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.

All sounds so tough @GingerAndTheBiscuits. How long has she been with you? Was she in another home before yours? (No advice to offer, sorry, just being curious...) I hope things get easier for you all.

@Juiceey thanks! We have some bitter apple spray, had forgotten all about it.

@OliveButler sorry to hear about your DS. Hope his finger heals painlessly. Yes, DS is very anxious around pup this morning. He's got shorts on because his jeans are all skinny fit and we didn't think he'd be able to pull them on without rubbing his shin, so he feels a bit vulnerable to a jumpy bitey pup, and has just been avoiding him as much as possible.

@OwlInAnOakTree 3 weeks today so no time at all really, though it’s been the longest three weeks in living memory she came straight to us from a shelter so no experience of being in a home, bless her.

I would say @GingerAndTheBiscuits that at 3 weeks in i would have paid someone to take DPup away gladly, I was quite seriously depressed about it all. At nearly 7 weeks in I love the little sod, and am excited about the grown up dog she will be when I get little glimpses of it. I think by September you will have a better idea of if keeping her is viable. I offer you the biggest handhold though because i was regularly in bits over the stress.

Thanks @Imadreamer44 that is good to know - how many weeks are you at now?!

Ignore me, misread your post! Hopefully not too long to see an improvement then.

What's it like having a grown up dog?! All I know is this puppy. We're on week 7. I like him a lot. DW loves him!

Trainer said she is way more relaxed than on her first visit, but acknowledged we probably don’t see that because we’re living it day to day. It’s nice for someone who ‘knows’ dogs to say so though.

I was wondering if anyone else is suffering from puppy brain, like baby brain? I swear I'm more forgetful and anything that isn't pup related gets cast aside by my mind!

@Imadreamer44 I know just what you mean - if people aren't discussing puppies, or admiring my pup, then I have to make a real effort to concentrate on other things. I've been done for speeding and also (on another occasion) missed a turn off the M1 that was important - both times I was thinking puppy thoughts!

Fish4Dogs - just used the free sample of salmon mousse (99% salmon) in a Kong which was the easiest thing ever to use as stuffing and pup is really working hard at it. Usually he gives up very easily on Kongs.

I might try the Kong and salmon mousse. Oliverpup just gives up on Kongs - I might be doing it wrong but I have no idea how dogs get anything out without hands!
Does anyone's puppy eat soil? I've caught Oliverpup eating soil in the garden a couple of times. I wrote earlier that mine won't eat Butternut anymore so I'm looking at alternatives. There's a website called allaboutdogfood.co.uk which gives the nutritional value of various dog foods so I'm buying a few to see if any are wolfed down. I do have a freezer full of butternut and would donate it if I knew how.
Summer holidays start tomorrow so hopefully I can spread the load with the DS's. Need to be more consistent with training too.

@Imadreamer44 yes! My best/worst(?) example is that my washing machine broke mid-cycle. I spent an hour on the kitchen floor removing the kickboard and the bit of wood the kickboard was attached to so that I could get to the filter then draining it and cleaning the filter. Tried a cycle, still didn't work. So I called a company, they came this morning, works fine. All I can think of is that I was so distracted by pup scrabbling around me whilst I was trying to sort it out and generally befuddled of brain due to pup generally that I didn't actually try a cycle at all?! That cost me £42.

@GingerAndTheBiscuits, no, 3 weeks is not long at all, but yes, 3 weeks with a new pup feels very long indeed.

I use kongs every day in the crate, but only with dry stuff, like you @OliveButler, I can't figure out how they can get something like peanut butter out? I once put peanut butter across the hole at the top but all that did was make all the kibble inside clump together as the peanut butter got pushed in so pup then couldn't get them out. It was also a bugger to clean afterwards. Are puppies' tongues long enough to lick out the salmon paste from the other end of the kong @muckandnettles? Or is that they aren't that makes them last a long time?

Had my first walk alone with pup today. Much easier than when DS is there! I can see how I could possibly train him to not pull with millions of treats if DS isn't with us bounding on ahead! He also managed to sit at a few road crossings which he wasn't able to focus enough to do before.

GingerPup must have an inordinately long tongue as she has no issue with Kongs it seems. The 25p jars of chicken and salmon paste from the supermarket are really good for filling the kong up. Add some cream cheese to pretend you’ve got a really posh dog! I’ve just stuffed one small and one large with some peanut butter, mashed banana, crushed up wag treats and Greek yoghurt and chucked them in the freezer along with a lickimat to buy me some peace tomorrow and over the weekend. There’s some people on social media that seem to make gourmet kongs for their dogs, if you really want to go wild.

She ignores them if they just have kibble in, the picky sod.

@OliveButler are you set on wet/fresh food? We’re using Step Up to Naturals puppy food from pets at home which scores pretty well on allaboutdogfood. We have a big sack of Tails we got on special offer which doesn’t score so well but she seems to like so we use for some games/enrichment as a change from her ‘cheerios’. Ours doesn’t eat soil but does eat bugs! Ants, mosquitoes. She’s impressively quick at snapping them up.

@OliveButler I'm really rating Pure as a food. It's dehydrated so needs mixing with water into a paste but BonBonPup LOVES it. Only thing she'll go nuts for in a kong

We are picking up our miniature dachshund in a week and wondered the best way to transport him in the car. My DP will be driving and I would really like to have new pup on my knee in blankets and towel. But what would be the best way to secure him and keep him safe?

www.purepetfood.com/?utm_source=bing&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=brand&msclkid=b2860e7b16b01c833a5a516bb32a7b1c

I use the jars of salmon paste on a lickimat, hadn't thought of putting it in a kong. Will give it a try.

Food in general, does anyone use Burgess? OwlPup's poos after having it at a friend's house were much firmer than normal. I'm thinking of trying it for that reason alone.

@makemedoit how long is the journey?

@Makemedoit I sat on the back seat and just had pup on my knee in a blanket for the journey home. It was only 30 minutes and I didn't like the idea of him being in a crate on top of all the other potential trauma that day.

@Makemedoit I sat on the back seat and just had pup on my knee in a blanket for the journey home. It was only 30 minutes and I didn't like the idea of him being in a crate on top of all the other potential trauma that day.

@puppybonbon it's about 3 hours

@OwlInAnOakTree Yes that's what I was thinking. Did you have him 'clipped in or tethered in any way?

Our little 10 week old puppy had his 2nd vaccination today. He is sore and just not himself. They used Nobivac Lepto 4. They didn't have the vaccine they used at 6 weeks which was Lepto 2. Im using the vet that the breeder used. What should I d

@makemedoit we had an hour and a half, much bigger puppy though. We brought her back in a crate but it we had the double back seat down so I was sat next to her, door open so I could cuddle etc.