due to boredom.
Dd 1 will be up late tonight so she can wear her out before bed.

Does anyone have a greedy pup? Mine has her food and then seems to be hungry and sniffs around for bits or looks expectant if I russle a bag or anything.

Full on cabin fever!! Doesn’t leave my side and she hates me taking her out as she still has to be carried - I still do it but only when I have help because I can’t drive without her crying non stop to be on me - we’re working on this too and it is getting better.
She can go out for first walks in a few days and I’ve been counting down as it feels like a bit of a lifeline
But I think at first I was so worried about the crying and also the risk of her hurting herself trying to get out the pen
But what we’re doing isn’t sustainable!

She’s great in so many other ways
And doing so well gaining her confidence with all the other things were desensitising her to, but this is definitely something I need to start focusing on now

Sometimes it just feels like between the house training, the socialisation, the zoomies, the desensitisation to every noise and household objects like hoovers etc, learning things like sit etc plus the necessary training like not jumping up and please stop biting everyone, we just can’t keep on top of everything and something always falls through the net till it becomes a problem.

@heatseeker14 @Ledkr @Spotty528 how old were your pups when you left them for that long?

@Ledkr, mine is a bottomless pit who bolts his meals. I get around it by taking about 20% of each meal out of the measured scoop (amounts as per the and keeping it aside for training/brain games. That way, he’s not overeating his daily calorie intake in treats but he doesn’t seem to notice that his mealtime servings are slightly reduced.

@Snufflesdog, I know what you mean about trying to do everything and it being nigh on impossible

We got pup at 10 weeks and I left him for 30 mins straight away as I had to do the school run. I gradually built up the time.

He’s 14 weeks now (15 on Wednesday) and I can leave him for 2 and a half hours. I don’t actually leave him for that long, usually 2 hours and then I sneak back in and it’s often another 30 mins before he wakes up.

He’s ready for a sleep by this point though. I think if he’d just woken up and then I left him for 2 hours all hell would break loose so I feel like we’re still a long way off being able to do a normal working day with me coming home for lunch and then a dog walker in the afternoon. My parents are currently pup sitting for us while we’re at work.

We left pup straight away for about 20 mins to go on school run. Then, like Spotty528, gradually built up time. To keep things consistent sometimes I sat in car parks checking emails, buying bits online, writing shopping lists with my recipe folder and reading posts on here 😂 I have been able to leave him for 1-2 hours with ease in the morning because he always has a long nap then. We haven’t left him for long in the late afternoon/eve. He has been okay when I have popped him in there to drop off and collect my son from football, but I don’t like leaving him longer than 20 mins or so. Think if I need to leave him later on in the day for a longer stretch would need to make sure he has a good walk beforehand.

Hi!
We have a 12 week old mongrel (springador x german shepherd). We've had her since she was 8 weeks, so 4 weeks in now!
I'm so glad I've found this group, I feel reassured that I'm not alone with the anxiety I'm feeling (altho I wish none of us were suffering of course!). The anxiety definately came as a shock!
I think our pup is generally pretty good, she asks to go out for toilet, sleeps 8hrs straight at night and is crate trained, happy to be left for 3hrs stints during the day. She can be bitey but seems normal limits.
But what is worrying me is her confidence with other dogs - she's been able to go on dry walks and socialise a bit, but always seems a bit 'serious' when sniffing other dogs, and with my mum's springer she is open mouth playing and nipping him. Any tips on controlling this? We stop the play when it gets too much, but I'm getting very worried she'll be a dominant dog when out on a walk, and think it's ok to jump on every dog she meets (which it is not!)

I should add that we built the time up when leaving her in the day, and have a camera on her, all she does is sleep! I come home at lunch to walk her, and the other day she couldn't even be bothered to get out of her crate when I opened it 😆. I wanted to start the routine as soon as possible, and now on my days off she sleeps all morning even though I'm there!