Puppy survival thread! July 2020

[Juiceey]

Roll up roll up... I'm a day late but here we are.

Latest update: Juiceypup is obsessed with DS's feet, who is now starting to get upset by it. He doesn't do it to anyone else, only him, and we don't know why. DS goes stock still as instructed but we have to prise his mouth open to get him off his toe. Has brought him to tears a few times.

@KDOWKIZO

Hello We are getting our puppy in October so watching this thread with much interest and a fair amount of what have we done as well. We have two cats and asked about the cat situ with our breeder yesterday. She suggested to put the cat in the cat box in the room so it is safe and cant run. Let puppy go up to it and smell it etc. Repeat daily until puppy loses a bit of interest and has had chance to meet the cat without the cat darting out the room asap so it becomes another chase situ. Cat can also check out puppy, or hiss, without having their space intruded. Dont know if this works but might be worth a try, I definitely get the theory. If anyone tries please let us know how you get on.

Cats feel unsafe when trapped, if you do the above do it the other way around!

I'm also interested in what people are feeding their dogs. We are using Eukanuba but I'm tempted by the Lily's kitchen dry food.

I've heard good things about Millie's Wolfheart @muckandnettles.

What is CSJ @OwlInAnOakTree ?

I've just shut peachypup in the garden as he was in a crazed biting frenzy. As of yesterday he can jump onto the sofa so we are no longer safe

We're feeding ours Lily's Kitchen dried puppy food and it's great. He absolutely loves it and his poos are perfect! They barely even smell, which is a bonus..

@DoorbellsSleighbellsSchnitzel Pup’s crate is in the kitchen, so when we put her down in the evening we’re either finishing up dinner in that same room, or heading into the living room to watch telly/put kids to bed etc.

In general we just pick her up and put her into her crate whenever it’s time for a nap. I sometimes throw a little biscuit in and she may or may not follow it in there herself, but usually we just plonk her in there by hand. It’s covered with blankets and we cover the front too and say night night pup see you soon, even if it’s a daytime nap. I think covering it really helps as means we can still be in the same room doing stuff and she can’t see us so gets less distracted.

We took her to the beach today, and for a pub lunch on the way - a lot of ‘firsts’! She was good sitting under the table while we ate, plied with a pig ear chew! But on the beach she was just an overtired mess and despite a little cat nap in the beach tent she was just a biting whirlwind, she drew blood on my partners legs at one point! Was hard not having the crate to pop her in for some wind-down time. She’s fast asleep now in the car home though thankfully. Tomorrow is another day...

@DoorbellsSleighbellsSchnitzel were using james wellbeloved, he was on beta when he came from the breeder but it didnt agree with his tummy at all, hes doing well on the JW now.

We feed pup in the crate so he has breakfast, lunch and dinner when we have ours so he runs in eats his food, whines for a minute then settles down to sleep. If we need him to go in there at any other time i put a treat in there, he goes in and i ignore the whining and barking and just potter in his eyeline, he eventually huffs then lies down and sleeps (usually within 5mins) at night he cant wait to go to his upstairs crate and puts himself in it.

Trixie treat snake stuffed with tuna, sausage and potato and frozen means that my pup doesn't want to come out the crate. She's only allowed it in the crate. I went out for 10 mins to the shop and videoed her. I swear she didn't know that I'd been and gone.

My trainer says that on walks we must have the best treats of all the walkers. So I'm a sausage fan too. Or rather pup is. These are the only times she gets human food though.

Trixie treat snake stuffed with tuna, sausage and potato and frozen means that my pup doesn't want to come out the crate. She's only allowed it in the crate. I went out for 10 mins to the shop and videoed her. I swear she didn't know that I'd been and gone.

My trainer says that on walks we must have the best treats of all the walkers. So I'm a sausage fan too. Or rather pup is. These are the only times she gets human food though.

Trixie treat snake stuffed with tuna, sausage and potato and frozen means that my pup doesn't want to come out the crate. She's only allowed it in the crate. I went out for 10 mins to the shop and videoed her. I swear she didn't know that I'd been and gone.

My trainer says that on walks we must have the best treats of all the walkers. So I'm a sausage fan too. Or rather pup is. These are the only times she gets human food though.

Oops sorry. I'm pleased but not THAT pleased!

@Peachypips78 here's CSJ. www.csjk9.com/

I get the champ puppy kibble. It was developed for working dogs and OwlPup is a working breed although not a working dog. I found deciding on food really difficult. A friend recommended this one and I have to say it was the combination of price and her springer's firm poos that convinced me to try it. Have to say, OwlPup's aren't always firm but some are. I imagine the softer ones are due to all the human food training treats he gets?! The good quality ones tend to be too expensive for me, so I'm happy with CSJ.

There's the website allaboutdogfood that's good for comparing brands if anyone's not seen it.

Sigh. So I put the large crate in front of the sofa to restrict OwlPup's access to the sofa. The only gap is where I sit. He's now taken to jumping over my legs on to the sofa then stepping up on to the crate and sitting up there chewing his pizzle. At this time of the day I'm wondering if I've got the energy needed to start battling with him on this.

This was his response to 'Off'.

He is so lovely though! I can't resist a head tilt...

Oh Owlpup, he is so gorgeous! My pup got so out of hand tonight I eventually just put him in his crate to bark and cry. It was awful, but he had really jumped and hurt my arm, kept jumping and trying to bite dh and I'd tried everything to calm him but he just kept going. I feel awful and the neighbours must be moaning, but he eventually barjed and moaned for 45 minutes and finally now has fallen asleep. So I've gone from thinking we would get rid of the crate to thinking we will give it one last shot to get him crate trained. Now he's getting bigger we were in danger of actual injury from him rather than just a few scratches and nips!

@muckandnettles Snap! I brought my crate in again and set it up while Oliverpup went crazy jumping from sofa to sofa and shaking the blinds. He howled for about 30 mins and when I took him out he went to sleep in 2 minutes. I don't know if this means he'll be more resistant to crate training but I'm going to give it a go this week. Has anyone found a really good method? Any YouTube recommendations? I'll feed him in the crate tomorrow probably.
@OwlInAnOakTree what a beauty! Oliverpup looked like one of those rabies warning posters from the 70s during his nightly zoomies episode. Your pup looks very calm.

We're not create training, but we purchased the Di Morgan training course and we really love it! Although my neighbours probably think I'm nuts shouting 'treat party'

She has a module on crate training.

I think it cost £70, but it goes through a lot and we really love it...

@OliveButler thank you for saying that. Makes me feel a bit less guilty!

@Emrysmcdogface I'm so relieved to hear someone else not crate training. DPup absolutely hates it and to be honest it's not something I wanted either.

We managed to leave her on her own downstairs for a whole hour today whilst we were upstairs. She just sits on the sofa now and has the occasional whimper.

Got to try leaving the house tomorrow, eek! I've also made an appointment to view a doggy day care for when my furlough is over.

Obviously agree with you all that OwlPup is gorgeous and lovely and a beauty.

@OliveButler I think he is a pretty calm pup actually. Or certainly capable of it. But, as I've mentioned before, he's a different pup entirely around my son and I'm failing completely to manage that, they're crazy together and that causes me no end of stress and I end up banishing DS to the other room frequently throughout the day which I feel terrible for. I have zero experience of raising puppies, but a friend who's had several dogs tells me OwlPup is a pretty calm one. I am very thankful for that! That's not to say he's perfectly easy when I'm alone with him...there have been tears and blood and swearing and more holes in clothes than I care to think about, but I get the impression he's easier than some.

Re crate training, I just kind of threw food in to bribe him in there and ignored the whining. But. He never whined for more than about 30 seconds in the first few weeks so it seemed he was largely ok. He does make more noise in there now though if he's not happy for whatever reason. So, if I were you, now, with a pup who you weren't desperate to get to sleep in there immediately, I'd take my time and do it 'properly' to try and avoid the whining altogether. Owlpup goes in happily but always has a bit of a whine, and I think it must be lovely to have a pup that just takes themselves off to the crate and settles down without a peep... Have you joined the dog training and support facebook group? They have really good training units you can work through, including a quite thorough crate training unit.

Thanks for all the tips re: kibble and crating. I'd obviously got lucky the first few weeks with night time crating as he used to pop straight in at bedtime... Tonight and last night he's point blank refusing. I'm currently sitting in the floor trying to get him to go in, he keeps sauntering off and finding a spot on the floor instead. 😣

Another spectacular night’s sleep on the sofa. Even tried to sneak out last night once she was asleep but nope, the head came straight up. DH said yesterday he hasn’t warmed to the dog at all, and he’s the one who grew up with dogs. At least she’s off with the daycare for a bit so I can work today!

We are just awfully indulgent puppy parents. Puppy sleeps in his bed on DD's bed (she has a double bed, bed is by her feet)

Because she is a teenager, I do the 4am to 12am slot...

It does mean we all get quite good sleep...

But I suspect that it's poor form.

DD was enjoying him being a bit cheeky last night, and climbing on the sofa. He got v over-excited and bitey. It's such a conflict, isn't it! Balancing what's right for both of them... such a shame her giggles send him into an overexcited frenzy!

@Emrysmcdogface we’ve tried her sleeping on our bed and it did not end well.

Hugely resentful of the dog this morning

[quote GingerAndTheBiscuits]@Emrysmcdogface we’ve tried her sleeping on our bed and it did not end well.

Hugely resentful of the dog this morning [/quote]
Oh no! What happened? We are in such early days, I have no idea about what I'm doing!

She took hours to settle, and persistently tried to bite us until I left the room. She’s an older (5mo) rescue though so if you’ve started out with pup in your DD’s room I’m sure it will be fine!