Puppy Survival Thread - January - February

[C4itl]

Continuing on the thread from www.mumsnet.com/Talk/the_doghouse/4105422-Puppy-Survival-Thread-December?pg=28 before we hit the message limit

@Sparkle79 it depends on the day tbh. Breakfast is almost always in his bowl. I tend to do similar to you for lunch and dinner, depending on naps. He's usually happy to go to his crate and fall asleep whilst we eat, but if he's not ready for a nap I might roll up a blanket with his kibble in, or do a bot of a home made shuffle puzzle with cardboard boxes and packing tissue. If he's ready to nap just before lunchtime I'll just pop it in his bowl for him. If he's being a pain when I'm cooking I sometimes scatter his food outside. Yesterday I needed the kids and pup out of my face and so got them to catapult his food over the lawn! Kept them all entertained for 20 minutes!

Other than that, he has a coffee wood stick available all the time, and sometimes a Yakkers milk chew.

@Sparkle79
We do similar (we have a spaniel), meals are hand fed through training at the moment. Lunchtime I usually throw pieces of kibble in the garden and she sniffs them out (this is her favourite). She sometimes gets some kibble in a toy too - favourites are the kong wobbler or kong gyro. Then she might have a lickimat whilst we have dinner and a natural chew to settle in the evening - she seems to have gone off a lot of chews recently though, not sure if that’s because of her teeth...

One thing I do worry about is that we feed her too much - she definitely has more kibble than the packet says. I meticulously weigh her every week and then weigh out each days food - DH then chucks extra handfuls in his coat pocket every time her takes her out . She isn’t at all overweight and she is very active. DH says we can cut her food down once we’ve trained her to be a good girl
We tend to use her food as training and don’t add many training treats - extras are a natural chew, a carrot, a kong (which has soaked kibble frozen). It just seems like we are slipping her kibble all the time but maybe I’m overthinking it!

@SpreadHummusNotHate how old is your pup?

This thread is fabulous

@Doberwow she is 21 weeks and doing well in so many ways, she sleeps at night, pretty much toilet trained, very quick to pick up new tricks but i still find it very overwhelming the amount of things we need to train.

I think you have to pick a priority and work on that for a couple of weeks then add something new in - currently ours is loose-lead walking because she is terrible for pulling. Currently we drive somewhere twice a day and let her off lead but would love to just be able to step out the front door and go for a walk - I sort of took it for granted that we’d be able to do that.

Your pup is still very young I think? Toilet training was the first thing we worked on - the crate helped with this. Outside after every nap and after every half hour of being awake (you can gradually extend this as their bladders get bigger). Big party and lots of praise/treat when they wee/poo outside. If there’s an accident, no fuss just clean it up and take them outside.

@SpreadHummusNotHate yes she's 8.5 weeks.

I'm worried I'm not doing enough with her (it's like having another baby 😂).

She seems to be mad running around, rough playing, jumpy.... or asleep.

I've done some mental games with her, but her concentration is low.

I've ordered the licky mat and slow feeder.

I'll maybe try a different Kong.

Thank you for your help.

@SpreadHummusNotHate lead walking literally clicked for us this week, also 21 weeks but we have probably done more of it than the offlead/recall work, he is still on long lead rather than off lead. I wish we had worked on the off lead stuff more as it sounds like hummouspup is donig great with that but now we can walk in about 7/8 mins to the park from the house at a decent pace (previously it would have been about 20) and he has a little sniff but that's it, pretty much no pulling, its such a huge change from about 5 days ago. He has started marking all the trees and lamp posts this week so I think it could be that he just him getting older and calmer, or maybe a coincidence.

On the ongoing lead in the park he will come back when called every time but I am not confident enough to trust him yet as he is still so excited with other dogs. We had a training session with another dog today, it was lovely to see him playing properly. He struggles to walk with other dogs as he just wants to play so it was good to practife distracting him. He fell asleep on the way home in my arms bless him.

@Doberwow she’s still so tiny I wouldn’t worry too much. Try feeding her by hand to build up your bond and enjoy the cuddles before she turns into a fully fledged land shark

@PugInTheHouse that sounds like fantastic progress on walks!! Don’t worry our off lead is also far from perfect. She is good when there are not too many distractions - but she’s started to get a bit more confident so goes further from us and won’t come back if she’s chasing a pigeon. So walking off and on load is definitely something we need to work hard on - it’s one of the main reasons we got a dog so I really want it to be enjoyable for her and us!

@SpreadHummusNotHate the cuddles are awesome!

I was going to come here and ask about scheduled for pups/WFH so glad to see others have asked the same! DH and I are both WFH but in separate rooms upstairs where Doboopup is not allowed. So we tend to take it in turns downstairs with her depending on meetings (and arguing about whose meeting is most important )

Doboopup is a 12 week old Labrador, we find she can’t do more than an hour awake so she goes into the crate after that time, but it’s hit and miss how long she sleeps. I’d like to build up a routine of crate time for a couple of hours at a time (with toys, water etc) - how long do you leave pups in crate awake? We have been working on leaving her but have only made it to ten minutes so far...

@SpreadHummusNotHate if she doesn't look overweight and is active I wouldn't worry about overfeeding. I weigh her food for the day in a tupperware and then we try to take his treats out of that but we do give him extra.

@PugInTheHouse that's great you've mastered the lead walking... How did you manage it? Like Hummus I imagined just going for a nice stroll out of the house but Sparklepup is a terrible puller. I've tried all sorts to teach heel but not found anything that works yet.

@Doberwow try not to worry about not doing enough with her, she's teeny and learning all the time. I did think of something else that might be worth teeching is "gently" when you're hand feeding her.

@Doberwow she sounds adorable. Definitely take full advantage of the early days cuddles! It’s a bit alarming how quick they grow up. Plantpup wasn’t very food motivated with things like kongs and lickimats until about 11 weeks and suddenly it seemed to click and she became really keen on them so don’t worry if she’s not interested in the beginning.

Plantpup is having her first day at daycare tomorrow! I’m really worried as she passed her assessment to go but now has 3 trial days. Really hoping she passes as it’s a lovely place run from a family home with only max 10 dogs allowed so much less chaotic than some of the bigger places. And I will rest much easier whilst I’m working if I know she’s there!

@Plantlover23 oh do let us know how she gets on! So nerve wracking xx

I totally agree with those of you who have mentioned daycare. C4pup goes twice a week from 12-3. He loves it, it helps him socialise with other dogs and also gives me a chance to catch up on work! He’s also shattered when he gets home and pretty much sleeps for the rest of the night

@Sparkle79 we have been doing 2 short lead walks every day and every time he pulls we just stop until he gives some slack on the lead then we say 'let's go', it was sometimes every 10 seconds. Literally just that over and over again. When he realised we weren't moving anywhere he tended to look back at me which showed he was giving me his attention then we could move on.

He has a habit of getting under our feet as hes often trying to see where I am so we also praise with a 'good in front' when he's walking nicely in front of us.

Heel is proving a bit trickier as we were trying the treat down by our thigh but because he is so small he was constantly jumping up to get the treat so we are now trying just tapping our legs so he comes closer then if he stays for a few steps we treat then. We are trying to use heel to get him to focus on us when there are other people/dogs/scooters passing us. He is better on the pavements with this but in the park is way more excited.

@Plantlover23 how exciting re day care, I have booked some sessions with the trainer for her to take pugpup out for solo walks. Will be good for her to do some work with him on her own and also it will be so nice to have half hour alone haha.

@PugInTheHouse thanks for that. Funnily enough that's exactly what I have started doing today every single time and was literally just telling DH about it. Hopefully it'll work. I can imagine heel must be tricky with a tiny one. Sparkle pup just doesn't get heel at all, he just keeps stopping and then gets annoyed and just tries to grab the treat. Tried the wooden spoon too but he just stops. Need to work on that too!

I have definitely found heel the hardest one to teach, it just feels messy and like I'm tripping over him constantly. I am hoping the trainer can work on it with him on Thursday and find a way that works for him well.

DS was trying to improve on his 'spin' trick by getting him to copy him so they both spin together. It was very sweet but also quite funny when DS spun around and pugpup just sat there watching him

Hello all. Not posted for ages but thought I'd say hi.

Newpup is nearly 7 months now. She's great.

She usually has 2 or 3 walks a day. Either 8am/1pm/6pm about 30-45 mins each on working days OR on a weekend then one longer walk either morning or afternoon and then maybe a stroll round the block.

2 days at daycare so no walks then. That helps with my homeschool and WFH challenges!!

Between walks she snoozes and potters around. Sometimes I or the kids play with her with toys or games for treats.

By 8/9pm she's snoozing in the lounge and she then goes in her crate 10pm-8am.

@Doboopedoo we have no joy at all with awake time in the crate, she will just chew the bars/pull up the vet bed (which is bloody expensive stuff!), whine, bark. It does concern me because I don’t know what we will do if she’s still like that when we need to go out and leave her.

We have a playpen that she sits in while we are working and on the whole it’s working not too bad but she will even chew the bars on that at times. Especially when she’s over tired and won’t give in and just lie down. Sorry that’s not much help but you’re not alone!

@Doberwow I’m not sure what your night routine is but when we first got ours at 8 weeks we had her in our room in the crate for the first few nights, got her up after about 3 hours and then extended it each night by 15 mins and that seemed to work. When we took her out we carried her straight outside and back in and no talking so she knew it wasn’t playtime. She sleeps great in her crate at night...during the day not so easy grin]!

@newpup123 this sounds like you’ve done a fab job! It really sounds like 6/7 months is a bit of a turning point in them chilling out a little bit.

@PugInTheHouse that sounds like such a good plan for your pup! Spending some time out fully away from you! And you’re right, peace and alone time is important

Fingers crossed for our daycare today! Will keep everyone posted.

Plantpup woke up at 2am for a wee and poo last night for the first time in weeks. Hoping it’s just a blip as my full nights sleep are keeping me sane!

Why oh why oh why can she not just sit at peace in the crate .

That is all

How old was everyone's pup when their canine teeth fell out? FrankinPup has lost a tooth a day every day for about the last 2 weeks but those pesky canines are still there - not even a hint of a wobble! He'll be 20 weeks on Sunday. Biting has calmed down but not gone completely 😩

Can you focus on the pen instead of the crate?
I think it’s quite a lot to ask of them to be awake and happy in crate.
Take it you’ve tried chews and things?

Still waiting for first tooth to come out here-15 weeks.
Bit discouraged today after talking to trainer who said to forget lead walks altogether for now until I’ve trained her to walk nicely on lead at home, in garden and on drive which will take ages.
I don’t think I’ve got that level of patience and commitment! I just want to go for a walk with her and can see why people are drawn to the quick fixes!

@Petalpup remind me what your problem with the lead is - is it the pulling? That's our problem. I've been doing what @PugInTheHouse did and stopping every single time he pulls which sometimes is every other second. I must look like a right melon walking down the street stopping and starting. And I have to do it on my own as DH doesn't have the patience. I can't try lead walking at home or in the garden because he just attacks the lead.