Puppy survival thread! June 2020

[Juiceey]

Hello, anyone around to join me?

We've got our first puppy, a miniature poodle, yesterday. So far so good apart from the incessant humping!

He's VERY bitey, which doesn't hurt yet but no doubt will soon. He's massively attached to DW already and cries if she leaves the room. He loves DS but I think he played with him too much yesterday and overtired him, hence the humping?!

Crate training isn't easy and he cried for half an hour last night but then slept through til 5. Which is horribly early but I was ready for that!

@Onesipmore hi there, same breed as my 13 week old pup - GRs are lovely as grown ups but bitey little buggers as pups, aren't they? I'm scarred for life on my arms I think. Our pup knows how to be gentle, so can do it when he is okay but when he is 'mental' in the evenings I just leave the room for 15 seconds or so and usually he has forgotten what he has been doing. I say 'no' and 'ouch' or whatever but when he is mental, it doesn't work. Your older dog is so sweet to be so tolerant but it would certainly help if she did tell her! I have started using a bitter apple spray to keep bitey pup off some of the furniture, favourite plants or even my legs yesterday. It works to some extent.

@nightsoutasap I love German Shepherds - so gorgeous! The best woman I've come across on the internet for training them (also a breeder) is a woman called Susanne Shelton on the FB page Pandemic Puppy Raising. Her little videos are gold - very amateurish and no notes, but she is brilliant on gsd and puppies generally. If you go to the FB page and look, she is one of the admin and has loads of links to her little videos. The best one is on biting - very detailed and at the start you think she is just stating the obvious, but when she gets to how to manage it all she is fab. Also find her own site Austerlitz German Shepherds. I'm sure there are loads of English trainers of gsd but she is someone I've just happened across.

@Southlondonchaos oh yes, my pup pees all day long inside if he feels like it. He especially likes peeing on his bedding at the moment - the washing machine is on non stop. He loves watching me clean up his pee as well, gets really excited by the floorcloth and the disinfectant spray. Great fun for us all...

@muckandnettles I wouldn’t let puppy see you clean up accidents. If pup sees you making a bit fuss of where he just peed he might get the wrong idea about why you are making a fuss. Oh look she’s cleaning it up so it must be convenient for me to go here!

@thecapitalsunited yes you're probably quite right - he does seem to like the drama, though I try not to make a huge fuss! I will try to get him outside next time, though the little bugger barks if he is shut out and I don't want the neighbours to be bothered by him.

@muckandnettles Why don’t you order a playpen? Then you can shove him in for a few minutes in another room while you get on with things (clean up, not getting sharked, peeing in peace) knowing that he will be safe.

You’ll be amused to know that while I was replying to you, my puppy sneaked off behind his playpen where I couldn’t see and had a shite. Didn’t know until I smelled it. He’d only been about 40 mins before and doesn’t normally go for another few hours. Git.

@thecapitalsunited I might have gone for the playpen if I'd thought this through (thought I had!) but I assumed I'd have him crate trained by now and he would be happily snoozing in the crate as I went about my usual business. I feel I've spent so much on him now I can't throw any more money at the situation. We don't have a big enough house for a growing shark either. Also, one of his litter mates had a play pen and climbed out of it in the first week - they watched him on their nanny cam from upstairs.

@Juiceey your day yesterday sounds awful! Hope today is MUCH better for you.

@muckandnettles so sorry the yak chews didn't tempt your pup! You're right, they're not chewy, my pup just sits and grates his teeth along his, hence the grated parmesan look. I had a similar night time incident to you...woke pup up at 10.30 (he'd been in bed since 8.30), for last wee. He was very reluctant to get out of his crate. He spent a few minutes outside just sitting and looking at me. Then he came back in and did a week immediately on the floor. It was at the point I decided I was no longer going to wake him up during the night for a wee. He's done three nights now from 8.30 to 6.30/7 and he's been fine.

@Southlondonchaos absolutely no pattern to pup's wees here! Could be an hour in between or 4 in an hour. He's pretty good now at sitting at the door and looking pointedly at me, so most are outside at least. But still the ocassional accident inside...

There's no training classes opened up local to me yet. I had a chat with someone that runs the one most convenient to us yesterday and she's hoping she'll be able to start again by mid-July, but is entirely dependent on the venue opening up again. I'll keep an eye out for outdoor ones. Really it's the puppy socialisation I want from classes, and that might not happen as much even when they're open again, I suppose.

Hello to all the new people joining. Hope every one has a good day.

@OwlInAnOakTree I have put the yak chew away for another day. I think it depends which sort of stage they are at with their teeth really - my pup seems to like softer things like the pizzle sticks which go soft and slimy (heave) quite quickly or my arm. He does love crunching ice cubes though - so that's brilliant for being cheap and plentiful, though you have to watch where they are on the floor as it all becomes a bit slipping underfoot.

@muckandnettles I threw our pup an ice cube yesterday for the first time and he loved it. Also a carrot! I've heard it mentioned many times but hadn't tried it yet and it was great. A good 20 minutes of him chewing on that. It wasn't that big and not frozen, but I imagine a big, frozen one will be even better. Our bull pizzles haven't arrived yet. Can't wait to try them!

We have been having dry nights since Sunday, he has a wee at around 11:30 then his next one at 6:30.

He is doing really well in the day, we live in a flat so toilet training will take a little longer, but he is doing very well. I take him out every hour in the day time and we are averaging one indoor accident a day now. I know there will probably be future blips. We have a door bell for him to use, so I’m working on that as well.

@muckandnettles You may get a cheap play pen from facebook etc. Ours was late arriving so I uses my sons old ball pit. The pen does make it easier, my son is only four so the play pen means he can get his small toys out without a risk of the puppy swallowing on. It also means he can have a wander when we’re in bed etc.

Thought I'd join in
Just got a pup today border collie male bailey.
I've not experience in keeping dogs but my partner has. Hes grew up with collies had about 3 where I have grew up with other animal's like cats gerbils etc

Was absolutely nervous to start with but I knowing that my partner knows what hes doing etc
Next step is getting the toilet training down to a tee
So far we've had a few accidents both but there he has done a pee on the matt twice just need to get the other end down to a tee lol
With the poo its brown but not diarrhoea but it's kind full but loose in a way is this normal for a pup and is it also cause of the change and strange surroundings

Welcome to all the newbies to this thread!

I think the pp is right about not letting them see you clean up accidents. I'll put him in the kitchen next time as he gets so excited when I'm cleaning up too.

My biggest issue today is the HUMPING. The fucking HUMPING. DS only has to walk into a room and he's humping him. Today he humped so long and hard that he then with literally no warning peed on the floor where he's never done it before and I genuinely thought he'd ejaculated or something.

I then made myself sick to my stomach googling 'do dogs ejacualate' and all I can see is I WISH I'D GOT A FEMALE DOG.

Puppy. regret.

Say*, not see. All I can say...

@Juiceey my pup is a bit of a humper when he gets generally excited about something and I have had some success with standing my ground and saying 'down' but then he sometimes bites my leg as he goes down and then I leave the room. Biggest success today was having a takeaway plastic container with kibble in and the lid on, to rattle at pup so he was interested in what it was, took it away to chew on so interrupted mid-hump. I'm not sure about boys / girls with dogs and I've never fancied the coming into season part of the girl dogs, so have always had boys. Our last boy we had 'done' but this one I want to keep 'intact' if at all possible, though no doubt a vet could easily persuade me with his superior knowledge and promises of better behaviour. I also have a Kong and a lickimat prepped for our dinner time to occupy him. It's so hard to get everything lined up ready to distract him and sometimes I feel like his servant jumping to it when he looks a bit bored. When we had a dog when I was a kid, I can't remember him even having toys!

@muckandnettles can I ask your reasons for wanting to keep your dog intact? I'm new to dog ownership and I'm beginning to realize it's a more controversial issue than I thought. There was something on radio 4 about it about a week ago, but I got distracted by pup and/or DS and now can't remember what programme it was on to listen again.

No humping here really, once a day max on a toy. I'm glad about that, I think...or should I be worried there's something wrong?!

Biggest issue here remains how my DS/puppy are around each other. It's like a tale of two dogs. He can be quite calm around me. He can jump up on the sofa now, and I'm happy to have him on there, and he can lay chewing something quite calmly (with lots of food treats to reinforce calmness!). But if my son's on the sofa, or even in the room, he thinks it's playtime and climbs over him, jumps on him, etc. He's also really jumpy and bitey with my DS, just wanting to play with him. We're three weeks in and DS' overactive excitable behaviour hasn't changed (despite not liking all the jumping and biting). It's difficult as I'm a single parent and DS is an only child. So keeping them separate means DS is on his own in another room. I'm struggling to manage them together, but feel bad expecting DS to spend time on his own. Sigh.

Can your DS do tug of war type games with the dog, to keep it at arms length and burn off some energy? Or is pup just wanting to be on him all the time?

Struggling with the biting here this morning. Feels like we’re not getting much nice quality time with the pup as she’s either asleep in her crate (which she is very happy in and settles well in the daytime and night thankfully), or when she’s awake she’s a nippy hyperactive whirlwind. I know it’s probably(?!) normal puppy behaviour but it makes it hard to love being with her a lot of the time, even though we all adore her. Sigh.

@GingerAndTheBiscuits yeah, pup just wants DS as a toy, I think! I've tried to encourage playing but my son's too excitable which makes the dog too excitable, which results in the jumping up, barking and nipping. I'm now trying to get DS more involved by doing bits of training with him, rather than playing. Pup will sit if I ask him to even during a jumpy bitey episode, so I'm thinking if DS is more involved in training it's a more positive way for them to interact and will hopefully give my son the skills to stop pup's jumping. Some success this morning with sitting calmly together on the sofa by plying pup with treats (well, kibble). Managed a few minutes... To be honest, I think the dog's behaviour is far easier to change than my son's, so I'll keep working on him!

Hope you get some nip-free time today @Southlondonchaos.

@Southlondonchaos - I could have written your post! Ours exactly the same....We have our first puppy class in the park this afternoon and I’ve told the trainer we have big issues with biting and general manic behaviour. I’ll report back with any tips

@OwlInAnOakTree re. intact dogs - I just don't like the idea of unnecessary surgery really, that's the main thing for me. I have also found it's a controversial subject. If we do have it done I would prefer to postpone it to adulthood at least, so the growth hormones are all fully there for health as he develops. I don't really know what I'm talking about, but that is the gist of it really for me.

I don't know if we have mentioned this before but if anyone wants a bite free game for pups, google 'flirt line'. It's basically like a stick with a string on the end like a fishing pole and my pup goes crazy for it - so much so that I've had to be careful when I use it as he will do anything for the silly bit of string and if there is something on the end of it, he would run into a brick wall chasing it. I try and have some rules about sitting before we start and not starting till I say go, then dropping once he catches it. See what you think, but it's an amazing way of wearing them out. You have to be careful they don't jump too much or injure themselves changing direction too quickly - it's heady stuff. I just made a simple one with a garden cane and a bit of string!

Online puppy trainer has suggested at the first sign of biting distract with another toy preferably one with legs like an octopus that can be dangled to distract. It’s working wonders. They seem to mirror our behaviour @OwlInAnOakTree so maybe get DS to teach a trick or practice sit/stay etc so there is a focus.

@OwlInAnOakTree I have the same problem with DS(9). All he does is walk into the room and puppy goes insane, then they both get overexcited. I can't get DS to calm down and ignore him, he loves him so much and just wants to play.

Also recommend flirt poles- got urs from amazon. Gives me a break!

Got DPup home today

All has been well between DDog and DPup so far. Dpup has been running around like a lunatic and tried to hump one of his teddies. We've had 2 wees inside so far on the way out to the garden.

@Lovelylurcher Hope your class went well? We are starting online ones this coming Tuesday and I’m hoping for some words of wisdom too! We had a better afternoon but mostly because we went out to the countryside for a walk, so pup had an hour in the car each way, and a nice gentle walk and picnic lunch, which was all a good distraction from any biting. (She obviously had a manic phase post nap later on but my husband pitched in to help as he’d seen I was at the end of my tether...!)