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.

We like Zak and inertia because they show failures and it makes us feel less bad...

Will look at the other recommendations
...

Thanks for all the good wishes everyone. The rescue have asked if they can advertise her now in preparation for her being returned and it made me feel so sad. DH said “you can keep her if you like” but the emphasis is on the “you”! We can’t put her in a crate and her separation anxiety is so severe (as in, I just stepped into a room behind a gate and she sat at the gate - able to see me - and crying, panting, drooling) that putting her behind a door when she’s biting makes her more worked up rather than less. So I have to make DH leave the room and I try to distract her. We’re trying out him throwing high value treats away from him when she starts jumping all over him and biting, to reward her for going away from him but I’m not sure that’s a winning technique either!

Ooh, exciting fish4dogs samples arrived today. Very generous! Looking forward to OwlPup trying them. Thanks for mentioning it @muckandnettles.

Agree re Zak George @Emrysmcdogface. It's really good to see even a trainer getting bit by his puppy or getting caught out by an indoor wee.

Ah that's sad @GingerAndTheBiscuits. Such a difficult decision to make. How did it go with having her on the lead last night? I've tried it this morning every time my DS comes into the room. OwlPup got no chance to jump up at him and no petting unless he was sitting so I'm hoping if we keep it up, he'll learn the new behaviour. Hard though...normal life feels very much on hold...

I watched a bit of Zac George earlier and agree it was lovely seeing an untrained puppy. Still couldn't get my pup pup to sit (he just backs away and/or jumps) but was much more helpful than videos of a very obedient dog.

Ginger - I’m sorry that you’ve got to this point.

That's hard GingerAndTheBiscuits with your DH putting it back onto you.

He just said to his mum that if we could get her sleeping alone he could probably cope with the rest. But even that seems impossible - we move away from her and she just follows us, even if she’s been sleeping soundly! He really wanted the dog, so to be fair I imagine it’s hard for him too with it not panning out the way he expected. Even if I do want to kill him.

She’s now become afraid of having her harness put on which is going to make walks difficult as she can be great 75% of the time but the rest she pulls like a train, so a harness definitely feels like it’s more comfortable than her collar. So she’s having a sulky nap instead of having a walk! And we’ll have to do lots of desensitisation with that this afternoon. If it’s not one thing it’s another

@OwlInAnOakTree better for him as I could manhandle her off him so he wasn’t waiting to be nipped every five seconds. But I’m not sure it’s much fun for her :(

Best thing last night was a stuffed hoof which kept her busy for ages and didn’t stink as bad as the pizzle. I’ve refilled it with treats and yoghurt and stuck it in the freezer to see if it buys me time to put the kids to bed without howling the street down tonight.

The stuffed hoof sounds fab @GingerAndTheBiscuits, hope it helps at bedtime tonight.

@muckandnettles and anyone else using Total Recall...so, I've read the first 83 pages and have finally(!) reached recall exercise 1. And I'm stuck already. It says blow the whistle when you give pup his meals. I don't give pup meals in bowls, he gets kibble-filled kongs when he goes in his crate for a nap or I scatter feed/use enrichment stuff at other times. He's always super excited when I get his crate kong ready and he skips to the crate in excitement for it. Can I use the whistle then, do you think? It would definitely be a positive association, but I think it would be confusing the two issues of going in the crate and recall...what do you think? Maybe I should just use a little bowl of treats/kibble (not in the crate) to do ex 1?

@GingerAndTheBiscuits I'm so sorry this is happening but can totally see you might have to do this for your family. Also can totally see why you want to kill your dh. Our pup has put a severe strain on us as well. My dh irritates me with a sort of scoffing noise he makes when I tell pup he is a good boy when I get control of him after a bad 'episode' or when he is sarcastic when I try and explain what we need to do. It really doesn't help. Pup also bites him more than me but mainly because he just sits and lets him as if to prove how bad the pup is instead of getting up and moving away. And then next meal time dh gives him his bowl to lick...which I thought we had agreed was not going to happen. Infuriating!

Muckypup isn't keen on his harness unless there are lots of treats involved putting it on, in which case he will go along with it as long as you're really quick. His favourite non-cooperation move is to lie on his back and kick his legs around when the harness is half on. More treats and more treats until I worry he will be a fat puppy and I'll get told off at puppy school.

Juiceypup slept til 730 this morning. Amazing how much more I love him when the clock says 7 rather than 6 or 5!

So did BeePup! It's such a nice treat getting woken up by an alarm that isn't a whining puppy at 5.30am

Nice one pups!

Sorry to hear you’re right there with me @muckandnettles. I actually think it’s harder on our relationship than when the kids were newborns!

Sorry so many of us are having such a hard time. It's just not easy. I really thought I was prepared but totally wasn't.

Having all the same biting challenges as many of you. Not managed to solve that yet.

And also a bizarre feeding challenge - do all of your puppies actually want to eat at meal times? We're trying to keep to the same times for meals but she's just not interested in eating out of her bowl or eating at all really - unless I sit and hand feed her but really don't want to get in the habit of that!

I just wondered if everyone else's puppies eat out of their bowl 3 times a day or whether I'm being over ambitious expecting that yet. I've just ordered a snuffle mat and puzzle bowl thing of Amazon to see if it's just that the bowl is boring. But when she hasn't eaten her main meal I'm worried about doing training in between as obviously she eats the kibble or treat then and then isn't hungry again at meal time! Argh.....

Also @OwlInAnOakTree - which AbsoluteDogs download did you buy? Have been looking at that site. Was it the pup2perfection one? Was it any good?

@GingerAndTheBiscuits I'm really sorry things have been so hard. It all sounds so difficult. Hope you're ok.

@pistachioicecream I did get the Pup2Perfection download first...I'd actually forgotten about that one! I don't recommend that particular one. It's 3.5 hours of video, and I picked up a few good tips from it (but I'm a completely new dog owner), but I was disappointed with it as a while and it wasn't what I expecting from the blurb. BUT, because I do think they know their stuff and I like the idea behind it (using games to train), I then got the Leash Off, Game On download when it was on offer for around £14. I think it's 7 or 8 games, in an hour long video. I've not looked at it in a while actually, must get back to it...(I always spend more time researching than doing, in general in life!) It's ok for £14, but I wouldn't buy it at full price.

I think they have some free downloads available. I'll check my email and let you know.

@pistachioicecream Found these links in an email I sent myself a few months back...I think they were all mentioned on a facebook thread I read of their's before pup even came home. Then I promptly forgot about them and haven't actually looked at them.

game.absolute-dogs.com/start-here

game.absolute-dogs.com/boundary-games-ebook

absolutedog.s3.amazonaws.com/NBN_Course_links/Calmness_eBook_07.pdf

game.absolute-dogs.com/focusebook

And they advocate 'Ditch the bowl' wrt feeding. I did read this one! Might help you with the feeding issue you mention above?

absolutedog.s3.amazonaws.com/ebooks/DitchTheBowl_v7.pdf

@OwlInAnOakTree

Thank you that's really helpful. I'll have a look.

Hope you have a good evening!

@OwlInAnOakTree the first exercise of Total Recall didn't really work for us either as pup is always by my side when his food is being prepared, so no possibility of 'calling' him to it exactly, it just felt awkward. I went to the next exercise.

@GingerAndTheBiscuits I'm so sorry you've had it so hard. You sound like an amazing person, trying so hard but she sounds very difficult indeed and I'm not sure what more you can do. I hope you're being kind to yourself. DH and I have argued a lot. He's off in his office and I'm on pip duty all day and still whinges when he's asked to do stuff. And he's not really remembering to take him out for a wee/ poo regularly. It's very tough

That's interesting about the ditch the bowl! I was trying to work out if we are messing up as he has very little food from his bowl, he loves training so much, and also loves eating out of kongs and snuffle mat, I was worried we were doing it wrong!

Thanks @polkadotpjs - I’m flying solo with her for the next three nights so we’ll see how it goes. She was well behaved towards DH all day until right before he went to work which made for a stressful exit. Not what he needed!

We do very little bowl feeding here too. It’s scattered on the grass or in a snuffle mat or inside cereal or egg boxes or wrapped up in toilet roll tubes. So mostly it’s all over our living room rug 🙄

Sounds like my living room floor @GingerAndTheBiscuits. Kibble has replaced lego as something to walk on a swear about every day. Despite all the feeding toys and enrichment stuff I do, OwlPup's favourite way of being fed is me just throwing kibble about the room for him to chase after/sniff out.

So I heard back from a trainer today about 1-1 sessions. £44 for an hour but they recommend two hours for first session. That's a lot, isn't it?! A friend has used them before and says they're good, but £88...?

I have paid between £30 and £50 for 1-1 training. A good 1-1 session though is worth a lot more than a series of group sessions so I feel its value for money.

Agree with that. I think I was thinking around £30 an hour. I emailed another one 10 days ago but haven't heard back so nothing to compare their price to.

Really it's to help give me strategies to deal with DS and pup together. Which she says they can definitely help with as they have a young child themselves. I'm sure they can help, and I do feel like I need help with that. Certainly worth £88 if it helps!