Puppy Survival Thread - April

[Doje]

Starting a new thread....

@GeorgieTheGorgeousGoat it sounds like you're doing great enrichment stuff to stretch his mind and if he's chilled I'd say that's a sign he's tired out enough physically and mentally. You could put kibble in the cardboard boxes as a bit of scent work if he's already into ripping them up. I just basically use all the plastic and cardboard recycling that I can put kibble in

I'm still catching up when I have a spare 5 mins!

@MrsHerculePoirot I was super confused by the chew advice. Everywhere said Kongs or nylabone, nothing too hard but stillpup really isn't keen (so far) on rubbery chews, even if they're covered with peanut butter/cheese. He has beef tripe (www.dragonflyproducts.co.uk/dried-beef-tripe-sticks-for-dogs?pv=51). They do other things suitable for puppies too. I did get some cow ears but they were really hard and a little piece splintered off so I got scared then and never fed them again. The rabbit ears are much softer (but don't last very long!) He also likes a frozen carrot.

Non-food wise, he loves the kitchen chair legs so we got a 'safe' wood chew which he seems ok with. We did have a yak chew, and he does like it, but it keeps getting lost under the sofa!

Thanks @Sparkle79 that's very kind. I know from previous conversations that we are in the same line of work, how is that going alongside puppy rearing?

Hard day here because pup has hardly eaten any of his meals. I don't think there is anything wrong with his because he is happily eating treats, drinking, toileting and is running around.

When we put a meal down he just sniffs it, has a few bites (no bites in the case of kibble although he's taken that from my hand) and walks away. I'm fighting the temptation to feed him chicken or similar because I'm worried about him. I don't like to think of him hungry.

@MrsHerculePoirot We've chopped and changed over the sleeping arrangements, but finally all settled into a good system (fingers crossed!). She is sleeping in a pen downstairs in the kitchen extension. The first few nights were on my son's bedroom floor, but she was so restless that he couldn't sleep. It was so bad he was getting nose bleeds and fell asleep on the bathroom floor. Then we had her in our room, but again no one was sleeping and it was awful. We then put her in the pen downstairs and for a couple of nights DH slept next to her on the floor and took her out when she needed to wee/ poo.
Now she is down there on her own, and absolutely fine. The key thing is for my husband to settle her, not me. With me there is a bit of whining and crying. With him she just settles straight down. He is getting up at 1.30am to take her out to poo in the garden. Then I get up at 6am for her. If I do the nighttime poo slot, she won't settle again as she is so excited to see me and cries when I go which I find heartbreaking!
We should have just put her the pen away from us on the first night, but we were worried about her being alone and missing her family. She actually has very good quality sleep there and at about 9pm wanders in there herself. Importantly we are rested so can enjoy training her and playing with her in the daytime. Hope that helps! What are you finding works or doesn't work?

Completely behind on this thread so sorry if this has already been asked!

Has anyone else experienced their dog getting hay fever? For the past few days C4pup has sneezed a lot throughout the day and he has a runny nose he’s also stopped eating all of his breakfast but then eats all of his dinner and the leftover of his breakfast so he hasn’t lost his appetite... not sure whether a vets visit is needed as he seems fine in himself

@ilovesushi it would be so funny, he would make a good gun dog haha!

We have been at my son's cricket match all day, pugpup just won't sleep with so much going on but he crashes as soon as we get home, I do worry though as we generally have 2 x 7 hrs of cricket Sat and Suns so its a lot of sleep he is missing. I was doing the scorebook and looking after him most of the day, DH took him for half hour for a walk and next thing I know pugpup is on the middle of the pitch running as fast as his little legs could take him

@C4itl how bizarre! I would ask the vet and see what they say. Maybe he has a cold? It's hard to tell isn't it but at least he's well in himself!

@PugInTheHouse I'm sure pugpup would be brilliant as a gun dog! I also used to score for my son's team and there is no way I could have handled Happy and the scorebook so you must be doing brilliantly!

Happy is v whiny at the moment. He was at the vet last week and I got her to check him over - there's nothing wrong with him, he's just whinging when we make him do stuff he doesn't want to do! We went to the pub yesterday and he wouldn't settle because there were other dogs there that we wouldn't allow him to play with (mainly because they were behaving nicely and lying down and he wasn't!) and he went into a full on whinge/whine/cry! He's become so vocal. I am really hoping we can train him out of it because it's going to stop us going out as much with him if he's such a pain!

It's only around other dogs as well (that he whines) as he's cross he isn't allowed to play with them. The trainer described it as zero will power around other dogs

@LemonCake79 i think for some of them, It can take a few weeks for them to settle into their new life and some don't eat properly till they are settled. I know people kept telling us not to worry and the pup would never starve himself - they kept saying if he was hungry he would eat, but actually we did hand feed a few meals and it took a few weeks before he confidently ate his food!

@HappyThursdays, that does seem to be the advice / reasoning from googling. It's taking me back to the days of fussy toddlers where people said 'they won't starve' and 'it's take it or leave it' but that is so easy to say and so hard to enforce isn't it?

The advice is to offer the food and take it away after 15 minutes but it's so tempting to keep offering it. DH has bought some different food for him to try in case it is the food despite us feeding what the breeder fed.

He's doing so well generally, he seems to have settled in brilliantly but obviously in his little head something about his food doesn't feel right. His training is steaming ahead because I keep thinking I'll do some sitting / lead work / paw partly as an excuse to hand feed him.

@PugInTheHouse, I'm reminded of the Sheep-Pig who herded sheep like a collie. The pug-umpire, I'm sure he could do it!

@HappyThursdays I rang the free vet nurse that comes with the Butternut Box and she said to ring the vets in normal opening hours on Monday so at least I know it’s not something urgent, phew

@LemonCake79 Plantpup is a bit of a fussy eater at times and kind of controversially (as I know it’s generally not what the advice online says!) I just put her daily food allowance in her bowl in the morning and leave it there until bedtime. Almost always by the time we go to bed it’s all gone and she’s eaten it, she just eats at odd times and generally seems hungriest about midday and then quite late in the evening about 8pm. She does graze on it a bit in between too. I’m not sure if it’s because she’s a bit older now but it’s not had any negative impact on waking her up to go to the toilet in the night or anything, so I’m just letting her do her own thing with it a bit!

@ilovesushi thanks that’s really helpful. Currently we have a crate in the dining/kitchen. I slept in there with him (on the floor not in the crate 🤣) every night with crate door open initially. He was sleeping through. We closed the door and he was fine first night - just woke up once and I gave him quick stroke 2 mins and he went back to sleep. Then next night though he woke up every two hours.... so fine back to leaving door open as perhaps we’d rushed it. We have a pen coming today so hoping to put that around the crate and leave door open so he can get out and then go back in.

We are in a rental at the mo, so can’t have him upstairs and it makes me totally paranoid about damage etc.... think we’ll take it in turns sleeping down with him and then move to sofa which is in room next door and then go from there.

@LemonCake79 PoirotPup has been with us just over a week now and still isn’t that keen on eating from his bowl. He often will eat something but not all. I’ve started weighing out the days allowance and then we use it for training, scatter mat, sometimes just hand feed him a bit. We don’t really know what we’re doing with training though so I’m trying to get on top of that 🤣

He’s a lab so everyone tells me how good driven they are - I think he just likes it when we feed him because sometimes we don’t want to play his frenzied biting game 🤣🤦‍♀️

@MrsHerculePoirot Maybe he'll be happier in the pen. I imagine they could feel a little trapped in a crate. Sounds like it is going well but maybe you just need to take it a bit more gradually - or tough it out and let him whimper. My worry with that is they might take against the crate or pen if they have negative associations. It's not straightforwards is it!?

Deffo going to take it slow. He loves going in his crate for sleeps about 50% of time and deffo at night so I’m hoping the pen will both allow him that feeling of freedom and save our ankles when needed 🤣🤣🤣

@GeorgieTheGorgeousGoat I think Georgiepup sounds great, I think we all probably naturally teach the things we really need to dependant on the dogs personality. For more chilled pups they probably need to learn less as they are more naturally better behaved whereas hectic characters like pugpup need keeping in check. I dont think its that they are more clever, just that they have had to learn more if that makes sense.

@LemonCake79 we had a food issue but it was when we had changed food, he just wouldn't eat it, he went 2 days eating maybe a 3rd of it of that, that would only be because his instinct is to inhale his food then when he realised he wouldn't eat any more. He actually went several days with hardly eating anything so I'm not sure they would actually eat something they don't like even if hungry. He also seemed to lose some trust in us as then he wouldn't eat anything we tried to give him, even something he really liked. We were trying to slowly wean him from the food he hated to some new stuff and in the end the trainer said to just switch in full to the new stuff before he loses trust in us. I had already got some great advice on MN prior to that about switching over also.

@HappyThursdays it was even worse as it was an adult match so went on hours. Pugpup also does similar to happy when he can't play with other dogs. He just wants to play with them all and some are too grumpy, he has been told off by dogs many times but just thinks they are playing. We are still working on that, if we are approaching a dog and he's off lead he is quite good at 'no game' but on lead not great at all.

@Plantlover23, I'm tempted to leave his kibble in the pen so it's there is he wants it. That said he did eat half his breakfast this morning after I mixed a little bit of cooked chicken through it. He was the smallest dog in the litter and only a bit bigger than the bitches so possibly he's a more delicate eater generally.

@MrsHerculePoirot, we have our crate in a pen. He seems really happy with the set up. We only shut the crate at night and mostly leave the pen door open but we do have the option to shut it when we are doing something where we need to know he's safe etc.

Thank you @PugInTheHouse and @MrsHerculePoirot, it's good to know we aren't alone on this one. And to think dogs have a reputation for eating anything!

When turquoisepup arrived she was already used to sleeping in a crate. But she didn’t really choose to go in there herself. She generally falls asleep at my feet and I put her in at bedtime. She stirs a bit and wakes up but generally doesn’t mind. Then sleeps well after that. But I am concerned that I can only do this as she is a puppy just now and not that opinionated. I wonder if I need to actively crate train her to go in herself. On I noticed on another thread in the doghouse that some people give biscuits at bedtime as a routine to get them in to bed. So wondered about introducing this possibly ?

@HappyThursdays how did you find your trainer? I am really looking for agility classes and have had no luck via google

@Turquoisesol, lemonpup was also crate trained by his breeder so is used to it but we've been following the Easy Peasy Puppy Squeezey 'den wizard' method to reinforce the message that 'this is my nice, secure, quiet space'. We hide a few treats in the crate when he's not looking before bed. It is supposed to make them think their den is the best place in the world.

@GeorgieTheGorgeousGoat yes I agree with @PugInTheHouse and Georgiepup always sounds so happy. Happy is really a giant idiot - he spent most of yesterday in the pub trying to climb on the table and over my head to get to this tiny little dog sat behind us. And then cried like a total baby when we kept stopping him. Like pugpup, most of our training revolves around restraining his natural behaviour . Whereas more gentle pups I doubt would even need half of that because they were naturally more calm :).

When we’ve put treats in the crate PoirotPup goes crazy and then tries to dig and eat his bedding 🤦‍♀️

I’ve bought a puzzle stick - saw it mentioned on here - when is it best to deploy it? Will he eat it all in one go? Sorry for my stupid questions 🤣🤣🤣