Puppy Survival Thread - August

[MrsHerculePoirot]

Discussion of things puppy!

Old thread here: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/the_doghouse/4281840-Puppy-Survival-Thread-June-July?pg=1

@MakeMeCleanTheHouse Billy has just started to join us on the paddleboard at 4 months 🥰 at the moment I have to kneel down and hold him while DS stands and paddles. Otherwise he wants to run from side to side dipping his nose in the water 😂 I’m sure you can imagine the board is quite loaded up! I can’t wait til he gets used to it properly and just settle at the front of the board.

Billy is starting to have a permanent aroma of the sea now!

@LadyCatStark that's great tobread! I'm dying to get bigpaws into the water. My other dog loves the paddleboard. Not sure we can cope with two dogs and me holding him whilst DD paddles though

@LadyCatStark that sounds really good fun. I wish my family were prepared to do fun stuff like that with me.

@GuyFawkesDay he's still very little so it's only to be expected that he'll pine for you when you're not there, especially if DH hasn't been doing much of the care/bonding/training with him.

We've had a very exciting day here. AwesomePup has done so much!
He played very nicely with a year old puppy on his morning walk, then settled well on his own in his pen while I showered and removed all our stuff from the bathroom. He barked a bit at the bathroom fitters when they arrived but calmed down after a few minutes and a play with DD in the garden. We went out to Hadrian's wall and had a good walk along part of the wall, came into the cafe where they gave him a couple of biscuits, sat beautifully while we drank our drinks, allowed plenty of people to chat to us and fuss him, then calmly rode in the car for half an hour to get home. He was absolutely zonked when we got home so he completely ignored the bathroom fitters and feel asleep in the garden. A tired dog is a happy dog, lol.

Spudpup has been an utter git this evening, and had now collapsed on the floor in a big overtired heap. Tomorrow we are going to the beach!

I put the sprinkler on for Elmpup this evening and boy was that a mistake! She got so over-excited it took ages to calm her down and stop the biting. She loves water though. She's quite happy sitting out in the rain.

For people who've used the Lily's Bedtime biscuits, how old are your pups please? I'd love to try these for Elmpup, as she's getting the hunger pukes, but they say they're for 4 months plus.

Wolfpup has been with dps all day while I've had workmen in. He's been really good and is now fast asleep on my lap. Major stress though running round picking up random screws and bits of plastic left lying inside and outside to stop pup eating them

Hi everyone, new puppy owner here! Yesterday I picked up my 10 week Cava-tzu boy. He's amazing and is doing so well! Except...

I know it's only day two, but I'm finding the toilet training very difficult. He literally gives us no warning - none of the circling and sniffing the ground that all of the books say will happen! Since he gives us no warning, we just never manage to get him onto the toilet area in time. And that means that we never get the opportunity to praise him, so how will he ever know what is the right area? He's pretty much christened all of the carpet in the house!

Evening everyone! Sounds like an eventful day!

hilseey welcome! Toilet training is hard work! We just got in the habit of taking Banditpup outside every 30 minutes, straight after waking from a nap. It was hit and Miss the first couple of weeks. I did take a puppy training pad she’d weed on in the garden, she had a good sniff and got some idea! We just cleaned up (best to spray biological washing stuff on it, lots of cleaning stuff smells of ammonia, similar to wee, so they think it’s okay to pee in the area again). Heaps of praise and high reward treat like cheese or ham for garden wees. Banditpup is 16 weeks now and only had two accidents in the last week (one because she hates going out in the rain). Now she sniffs and goes to the kitchen door pretty consistently but that’s taken time.

Hi @hilseey I'm new too, picked up my 8wo cocker spaniel on Sunday!
As previously said, I have been taking mine out to the garden every 30 minutes or so, and definitely after naps etc.
I try to just mooch around the garden and not engage with her, and it works the majority of the time.
You really can't take your eyes off them can you!!

Elmpup made it through to 5.45 without needing a toilet trip! Seems like giving her a small amount of food an hour before bed helped her settle and probably also stopped her filling her belly with water.

It's a small, but welcome, landmark.

Does anyone else's puppy start the day with zoomies?!😂 mine obviously has so much pent up energy at the start of the day; we have a good 45 minutes of frenetic play before anything else can happen!

Welcome, Hilseey. Re toilet training, I've been doing the same as others and trying to take pup out every half hour to an hour and after every nap. It works for the most part. Accidents are when I take my attention off her, she doesn't make any noise to say she wants to go, or when she does a wee outside and then comes in and does a poo!

We had pup's first jab yesterday. It was horrible when she squealed but she got her own back by wearing all over my top! She did fairly well in the car too. She didn't sleep but didn't cry, just tried to eat her seat belt!

Has anyone any tips for dealing with biting? It's fairly constant at the moment and she got me on my lip today which really hurt.

*weeing all my top! Stupid auto correct

@MightyMeerkat how are nights going?

Definitely loads of biting here. I'm having to be really careful with the interactions between pup and kids. We've got a number of toys laying around that we can put between us as a barrier when the biting starts. Top favourite is an old fleecy blanket that she has adopted from my son. She loves to chase it around and bite it, and it's big enough to provide a proper barrier between puppy and human body parts!

Hi everyone. Lots of wees and poos in the house yesterday! I need to clean with biological washing liquid to get rid of the smell properly.
We have a little outdoor pen for toilet its just getting him out there in time. He does do the sniffing in a circle thing for poos so need to be more aware of thst. Wees are random and if he does do one outside its hard to know??
Got the vets today, first time in the car since we picked him up.
He did meet another dog yesterday, was terrified at first but we pursued and he was much braver by the end. He's met loads of people and is fazed at all. Met cows too!

Slept all night in his crate last night, 10.30 to.6 30. I kept waking up and checking him but didn't hear a peep.
He's currently dozing off on my arm and I can't reach my cuppa!

Meant isn't fazed. He likes meeting new people, even little kids. Happy to play with them which I thought was good.

[quote opalescent]@MightyMeerkat how are nights going?

Definitely loads of biting here. I'm having to be really careful with the interactions between pup and kids. We've got a number of toys laying around that we can put between us as a barrier when the biting starts. Top favourite is an old fleecy blanket that she has adopted from my son. She loves to chase it around and bite it, and it's big enough to provide a proper barrier between puppy and human body parts![/quote]
@opalescent

Still challenging at night. Toilet breaks are now every 2.5 hours which is a massive improvement but she still won't stay in her crate. I put her bed next to my bed last night but she was on the bed with me after two seconds. She only seems to want to use her bed during the day when I'm working. Otherwise she likes to sleep on me. I'm going to try and get her used to her crate a bit more today. I don't get even a minute's peace otherwise.

Thanks tips re biting. I've got lots of toys and try and distract her with them but it doesn't always work. I'll keep trying.

she still won't stay in her crate.

Are you expecting her to stay in the crate with the door open? I'm not sure that's realistic at this stage

Ours wouldn't stay in crate with door open. If he's not happy to have door shut I don't.
Its downstairs and I leave it open all day for him to pop in and out. It's got toys and blanket he brought with him in there and they stay in there. He's had long naps in there too.
Just saying what's working for us. He was used to a crate.

How can I tell if he's weed outside? He sits to wee but often just sits anyway! Can't tell if he's damp cos the grass is damp! I'm just praising him anyway if he's sat for a bit! Not had a poo outside for several days!

@MightyMeerkat ours was exactly the same but we realised the crate wasn't snuggly enough. Swapped back to the smaller ferplast plastic one and stuffed it with squishy bedding, a very floofy old fleece and bought a snuggle puppy.

I sit with him for 5 minutes or so, stroking through the crate (sliding door so I can shove a hand through) and he tends to settle ok then.

However we were up before 5am as he needed a wee but then couldn't settle back to sleep. In the end came downstairs for short zoomies and then he slept behind my legs on the sofa and I had a bit more kip.

Made his breakfast....and turned round to a 💩 on the floor 🤦‍♀️but at least it's not awful runs any more. Small mercies!!!

Toileting is not making much progress. I've been taking him to his toilet area every 30 minutes plus after drinking or playing etc since I brought him home on Monday. Usually he just plays around or lies down and seems he's going to sleep. I wait with him for a while, then when we go out, then he'll either not do anything for ages, or two minutes later he will wee on the carpet with no warning. He doesn't have a favourite spot he returns to; I've used an entire bottle of scent deodoriser already, and it obviously works!

Overnight last night, the first two times he woke he didn't pee or poo at all, but settled back down to sleep after we'd tried. Then the third time, I encouraged him onto his toilet, he leapt straight off and ran to the nearest bit of carpet to pee.

I did know it was going to be more difficult for him because toileting outside isn't an option at the moment - I guess we just keep going and look for anything we can praise.

@MightyMeerkat

Welcome, Hilseey. Re toilet training, I've been doing the same as others and trying to take pup out every half hour to an hour and after every nap. It works for the most part. Accidents are when I take my attention off her, she doesn't make any noise to say she wants to go, or when she does a wee outside and then comes in and does a poo!

We had pup's first jab yesterday. It was horrible when she squealed but she got her own back by wearing all over my top! She did fairly well in the car too. She didn't sleep but didn't cry, just tried to eat her seat belt!

Has anyone any tips for dealing with biting? It's fairly constant at the moment and she got me on my lip today which really hurt.

I wish I had an answer to the biting! Mine has generally stopped biting me, but still loves biting my husband... His legs are in a right state of cuts and tooth marks.

@MightyMeerkat

Have you had a look at the Dog Training and Support FB page (that I think I saw recommended on here)? One of the guides gives such a long process for getting them happy in their crates. I'm on about stage two!

@opalescent

Does anyone else's puppy start the day with zoomies?!😂 mine obviously has so much pent up energy at the start of the day; we have a good 45 minutes of frenetic play before anything else can happen!

Definitely had the zoomies this morning! He was just so excited to be alive!