Puppy Survival Thread - May

[Doje]

Starting May off! If someone could link I'd appreciate it....

Kikopup video looks good. Going to try this

Dog training is so hard! So much to learn 😳

Kikipup is great! Love her stuff.

Honestly her training videos are brilliant... I've gone through pretty much the whole puppy set. Focusing on training one new thing at a time, and keeping an emphasis on default calm settles and behaviour.

Our second middle of the night trip into the garden for toileting resulted in big weed in the garden. Yay. Followed by coming back and pooing in the kitchen. Will no to stay out longer next time but it was liaising it down

5 am wake up again, needing a huge wee, and a poo. He's now snoozing on the sofa while I'm wide awake.

Where do people buy chews from? We've got a yak stick and an antler, but he's pretty much 12 weeks now, when he can have more chews. So which ones are popular with your puppies and last a decent amount of time? Nothing that looks too much like an actual animal part, because dd2 is a vegetarian and will be grossed out.

@MsAwesomeDragon 4.45 here - it's getting earlier she seems to have a bit of an upset tummy though so something hasn't agreed with her!

Have you tried braided lamb chew?

@MsAwesomeDragon we found several small local pet shops stocked a variety of chews so we just experimented some were 20p some £8-9 plus frozen carrots, ice cubes, yogurt frozen onto a likki mat. The cows hoof filled with something was brill but did smell abit she just took it in the garden to eat/play with. The hoof was the least ugh thing we tried, the dried pigs ear was yuck and she just destroyed it within a short time so I don’t think your DD would like that, my kids were etrrgh what is she eating…

Witching hour turns out to be 5.30-6.45 am. Luckily he then napped for 15 mins which allowed me to get a shower. Poo in the garden this morning so yay.

I need much caffeine to get through the day

Morning. It was my first night back upstairs in bed rather than on the sofa...after a decent few nights of not waking until after 4 with no toileting inside, we had a 3a.m wake up complete with poo and wee inside (I rather arrogantly had set my alarm to go down at 4 ). She then decided it was up for the day and breakfast before 5. I did manage an hour on the sofa between 6-7 though!

Her harness has arrived so I'm going to tether her to ds's pram to get her out today as she's getting too heavy to carry far!

Rookie Q do you give treats on top of daily food or adjust food for treats?

I’ll sound like I’m bragging with all the early wake ups but Billy slept in til 7:50 today 😵 he only got up then because DH sent me down to make sure he was alive 😂. He had a very boisterous play in the field next to our house with our neighbours’ dogs which must have wiped him out!

We get our chews from the country pet shop that is around the corner from my house. They have all sorts on display but I draw the line at the deer’s lags which are literally just a leg, hair and all with a hood at the bottom 🤢. As his lunch time walk sometimes, we walk round and choose a selection like a toddler choosing his pic n mix! Then Billy gets to hold one to walk home with and he proudly trots all the way home with it then runs into the garden to chew on it. When he got a pigs ear, he lay down in the actual shop to chew it straight away which amused the owners greatly 😂.

@MsAwesomeDragon I use JR pet products. PoirotPup likes the braids (lamb and ostrich). Goats ears which last aaaaaaggges but do smell. Also ostrich bone. We got these from our local pet shop recently and they are vegetarian (www.makauri.co.uk/products/vegan-knotted-bones?variant=12492579405888)

@lifelongfrugaleer we have a lab so I was paranoid about treats at beginning and for ages we mostly just used his kibble! Sometimes I’d take out a small handful of kibble to allow for treats. We’ve just kept weighing him initially and once I stopped worrying so much it was fine. We just keep an eye on how his body looks and feels and his weight - we use the smaller of the adult weights when weighing his kibble but I suspect he’ll be bigger so that way I don’t worry too much!

Looking for tips on how to occupy/distract Legopup when we are having a meal - he's constantly jumping up at us while we eat. He's 8 months old & I feel we should have cracked this by now...

@legosnowqueen we’ve trained using a mat (my brother owns a pub so I wanted to train this so we can go there often 🤣). He’s still young so still training - but knows to go and lay on his mat and we often give him a chew or lob treats at him. Our next step is to start to reduce the frequency of the treats so that ultimately he’ll just settle but he’s still little (4 months) so for now we’ll take it!

Just to be clear he is a lab and will still chance his luck sometimes by coming to us or jumping up - but it is rare and usually when we have really tasty smelling meat like steak or sausages!

Today appears to be chew and bite everything ins sight day. Totally unfazed by the Amazon man but scared of my dad, hopefully he will get over that later when my dad looks after him while I go and get ds from his dad's

@legosnowqueen we have a stair gate separating kitchen/diner and front room so pup stays behind the gate when we eat. I am working on settle and stay on her blanket, she was barking loudly at the gate throughout the meal but it's getting better. It helps if she has a chew or a puzzle ball to keep her busy but if we have something really tempting she still barks at us!

I've just ordered a load of chews from jr, so we'll see what lasts longest without too much of a smell (and obviously which ones he likes).

I've got a mat with the intention of mat training like MrsHP, but we haven't started yet. Currently AwesomePup goes into his playpen with a filled Kong while we eat dinner, which works in the house, but we'll need to find another way once we're out and about more often. That's where the mat and long lasting chews will come in, I hope.

@legosnowqueen Billy has a Likimat with some of what we’re having for tea on (or a plain version) last night was sweet potato mash which was a first and he loved and the trimmings from our chicken thighs cut up really small and kibble.

Is anyone else’s puppy growing so fast? I put Billy’s puppy collar on for his morning walk and put it on again to go out after his nap and it no longer fit him 🤯. We’d bought him a collar that was far too big at first so popped that in and now it fits perfectly!

Thanks for your suggestions, I will try a lickimat...resisted so far as wondered if he'd chew it or pull it round the room but we need a solution...

It’s made of silicone so it sort of sticks to the floor like those children’s bowls you can get nowadays. Billy has picked it up and flipped it over once he’s finished with it but it doesn’t move while he’s licking it and if he has chewed on it at all, he hasn’t even marked it and he’s definitely a chewed!

Zzzzzzz slightly better night, I managed to sleep between garden visits. First one I was about five mins late and he'd had a little wee in his crate but also had one in the garden. Second was fine when he woke up enough. Came back in from this mornings and started to poo on the kitchen floor but stopped part way through and finished in the gArden so lots of praise for that

5 again for us. I think that's his limit in terms of his bladder size. I'm sure he'll grow and be able to hold it in longer soon.

AwesomePup has managed to chew the corner off his lickimat. He picks it up and throws it around when he's nearly finished. Possibly through frustration that it's more difficult to kick any more off.

Life pup has lost a bit of weight so going to up his food a bit. He's been going on longer walks