Puppy Survival Thread - June/July

[MrsHerculePoirot]

Discussion of all things puppy...

Old thread here: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/the_doghouse/4234193-puppy-survival-thread-may?msgid=108567452

I’m such an anxious puppy mum - my little pup does a cough/gag when drinking sometimes (usually when drinking quickly) and also sometimes when she gets too excited when running. I’ve googled and convinced myself it’s a tracheal collapse 😩 she has her jabs soon so will mention it to the vet…

We had a crate in the boot but this weekend he rode just in the boot on a bed. Was fine

We tried a harness in the car at first. She was fine if there was someone (passenger) sitting next to her but I tried to a journey with her on my own and she got horribly caught in her harness and I had to pull over and call DH to come find us with one of the kids so we could drive home safely.

We've started putting her in the boot of the car recently and she is absolutely fine. I have put a vet's bed in my car, but DH just puts her straight in. She loves it. She either lies down and enjoys the journey or sits up and peeks over so she can watch the road through windscreen. I've driven past them like this and she looks so cute with her little nose peeking over from the boot. Not tried any long journeys with her yet. I'd probably want to put up a barrier between boot and back seat for that.

We have a crate in the boot as well, it's particularly handy after muddy or rainy walks as it protects the car too. Just want to point out it's against the highway code to drive with an unsecured dog in the car so you should be using a harness, crate or dog guard. Otherwise you risk a fine and it can invalidate your insurance if there's an accident. I can understand why tbh, my pup is brilliant in her crate but if she was unsecured in the boot I'd put money on her climbing over and trying to sit on the driver's lap or something stupid.

I got a dog guard and a boot splitter from travall- I think it's great, he gets loads of space and I can still use part of the boot for other stuff. He has a soft mat in there and at the moment I also clip his harness to a seatbelt- that's mostly because he still sometimes tries to jump out as soon as I open the boot- once he reliably doesn't do that I won't need the lead but it's useful now. It does look funny to me when I look in the mirror and see his little face behind the bars like he's in puppy jail!

I saw the travall boot dividers, they look great but unfortunately they don't do them for my car.

Spudpup was totally chilled in his crate last night and has voluntarily taken himself in there for a nap just now. So I apparently haven’t mentally scarred him just yet! He has also managed to jump out of the car boot though - I did a long run this morning and ended up needing a lift home, and DH was struggling to get Spudpup and DS into the car. Consequently, Spudpup went splat 🙈 Fortunately our drive isn’t paved or tarmac or anything, it’s just earth and grass, so not too hard a landing and hopefully a lesson learned all around 😬

Vet tomorrow for second jabs!

@ashmts that's good to know! It did feel a little 1970s. Only done it for v short trips.

We started with a crate in the boot but she soon grew out of it by 6mths, so just moved to dog in boot with a guard up. We did go away in half term with a boot full so tried out harness she sat in middle seat belt with a child either side but Still wanted to rest her head in between the two front seats we wedged the cool box with a pillow on top as. compromise as her head rest. She was really happy squeezed between the kids attached to middle seatbelt. We do alt with an old dog bed in the boot or towels or blankets depending on which car & activity seems to work ok. But boy we really noticed the extra dog ‘stuff’ & space she took up in the car required to go away and made us realise we’d need to roof box on for a longer break. I had to go quickly buy those vacuum bags so we could get everything in the boot as it was a camping pod so we needed everything except the tent 🙈

Toothy Shark Spudpup is currently asleep on the kitchen floor, having been removed from the living room for using the sofa, carpet, rug, and DH as a series of chew toys. I am sitting on the comfy chair in the kitchen with him. I had totally forgotten that the witching hour was a thing for puppies 😬🤣

Fortunately he settled really quickly after some initial complaints about no longer being allowed to nom DH to death… bless his bitey little twittish heart

He did have a wide selection of perfectly legal chewy items available in a selection of shapes and textures, but he was keener on eating all the other things…! DH less so 🙈

Spud sounds familiar. My living room rug (large) is no more after repeated assaults by the four-pawed-shark and I've lost count of the puncture holes in my limbs

I am not looking forward to the chomposaurus months!!!

Billy has the best day swimming in the river! Then we went to our friends’ house for a BBQ. Luckily it felt cooler there than it did at our house and we were able to keep him cool but he’s so tired that he went straight into his crate without a treat, flopped down onto his bed and closed his eyes!

@LadyCatStark @ilovesushi very jealous of your seaside on tap ;)

Loving all the pup in car advice! First trip in the car since pick up tomorrow (subconsciously put it off due to all the crying in the car when we picked him up - so now we are going to drive every day).

Nothing beats the biting pleasure of human skin and sofa material compared to the array of expensive and cheaper chews of different materials and colours. I brought a large dog flirt pole and that seems to be the fave atm. It is also hilariously like fishing for dogs.

@Jloco pups eat and drink fast so don't worry about it too much. I choke all the time when I drink due to rushing/speaking (and sometimes miss my mouth and proceed to pour it down my front - classy)

Well I've been up 3.5 hours so far. I've been bitten. Been for a walk. Got filthy. Bathed the dog. Been bitten, washed all the bedding, took the dogs harness off, been bitten. Pulled up my ruined rug. Mopped large amounts of wee off the kitchen floor and my feet just after we'd been out for a marathon wee.

Feeling slightly at the end of my rope today.

@Wolfcub I feel for you. I've had horrendous night thankfully not with the pup but my 3 year old was up in the night throwing up so I was changing sheets at 2.30 and scrubbing carpets whilst trying to keep her quiet so she didn't wake the rest of the house and the dog!

Oh poor @Wolfcub and poor @Aria20. I hope you get more sleep tonight.

AwesomePup has slept downstairs by himself for 3 nights now (we're very soft and have been taking turns to sleep downstairs with him). He was up at 5:30 throwing up, we think it's empty tummy throwing up. I'm trying to figure out how much/when we need to feed him at night for him to last til breakfast.

Sorry to hear wolfcub and aria20 about your difficult night. Sounds absolutely exhausting. Hope you have an easier day today and get some rest.

I was just reading a post on a Facebook group I am on where someone was struggling with getting forbidden items back from puppy. And it got me thinking. We manage turquoisepups surroundings such that she rarely gets items she shouldn’t have. So in the kitchen all the time. And any items on the top are pushed back so she can’t reach. On the rare occasion she has managed to get a teatowel I get it back of her by giving her a treat. She knows the word leave but we rarely use it to be honest. But I just was thinking maybe I need to slowly introduce her to other areas of the house so she gets more practice at leaving items which aren’t hers and giving items back? What do people think? I just thought if I leave til later it may be harder when she is older. Or is it better if they just can’t get items which aren’t theirs?

I need to read this, getting my puppy, Benji a black shitzu, in 2.5 weeks

Awful night sleep here. The room where pup normally sleeps gets so hot on days like these - we weren’t able to cool it down enough after the sun went in. Moved her crate to the kitchen which is cool but not really enough space for a crate otherwise I’d keep it in there! Lots of barking partly at being too warm, partly at being in a different place. We also couldn’t cover her crate like normal because I was worried about the heat. Ended up letting her just sleep in the kitchen uncrated - I slept on the living sofa to keep an ear out for any mischief. She shuffled round a lot in the night but settled down and no wee on the floor - she’s has been toilet trained for ages but I didn’t know if being out of the crate would make a difference so I suppose that’s something!

She is now asleep on the floor and I’m trying to prop my eyes open for a day at work.

Sorry to hear about all of these bad nights.
It's all feeling a bit crappy here too today. I think a combination of having had ill dc in and out of school etc and the very hot weather means we are all feeling tetchy.

Nordpup is quite bitey at the moment and seems to go for my eldest DS and DH the most! I feel like I'm somehow personally responsible for rescuing everyone from her .
DH is being a total big baby and a miserly dick about her at the moment and youngest ds is still terrified! We finally have the trainer coming in this week which I'm hoping will be helpful.

@Turquoisesol I know what you mean about opportunities to 'do the wrong thing' for them. Though pup is mainly in the kitchen she does manage to abscond into hall utility etc and steal various items quite regularly. I'm trying to de-sensitise her slowly by having short supervised periods in the living room/allowing her to run into the hall sometimes so that it isn't such a novelty. Not sure if it's working 😁

@Turquoisesol I read that the more you control their environment as a puppy, the more freedom you can give them as an adult dog. So far it's been holding true for us, she rarely picks up anything that isn't hers. To avoid resource guarding we've always swapped things for a treat (we practice this with her giving up her toys, so not just things we need back). And I always bang on about it but we taught impulse control. Gradually ours has been given more freedom, she's allowed upstairs now (supervised only) and she doesn't chew or pick up anything. Am I right in thinking yours is about 6 months now? We could trust ours in the living room around anything by then, but all dogs will be different, and we had done a couple of intense training classes by then.

AwesomePup has the run of downstairs unless we need him to be contained in his pen. He's getting very good at "leave it" and "off" because he hears them so often. He's not so good at leave when we're out though, because obviously there are far more interesting things in the woods or at the park.

Thanks is for the advice. Yes 6 months. I am just looking at our living room and thinking may be time to get her in there. And thinking do I puppy proof and remove cushions from sofa. Or does she need some time learning that these are out of bounds and not to take them away to chew.