Puppy Survival Thread - April

[Doje]

Starting a new thread....

@ilovesushi how old is sushi pup? They will always have their mad moments I think...I don’t think it can be prevented! Or even should be! As long as pup isn’t jumping off things from height or running up and down stairs they should be fine. Running isn’t too strenuous on their little joints, especially on grass

@Plantlover23 She's only 10 weeks. Mainly she is adorable, but when she loses the plot she leaps in the air trying to bite at people's clothes. She's put rips in my daughter's coat and my son's tracksuit. They are age 10 and 12 and pretty sensible kids so don't rev her up. Using distraction techniques as much as I can and basically getting the kids out of the picture if she is hyped up. The garden is secure, so I wonder whether i should just let her run off steam on her own when the mood takes her. She is fast asleep in her pen now.

Yep same with the worry here, definitely didn't worry as much about my kids as babies, I feel having a puppy is definitely more unknown.

Pugpup is 6.5 months now and the house is way less chaotic this last few days. He is walking/exercising more so is much more settled in the evening, we did a really short lead walk but he had ages playing at the dog park, a bit of running around but lots of just watching the other dogs and sniffing round the grass, it was lovely to see. He is no fear and even got knocked over by some big dogs when they were playing.

He isn't even fussed when we have our dinner anymore, just tends to sleep or sits there really chilled. A couple of weeks ago we were still up and down and he wanted to go out into the garden or wanted to play. He is waking slightly earlier than he was but its always after 6 so not too bad considering he mostly sleeps from 7/730 now.

Re the worry I think it was James Herriot who said 'if only they could talk'. I've thought that a lot recently!

Yes if only! Cherrypup has slept a lot this evening but otherwise been fine. I'm googling 'how to tell if your puppy is concussed'.

I have always said that with the cats too, I would love to know what they're thinking!

Anything that he does differently makes me worry, I did have to tell my youngest DC to stop picking him up as much as he did wriggle lots, he jumped out of his arms a couple of times indoors. Its hard when they are tiny 2/3kg things as it feels right to pick them up as they are so small but DS2 wanted to pick him up every time he saw him.

@ilovesushi I found that holding him tight into me when he was that hyper really helped as it reminded him that he actually wanted to sleep. You need to keep on with training them not to do it though as it will carry on, pugpup still does it on occasion when really excited or tired so we just keep on with down/wait or any command to distract him.

Saying no biting then standing up with arms folded and looking away seemed to work to best for us. He also understands uh-oh as a cue that he's not done the right thing. That was easy to teach as we used it to reset him with every cue we taught.

Puginthehouse your fog sounds amazing !

*dog

Please can I join too? PoirotPup is 9 weeks today so we’ve had him a week. I’ve been following the DTAS group and joined the puppy group there. We’ve had no toilet accidents inside and he sleeps from about 8.45 - 6 with one week about 11.

He is getting more of a bitey menace though and sometimes the distractions don’t work so reading your tips with hope! I know he is over tired/excited but it’s hard to calm sometimes!

When he is awake we’re not always sure how to play with him which sounds silly. I’d like to teach him fetch, but not sure where to start. I know not to throw a ball loads, far, high and fast but would like to roll one of his toys maybe and start with that?

Welcome mrsherculepoirot sounds like you are doing really well so far

Does anyone else have a puppy that isn’t interested in going for walks? I have a 12 week old who I have been taking on the school run to socialise her. It’s only 5 minute walk. But I think she found all the people overwhelming and is now refusing to go around the block with me. Not sure how normal this is ?

yes, I had that with walking. high value treats, liver or sausage works well for us. Once we could get them moving they were ok. We had to revisit that training as they hit adolescence and decided walking alone (we have 3 dogs) was a no.

It’s come as a bit of a surprise to me. I thought dogs were supposed to love walks !

Welcome all the new pups!

@Turquoisesol ours was reluctant to walk to begin with, not even for treats, so we used to carry him to the end of the road and then get him to walk home! That worked for us.

@Turquoisesol he's a bright little thing but we were really lucky to find a wonderful trainer who has helped us so much. We couldn't do puppy classes due to covid so only 1:1s which has been amazing. I posted a link to her IG page earlier in this thread and our pup Suggs is on her highlights so you can see some of the work she has done with him.

DS2 spent lots of time with him when he was 8-10 weeks teaching really simple cues like sit, paw, spin, hi-5 and they were great distractions for when he was hyper as gave him lots of focus. The trainer helped us with leave it, lie down, wait, stay, no game (to either not go over to a dog, cat, person or to stop playing if the other dog not ok with it) and also with heel and recall. Heel and lie down were the hardest things to teach him, not sure why lie down was so hard but heel I think was because he is small so much harder to hold a treat for him when walking along.

I have a question regarding training that I feel I really ought to know by now as pup is 6.5 months.

I feel like I'm not doing enough training because there's so much to do that it overwhelms me so I end up doing nothing.

When people talk about doing a "training session" i don't really know what that means if you get what I mean.

Please talk me through how you go about training in terms of do you have set times for training sessions and do you tell pup that you're doing training, do you just train one thing over and over or various things etc etc.

@Sparkle79 we only do a set training session if its with the trainer. It is then a 1 hour session and we would do anything we felt pugpup needed to learn at the time. We then used the sessions outside in parks or walking to learn heel/recall.

Personally at home we never do set training sessions. We may spend 10 mins specifically teaching him something new but other than that we just use the commands he knows throughout the day as and when, or when he is being a bit hyper but has already had his walks we may spend a few minutes doing the tricks he knows to calm him down.

I imagine we are pretty slack compared to some but I think he knows the essentials ( other than being left alone without going crazy).

Training... so if I want to introduce something brand new, or work on something that he’s still got no clue what he’s supposed to be doing, I set aside 10-20 minutes to work on just that... not every day, just as and when.

Once he’s “got” something (I mean, it won’t be fully obviously, but he’s no longer just looking at me in confusion, lol) then I just start doing it randomly whenever.

@Sparkle79 I should have said, I think the best way, if its overwhelming as there is so much, is to pick one or two things you want to teach, decide how you are going to do it and then just practice for a short time maybe a couple of times a day. If its not working out then end by doing a couple of commands they already know (even just sit) and treat them so it always ends on a positive.

Hi guys hope you're doing well! It's been a while since I've been here!

Londonpup is now 19 weeks old, he's coming along really nicely and of course we still have some difficult moments. Now we have a great routine things are easier. He came to the pub on Wednesday which I was nervous about but he did ok! And last night again and to my surprise slept most of the time on us despite it being packed in the beer garden and rarely doing that at home!

Still having issues of overexcitement with other dogs. He loads, locks and lunges to meet and play with them. When an off lead dog comes over (much to our annoyance usually) he gets so excited to play he gets a lipstick at the same time anyone else get that with their pups?

Anyway we're enjoying each week more and more and he's turning into a lovely dog

Ah bless him, he is gorgeous!! Pugpup gets a lipstick really randomly, just sitting down a lot of the time, then the other day he was doing a training session with DS and the trainer and apparently he had one throughout most of it lol. Occasionally when playing with other dogs but not often, or I haven't noticed anyway.

Had to Google lipstick Funny enough pup had one yesterday after the zoomies!

Thanks @PugInTheHouse and @tabulahrasa for training replies. I may be over thinking it. We do things through the day eg "wait" for food etc, haven't really done, any tricks because I feel there is too much obedience stuff to teach first. But then I get in the rut so maybe I do need to sit down with a pen and paper and make a plan.

@PugInTheHouse

Ah bless him, he is gorgeous!! Pugpup gets a lipstick really randomly, just sitting down a lot of the time, then the other day he was doing a training session with DS and the trainer and apparently he had one throughout most of it lol. Occasionally when playing with other dogs but not often, or I haven't noticed anyway.

Hilarious 😂 at this age the testosterone must be high and everything is so exciting still! Am wondering when he is neutered if it will still be the same... time will tell!

@Sparkle79

Had to Google lipstick Funny enough pup had one yesterday after the zoomies!

Thanks @PugInTheHouse and @tabulahrasa for training replies. I may be over thinking it. We do things through the day eg "wait" for food etc, haven't really done, any tricks because I feel there is too much obedience stuff to teach first. But then I get in the rut so maybe I do need to sit down with a pen and paper and make a plan.

They're rather gross!

@Sparkle79 we train with every meal by hand feeding on The advice of the trainers we use - it's meant to make you the best thing ever as they have to work for their food to earn it from you