Puppy Survival Thread - April

[Doje]

Starting a new thread....

For the - not forward.

@tabulahrasa good idea with the drop practice thanks. We did that early on with leave but might be worth doing it for drop too.

I might try the liver cake. I think you and I have spoken on other threads about car chasing. Fun ain't it?!

Thank you @ilovesushi

It might not be liver cake - that just happens to be what mine has decided is the best thing ever, lol

Could be a toy in fact, just anything he wants enough to distract him and bring it out as soon as he clocks the car and put it away when it’s gone. It does mean you scanning for cars, but I’m betting you do that already, lol.

@tabulahrasa I sit on my drive with him every morning with a pot of sausage it works on the driveway but as soon as we get on the pavement he's in chase mode. I'm trying to get closer each day but been at it for months and it's not working so I may have to get a trainer involved.

I just happened to hit on liver cake being my boy’s thing, lol

That’s the problem sometimes, it’s finding what it is that does it, I was about to try finding a super exciting toy because food wasn’t doing it, I actually made the liver cake for something else entirely.

Thanks for the new thread.

We’ve had a good few days here. She’s done pretty well meeting lots of new people of all ages and had a brilliant play in the garden with a little spaniel puppy that DH’s friend brought round.

Our main issue at the moment is she has developed a taste for certain poos when on walks and will sniff them out, prance around with them in her mouth and then, unless I can distract her with something amazing, she eats them
I’m not sure if they are dog poos or other animals-I don’t usually get much chance to examine them! Disgusting dog.

Does anyone have any recommendations for east to fit collar? And how to put it on? We didn’t have much luck this morning. We used a material one with plastic clip like you get on a ruck sack. Perhaps the leather old style ones are easier?

I was going to suggest an Olijo one, but its a clip one. Very easy to put on as the clip goes through the metal ring and then clios shut. can unclip one handed. Got from amazon. Beautiful colours and only about 8 pounds but not much good if its the clip you find difficult

Thanks for the new thread!

Things are going well on the whole with Plantpup, she is 20 weeks on Friday!

In the house now she is an angel - settles anywhere and everywhere, doesn’t chew inappropriately, leaves me alone when I’m eating if she’s given a chew, generally a darling.

Our current problem is barking! The only times she’s really barked in the past have been if I leave her alone and she’s unimpressed or a little play bark here and there. Recently she’s started to bark at some random strangers (for seemingly no reason) which is pretty embarrassing. She also barks at the front door being opened/the doorbell. We’ve had an engineer here servicing the boiler this afternoon and that has been bark central...when he arrived, at him, at the noises he’s making. It’s definitely alert/protection barking I think as she will look towards the noise/person either standing or sitting usually in front of me and bark, sometimes accompanied by a little growl. I have no idea what to do about it!

@Turquoisesol I have always used material collars with plastic clips for Plantpup and it is a little fiddly - did you give Turquoisepup treats during it so it’s positively associated etc? Plantpup knows she has to sit to have her collar put on and gets rewards for it. The only thing I’ve seen against leather collars and collars without the plastic clips is that they can be harder to release, say for example two dogs get tangled playing it’s easier to unclip one of those plastic clips than unbuckle for example.

@Petalpup Happy loves horse poo. It's his equivalent of a truffle. If he sees it anywhere, he will stick his nose in it and rub his head around like a pig in shit! They are funny things

Re collars - if you do go for leather, if you are lead training and you have a Houdini, you have to be very careful. Happy slipped his leather collar because of course leather stretches (which if I had engaged brain before buying it, I would have thought of it). Luckily it was in his compliant days so he happily stood there while I made a slip lead out of his lead and took him home. It terrified me! So we are back in material collars - we use a metal clip as it's stronger but I think when they are young and you're trying to get them used to it, the plastic ones with the light material are better.

Thank you for the recommendations. Yes I think it was just the fact that I was a bit rubbish technique at putting it on. I just wanted to check if there was an easier method that I didn’t know about. If I got her to sit in front of me and put it on then she just kept biting it. Having her on my lap in a hug worked better, but still not easy. I did give treats throughout. Guess it’s just a bit of perseverance

I think it's easier with 2 people at first @Turquoisesol. So one to give treats, and the other to quickly put it on and clip it behind their ears (so I wouldn't try and clip it under their chin as they will lean down to grab it).

I think they all go through that stage of trying to bite their collar/harness

I always found it a pain when they grew as it's so hard to adjust it on them and you have to keep adjusting then checking the size which isn't easy when they don't really want it on!

With the collar are you putting on every time you take pup out or are you leaving the collar on? I always leave the collar on. I only take it off if it needs ajusting. That way I can always grab hold of her easily, I can get a lead on quickly and if she does run off (hasn't happend yet) she has her ID.

We leave Dpup's collar on during the day too. We just take it off when he goes to bed.

We take them off after walks but we have 3. When we only had one dog we left it on, he doesn't sleep in a crate so it was fine.

Happy only wears a collar when he goes out

Evening all. Can I ask what you do when pups are on a feeding frenzy? CondiPup has eaten his daily allowance but is going mad trying to find more food. If I give more, am I creating a monster, or do I just go with it? He is skinny like a pointer should be, and likely to be big for his breed.

I've got a skinny pointer too. When she's had phases like that I've given extra, but as training treats, kongs or bones.

She's currently going through the opposite and turning her nose up at food unless it is actual meat.

Omg we’ve had GeorgiePup humping his bed for the first time tonight

We take collar off for bed but leave it on all day. @morethanacondiment we've had a couple of days like this and I either give him a chew or just more kibble. He's a monster but I don't think that's the reason He's happy with his usual amount most days, just the off day he's more hungry

We leave Dpup's collar on all day too, and just take it off for bedtime.

We haven't had hungry days recently, but about two months ago all the days were hungry days! I just used to give him another handful of kibble tbh. We were having monthly weigh-ins at the vets at that point and they were never unhappy with his weight.

We have only just started trying to put collar on - at 10 weeks. But my plan was to keep it on all day and off at bedtime. I would prefer to minimise how often I am taking it on and off I think.

Thanks. DH just pointed out that I was asking questions about how much he was eating whilst eating a whole Easter egg...
And we're collar on all day as well, in case he escapes!

Ooh @Frenchfancy, I'm going to look through the threads and see if I can find a photo of yours. And then I'd like all the tips about avoiding counter surfing and pulling on the lead, please