Newboy arriving Saturday, some questions......

[BaconAndAvocado]

Our new Labrador boypup is arriving on Saturday. As well as being extremely excited (kids), we’re also extremely worried about getting it right and change of lifestyle (me and DH).

A couple of questions for all you experts. I’m a complete dog newbie, only ever had cats. DH had a collie as a child.

1. How do I know a good Pet Insurance company? What am I looking for?

1. Although I work from home I would like to feel confident about eventually leaving him for a few hours. When do I start this process by leaving him for 10 minutes and then increasing gradually?

1. What are the biggest mistakes new owners make and how do I avoid them?

Tia

RE separation, I would recommend a book called "It's Okay to Be Alone"

I'd also recommend building up super gradually, not from ten minutes but literally from shutting the front door then immediately going back in. Working up to five seconds, ten seconds etc. And also bear in mind that independence when you are in the house (e.g they are fine downstairs when you are upstairs) does not mean they will be OK with you leaving. Ours sleeps downstairs as we work upstairs but we are working with a behaviourist as we can't leave the house without her being distressed.

Thank you TerrierOrTerror

Yes, sorry I wasn’t clearer. I did plan on building it up from seconds not minute.

Thanks for the book recommendation. I’m currently reading Easy Peasy Puppy Squeezy and a Labrador book given to me by the breeder.

Just don't make the mistake of thinking the dog is like a child and needs to hit certain milestones. You'll think their recall is brilliant in the early months because they don't want to leave you then as they get older and more confident, they start expressing themselves more by doing what they want and not what you want and at that point, a lot of people think they've got an untrainable dog and it's the biggest risk time for rehoming (sort of 7months to around 2/3 years).

Dogs are a life long commitment - the first 2 years are really key for training. Just repeat repeat repeat and eventually they get it. Most important thing is developing a bond :). Getting them to respond to you, to want to be with you. If you can crack those 2 things, you're sorted.

Thanks Woooooman
I really want to get the training right. I’ve a few friends whose dogs always jump up and bark all the time and I don’t want that for our dog.

We use bought by many for insurance.

You are looking for a good level of lifetime cover. There are optional extras you can add like if you want to go abroad etc.

Good insurance isn't cheap and does get more expensive as they get older but unless you have considerable savings it's definitely worth it IMO.

1. Most of the big names do pet insurance. What you want to be looking for is lifetime cover, this means if the dog has an ongoing condition that it’ll be covered throughout their lifetime (although if the dog does develop a condition, you won’t be able to change providers without that condition being except from the new policy). I would personally go for the top level of cover, especially with a lab. The costs for sedating your dog for an X-ray are much greater than people who will have a Jack Russell. Read the policy carefully. You want something that will offer as much protection as possible as unfortunately there are some unlucky dogs who will require several vet visits for different things throughout the year. Your first year will be cheap as you’ll get a discount for being a new customer, insurance prices also rise as the dog gets older and are more likely to need the vets, so take that into consideration of what you can afford.

1. You can start that process of leaving him and going outside the house for very short lengths of time after a few weeks. However, you can also start building it up in the house. Dog should be happy when you go upstairs or go out. We put the radio on, give the dog a kong or a biscuit and go out. Kongs are great while they’re puppies as they distract them for sometime while you’re out. Make them with anything - bits of their food, treats, mashed banana, doggy peanut butter. The more disgusting to you, the more interesting to your dog. You can freeze them (take out a few minutes before leaving) and it’ll last longer for your dog. I would restrict where the dog can go when unsupervised, not least because I don’t want kong juice on my couch. We would also do the routine for going out, out the radio on, get the kong out, send the dog to their bed, put our shoes on, grab the keys, give the dog the kong, then sit down for 10 minutes and not go out. Or even grab the keys and put your shoes on but just go get something from the car. Therefore grabbing the keys doesn’t mean the dog is going out or going to be left. We don’t need kongs now they’re older and they just have a biscuit.

1. I think people let puppies get away with things that they wouldn’t let adult dogs get away (were guilty of this). So for example, people encourage puppies to sleep on their lap or don’t mind when they jump. It’s hard to train that out of a dog and with a 30kg labrador it’s something you want to discourage early. Think about the dog you want and implement those rules from the beginning. If you don’t want the dog on the couch, don’t let them on, go down to the floor to fuss them. You won’t 100% get it right (and that’s fine) but don’t make it harder than it needs to be to correct unwanted behaviour later. With a lab, it’s so easy to over feed them, which you don’t want. Keep your lab as lean as possible, trust the vet. You’ll get a lot of people telling you that you’re under feeding him because everyone is so used to seeing an overweight labrador but he should have a nice tucked in waist. He should nip in after his ribs and then back out to his hips (obviously not when he’s a tiny puppy as they’re just covered in puppy fat but will have lost his puppy fat after a couple of weeks with you). Use their food to do training and praise for rewards. If you give treats on top, cut down the amount of food. If your lab does have joint problems at any point (as many labs do), being an ideal weight will help him manage that for longer.

For you, I would also say that you need to make sure puppy has its own space away from the kids. The kids need to realise that if puppy is in their bed, that puppy is left alone. You might also have to make puppy sleep (our lab has to be put in a separate room that was quiet otherwise he wouldn’t sleep). Puppies need so much sleep and the kids need to learn not to disturb a sleeping puppy. Recognise the signs of over tiredness in your pup and ideally start to put him to bed before he reaches that point.

Re training. We joined the kennel club good citizen scheme. He worked through puppy, bronze, silver and gold classes. It's great to teach you how to manage your dog plus gives him the opportunity to meet other dogs in a controlled environment.
Info about it on the KC website.

Another tip I was told is to play pup socialization sounds from you tube. There is a variety from fireworks to sirens to doorbells. Our dog has no issue with sounds now.

We have petplan for our 8 year old labrador. Be aware insurance goes up as they get older and are more likely to need to claim we started at £28/month for £4k lifetime cover and are now on £73/month.

If you haven't got one already it is likely you will need a crate to keep them safe while unsupervised. Labradors are notorious chewers until they are through teething, ours didn't stop until they were around 18 months old and has chewed everything from shoes to books to carpets to skirting boards.

Any beds you buy in the first year or so are likely to be chewed to pieces so don't spend a fortune. Try a roll of vet bed as cheaper alternative.

Total recall is a good book for recall training.

Labs are food dustbins, start as you mean to go on and train him to keep away from dinner table when you are eating and not to expect or beg for your food.

If you havent read up on food that is toxic to dogs - onions, chocolate, grapes, xylitol etc.

You wont notice the problem with hair shedding and then massive molts until he is 2 years old and by the time it won't matter because you will be totally in love 🤣

Our vet offers Healthy Pet scheme, which isn’t actually insurance but does help with costs. Our dog is 12 now and we’ve never had actual insurance, we believe it’s a rip off. We’ve been strict with putting money on one side instead of lining the insurers’ pockets. We are well ahead with those savings.

As for leaving your dog. Yes do it gradually but be consistent.

Mistakes? Decide on the behaviour you want and the whole family has to follow the same rules. Dogs get easily confused with inconsistent human behaviour.

I can recommend Bought by Many for insurance - get lifetime cover and as much annual limit as you can afford. Our lab used almost the whole £15,000 in the first 9 months of life (serious condition diagnosed at 4 months). Nothing since, fingers crossed!

losingthemind a friend recommended Bought by Many too 👍🏻

My advice is that training is important but a huge amount of change comes from the pup just naturally maturing so dont get too hung up on things during the 1st 18 months as they do calm down an awful lot as they get older. Our pup was awful for jumping up at people, he stopped naturally just as people became less exciting to him. Also, you said you don't want a dog that barks a lot. Some of them just do, you can call them in and train them to stop barking but in my experience if they're naturally inclined to be vocal then they're going to do it regardless.

Start training from day one. Come or here to recall to you (come to you) - not their name. And the down command - as in to lie down and be calm. Both will save you untold hours later and mean your dog is safe when out snd about.

Puppies need a lot more chill/sleep time than you think. They need a quiet space - a crate of a corner of a quiet room they go to. I'd train them to go to this place at a word of command from day 1.

Especially with children about the biggest mistake people make is to let the children play with the puppy non stop. You'll end up with an overtired and over stimulated puppy.

I speak as the owner of a one year old lab and DD.

Also and this is the biggest I e - socialising your puppy does not mean letting them run round like crazy with other dogs. It's actually the exact opposite.

You need to teach them to be calm, down and focussed on you with lots of dogs running about.

I'd also teach "the art of attention" from day one. All commands to be taught with the dog making eye contact with you (not looking at a treat). This makes everything easier.

Assume you will be daily training your puppy for the next two years. Every day!

Enjoy.

Join the Facebook group Dog Training Advice and Support. It’s run by force free, positive trainers and behaviourists. They have a specific puppy group which helps with planning for your new pup as well. It’s really supportive and has tonnes of resources, plus you can ask for advice if you need help. You need to read the compulsory guides first and if you ask a question, you need to post which of the guides you’ve read.

I insure mine on a lifetime policy from PetPlan and have always had excellent service. Eg vet put in a claim last week and it was paid straight into my account within 24 hours.

My advice is to start as you mean to go on, and get used to leaving him from day one, too, even if it's just going out of the room to make a cup of coffee and leaving him in his pen or crate asleep.

So, if you don't want the dog to go on the sofa, don't have him on the sofa. If you don't want him to have titbits off your plates, never feed him from your plate etc. It sounds obvious but it can be really easy to give in to a cute puppy whining at you - you need to be firm from the beginning so that they learn what you expect from the get go.

Insurance wise, you absolutely need a lifetime policy with the highest level of cover you can afford. We're with Tesco Premium on a Lifetime Policy - and that covers 15k each year, and the amount renews each year for any continuing conditions which is vital imo. Vet bills soon add up!

Make sure your puppy gets PLENTY of sleep - way more than you think they need. They need around 18-20 hours of sleep per day when they're small. An over-tired puppy is a bitey puppy!

And we need photos please

Biggest mistake new dog owners make is expecting a puppy to be instantly trained in all respects, they are baby until they are between two and three years old (despite their physical appearance) so be ready for lots of training, mistakes and accidents.

Our lab pup is 8 months and cutting and pasting from a previous post below, hopefully some of it useful. Consistency, repetition, calm and routine seem to work well for our pup and reminding myself that all of this is to train for the dog we want, not the pup we have...

I'm learning every day and to be really honest I still have crashing waves of WTF have we done and feelings of "I don't think I can do this" but then I'll spend twenty minutes in the garden training/reinforcing a DROP IT or WAIT, a wonderful off lead walk in a local safe field, or see his gorgeous face and full bum tail wag and I adore him. But bugger me, it's been, and is still, tough.

Things that work for us:

Crate training - thinking of it as his den, a safe place to chill out, grow, rest his body so it develops properly has really helped. He came to us crate trained and he loves it. We had brilliant breeder that friend had got their working dogs from over the years and she gave us great tips for first few weeks that worked really well with him sleeping through the night from day 3 with us and pretty much toilet trained by the end of the first week with us. First two nights were heartbreaking hearing him cry,I slept on sofa next to his crate and just gently shushed him and put hand near him, carried him out every two hours to where we wanted him to wee/poo and said 'toilet' as I put him down and if he went (as he was doing it). Did the two hourly thing for a fortnight then three hours, then 4, now he sleeps from 9.30 to 7 every night, no accidents as of yet, good firm poos so far. We can now open the back door point to his loo area and say his command word and off he goes. If he needs to go, he sits and does a whine at the door - we've only missed this cue once so we now know his distinctive loo whine as opposed to his "I'd like to go and tear up the lawn" noises.

We mix his feeding method - mainly frozen Kongs that he loves and calm him down - food in kongs is always in his crate to reinforce it as a happy place where good things happen. As a lab he's highly food motivated but I will occasionally tuck a treat of roast chicken at the bottom or a little stinky smear of Arden Grange liver pate or Philadelphia to get him going. If he's had a busy off lead run, I'll feed him straight into a bowl as he will fill his face then crash for two hours. Early on, months 2 to 4, we'd have pots of his daily kibble allowance to hand to place a treat between his paws/into his snout when he was just calmly sitting on his bed to show that this behaviour gets rewarded and to bond by holding treat between our eyes and saying 'look at me' and when he made eye contact, immediately treat him. Taught him distracting hand "touch" to break overexcited behaviour. We learnt early on to give verbal commands no more than twice and for the basics of sit, wait, and down we say it once with a hand signal to reinforce and he picked them up really quickly.

Chewing - yak chews, ostrich bones, pizzles, various dried body parts. Ostrich least smelly and he loves them and they are long lasting. Touch unchewed wood, the only thing he's destroyed has been his bedding! Ripped up two crate mats and on his third vet bed liner. Will get him an Orvis or Tuffies bed when he's earned it as these have been recommended as good for tough chewers. Since we've made less of a fuss of stuff lying around (shoes, bags, phones) he's just not that interested and a firm, loud AH AH makes him stop in his tracks.

Enforced naps in his den - definitely! If he's up beyond two hours he has a nap, might be a little whiny at first but he ALWAYS crashes out and more often than not he takes himself to his crate to sleep. We've started leaving his crate door open in the day but always closed at night. He really likes his sleep. Mental stimulation tires him out as much as physical.

Puppy training - we did 6 weeks online in lockdown, 6 face to face, he was the youngest by several months and like the naughtiest (funniest) kid in class. Meeting other puppies/dogs was the best to come out of the experience as he just got too excited but when we did the training at home he picked them all up really quickly. Classes online worked surprisingly well so don't be put off if that's all you can book. We used McCann and Dunbar videos and going to try the Pet Gundog book now he's older. (We're now using this and really recommend it and her "puppy manners" book )

Picking up random crap in his mouth - stones, leaves, bits of wood from our log store. Puppy trainer advised to not make a big deal of it unless he's actually eating it- we were making it into "high value treasure" by fussing and trying to take it off him. Better to just calmly offer a piece of kibble or a treat and swap it out.

Biting! Their adult teeth coming through made ALL the difference to our pup whose needle teeth led to me falling on anyone else with an older pup begging them to PLEASE TELL ME THIS ENDS and they all said it would and it did. My husband has been very, very persistent and tolerant (bitten) teaching bite inhibition and gentle mouthing (Dunbar good on this) and now I can put my hand in his mouth and he's pretty gentle and if it's too firm a sharp yelp stops him. We felt bite inhibition was important as the children he was introduced to as they will be part of his life, despite explaining very carefully beforehand that he's a pup and gets bitey so please don't wave your hands in his face as he'll think they are a toy, all waved their hands in his face cos they are kids and puppies are fun!

Handling - from day one, when he was on our lap we'd feel his joints and spine all over, fingers between claws, run hands up and down his tail, inspect his ears, open his mouth, check teeth, hold jaw open gently in case we do need to remove something from his mouth (say, for example, on his very first street walk a cigarette butt or, in the garden, a small fir cone he got lodged in his needle sharp teeth and he was so freaked out he came to me to extract it... Silly bugger). He's now happy with us poking and prodding him when we need to.

Noises - from day one, vacuum cleaner, food processor, hair dryer, loud music, guitar, smoke alarm, sat outside when the bin men came, sat at bus stops to hear noisy buses, huge delivery lorries and none of them really phase him. He follows me around "helping" when I Hoover. He sheds so much that the other day I actually put the nozzle on him on very low and he loved it.

Grooming - got him in the shower very early on. He tolerates it - lickimat with Philadelphia helps. He goes nuts for towels - I think I've made them too high value for him as he doesn't look twice at the tea towels just hanging in the kitchen he now has access to as they are just there. Important lesson in dog psychology for me - the calmer and less fuss we make over things, the calmer he is. Yes, I know it seems really obvious now looking back. Thankfully, we did realise this pretty quickly and started to really play down our own entrance and exits to the house and room he's in - it was very exciting to make a big morning fuss of him but now I just quietly open his crate and he takes his cue from that. He's a big lab - cute having a 8kg pup jumping up excitedly, not at cute at 24kg!

Off lead - huge leap of faith/trust unclipping the lead but we had a very experienced friend and their dog (two year old working gun dog who our pup adores) so he basically followed her everywhere and it was wonderful. We now take him solo and he's great, ok recall, not bombproof just yet which is worrying, and he's exhausted afterwards. We play fetch, recall, off lead heel walking, swim (paddle) in river, snuffle for kibble and it's such fun. We aim to stick to 5 mins per month age to protect his joints in the future.

All seems good so far! And then....

On lead walking. The bane of my life. I've cried so many times over this. He pulls like a train and it's the one thing that is most likely to make me doubt having a dog - our puppy trainer said we have to change our mindset. City street walking your dog on lead is not really exercise for them, it's for you - getting A to B is not exciting, they want to snuffle, zig zag, run. So she advised high value treats, very short, same route, early so it's quiet, lots of U turns and stop until he comes to heel and I do this over and over and over and sometimes he's ok for about 50% of the time but generally it's AWFUL. I've had lead burns on my hand, yanked my shoulder out and just felt like I'm a terrible owner. Am I expecting too much? Any advice would be hugely appreciated. We use a harness with lead on back - are the front leading ones better? UPDATE - the consistent routine and stopping dead at first pull has improved this dramatically. We now go for 40 - 50 min meander snuffle walks and they are 90% loose lead. Patience really does pay off. On the walk back he's a joy! He's marking a lot as we walk so once he's left his trail of peemails to the rest of the doggy community he seems happy to trot along - we use these calm walks for training, too - lots of sit, wait, paw as there are all sorts going on in the street. He hates motorbikes so once I pick up on one going past we sit and jackpot treat him to condition him to feel ok and it seems to have worked.

If I can help with anything please ask as we are that little further along and I feel like we got the sleep, toilet, crate training pretty well but very aware teenage tantrums are on the horizon. All in all, bearing in mind I'm very much a cat person, he's absolutely hilarious and such lovely company - I love to see him settled and happy one he's tuckered out from a busy day's puppying.

^^that is an absolutely brilliant post from @bingohandjob

Here is Pupdog.

Thank you everyone for all your fabulous advice and tips.
Not sure why but I'm getting quite emotional about the least things abs this was one of them!

Maybe getting a puppy when I'm peri menopausal with 2 teens wasn't such a good idea 🤣

bingohandjob I'm going to private message you if that's ok?
I'm going to print off your amazing post and get busy with my highlighter pen.
Thank you very much for taking the time to put all your puppy wisdom down onto the screen. 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻

Please do. If I can help with my very limited personal experience, I will. It's been interesting to say to friends now who have dogs 1, 2, 3 years old and up "bloody hell, it's hard" and they now all say "yes, was really tough" and admit that they'd forgotten just how tough!

I'm learning every single day and this forum is really helpful!

I'm not on Facebook so think The Doghouse will be my new spiritual home!

Bought by many, kennel club or pet plan
Tonnes of fab advice on this thread I have a year old retriever boy.
Your pup is gorgeous have lots of fun

@Tinkerbellfluffyboots79

Bought by many, kennel club or pet plan Tonnes of fab advice on this thread I have a year old retriever boy. Your pup is gorgeous have lots of fun

Thank you. 3 more pup-free sleeps left!

Don't know if this will be of any help..

When we first got our lab as a pup he howled and cried in the crate at bedtime. It was so upsetting and broke my heart. I had to move downstairs and sleep next to him and he was still upset. On day 3 I discovered an odd thing. He curled up to sleep no problem in the puppy playpen. I'd bought it so I could pop him in if I needed to answer the door or pop upstairs. He was happy to sleep in that with a Teddy no fuss at all. I think he felt less caged in, so we just used that for bedtime for years.

Our Lab's never had any accidents at all. I put this down to being outside in the garden with him during the daytime for the first few weeks. This was just by accident as it was warm weather and the kids and I stayed in the garden. I think it taught him what was inside and what was outside.

Good luck with the pup