Puppy survival thread. Nov. Read this and buy a hamster instead

[WomblingKnobhead]

Or a rabbit, or a goldfish, or a cuddly toy.

He’s usually a 9:30am kind of dog if given a choice! I usually have to wake him at 7am when I have to get DS (who is also a 9:30 kind of kid 😂) up for school.

2am wee
4.25am poo

DTAS suggests setting an alarm and moving it forward a few mins each night....I'll be 80 before I sleep through if I follow that advice

Things tried so far
Crate training with me on sofa (success and he did do a few nights sleeping through) but then started throwing himself around noisily and waking for loo again.

Decided to drop crate as this might be causing waking rather than need for toilet

Moved to hallway...rubbish couple of nights as he settled to this. Kept door open and he is 6ft from me in bed. Started to wander at night noisily and still need toilet.

Thought bed was too small, he was too cold, smoke alarm light upsetting him...made changes to all this. Still up in the night to toilet.

Moved to sitting room and I'm on sofa. Rubbish few nights as he roams the room trying to climb on me but has finally settled a lot. Still up in the night to toilet

Changed mealtimes. Changed walking and evening routine so he settles of an evening and gets last walk at about 9pm until he has pooped. Still up in the night to toilet. He goes out, does his stuff...straight back to bed. I lie awake struggling to get back to sleep.

I don't think me sleeping with him is the answer but at least rest of house sleeps. No ideas what to do to stop it. Otherwise toilet training is perfect and no upset tum.

I JUST WANT TO SLEEP IN MY BED ALL NIGHT 😭😭😭😭😭

It might still just click, we're a couple of weeks into Ada sleeping downstairs alone and she sleeps through about 90% of the time and I think your pup is a couple of weeks younger. She spent 3 weeks in our bed prior to this just so we could catch up on some sleep.

And are you sure he does really need to get up to toilet? Ada would take the opportunity if offered but the fact that she never once needed a nighttime toilet trip when she was in our bed showed that she often didn't need it.

@tizwozliz I saw you say similar to this to someone else and it's been giving me hope.

Well he sits by back door really purposely and straight out, wee/poo and immediately back in and settles. He certainly looks like he needs it. However with my DC I did realise they get used to going (hence DTAS advice of moving alarm forward a bit)

I've moved to sofa to be with him to try and get him used to not going (similar to your bed situation) thinking it was waking needing company and then "Oh look I'll have a poo whilst I'm up"

I've suggested DH sleeps elsewhere in house and we go back to hallway sleeping and I ignore his toilet requests for a little bit longer each night. I am not sure this is the answer either

He's chewed through a rear seat belt in new car we noticed yesterday

I refer any prospective puppy owners to the title of this thread

Hiya waves hand covered in puppy scratches
@WomblingKnobhead we have a 2x waker as well....
She is asleep beforehand, and once she's back inside is asleep again immediately.
HOWEVER
Goes to bed about 10 (dozing off from 9 and gets naps in the day, plenty of exercise amd mental stimulation and free playing etc)
She sleeps beautifully on her own downstairs and wakes us only to wee.
Wakes at 1 wanting a wee.
Wakes anywhere from 3 - 5am wanting a tiny wee or maybe a poo.
But both times, once she has done her business, she then wants to dick about in the garden. And her otherwise excellent recall (for a 5 month old) is FORGOTTEN. The only way to coax her back in is for a treat.
Im so tired. I thought she'd be down to one very quick wee at this point, not 5 minutes stood persuading her back in! When she comes back in she is immediately asleep so she cant be bored....

@cocktailclub you have officially the best sort of dog :) although it definitely won't feel like it at the moment!

Golden Retrievers have a rep of being these big soppy family puddings. Well. They are, but they are demonic as puppies and the mouthing, lunging, nipping, etc, is something else. Oh and yes they do bloody bark. Get a GR they said, it will be quiet. ha. ha. bloody. ha. They are clever and quickly learn that barking garners attention.

All I can say is that we are now at 20 weeks and things are a whole lot easier. You think the biting and destruction will never stop and then suddenly it... just does mostly

regarding the night-time poos and wees... could it be food-related? as in, not too much/ not enough/ wrong times, but something to do with it going through a bit too quickly?

KLM if she is pratting around in the garden would it work to put her on the lead so that stops? Otherwise she is going to think it's all a jolly jape especially if there is a treat at the end. Wouldn't work for mine as she won't go when on the lead. Very strange dog :)

[quote Goawayangryman]@cocktailclub you have officially the best sort of dog :) although it definitely won't feel like it at the moment!

Golden Retrievers have a rep of being these big soppy family puddings. Well. They are, but they are demonic as puppies and the mouthing, lunging, nipping, etc, is something else. Oh and yes they do bloody bark. Get a GR they said, it will be quiet. ha. ha. bloody. ha. They are clever and quickly learn that barking garners attention.

All I can say is that we are now at 20 weeks and things are a whole lot easier. You think the biting and destruction will never stop and then suddenly it... just does mostly[/quote]
That's very welcome reassurance. I was wondering if we were doing something wrong as our last dog was well behaved during his puppy stage compared to this one.

Good shout, i think we'll have to try her on the lead.... i think we've been reluctant to so far as it means actually emerging into the cold rather than watch squinting through the patio door from the warm. Lazy owners are the issue here
Im also wondering about food for her, she's not a big drinker (and will take a disgusting puddle over lovely fresh water every day of the week) but has had a few 'halfway' poos of late (somewhere between ideal and not ideal) but these are almost entirely in the daytime so will have to look at her food again. I have been working on the idea that these poos are as a result of her being typically disgusting and attempting to eat every animal poo she comes across but maybe time to revisit.

Finally managed to post on this thread and not just catch up!

Mac pup is 6 months this week and 12.5kg. Lots of good bits but can also still be an annoying sod.

@GuyFawkesDay what size rydale fleece did you go for? Mac pup looks a bit longer than fawkes pup but I recall them being a similar weight 🤔

Mac pup is very cute
WK has had a great run by the river. He dives head under loads

Lol at the last pic where your pup is soaked @WomblingKnobhead bet that was a fun clean up operation!

We hit a milestone with TerrorPup this weekend and dropped the longline for only the second time ever. Recall has taken the longest time to click with her and she is definitely still not completely there (she decided it was optional at one point until we legged it in the opposite direction). But a massive improvement! And she was also noticeably calmer visiting family, although a little difficult to get to settle to sleep. Do I finally, at 15 months old, have a dog and not a puppy?!

FawkesPup is all better and a testament to fish rice and pumpkin puree! He's back to his arsehole stupid self 😂

@WomblingKnobhead I felt EXACTLY like you did 2 weeks ago. Despairing. Then I got a bigger crate from a friend. Stuck it right in the corner of the kitchen & got a blackout cover. And went for it. The cover seemed to be magic and he settled like a dream. I slept nearby in the study off the kitchen where he is. Did that for 2 nights and then back to my own bed and used Alexa as baby monitor. He even takes himself off in there now and we can enforce naps in it as he clearly likes his corner cave.

He also had a really annoying phase of twatting about in the garden at 4 am, and a slip lead by the back door solved that in 2 nights. It's also really handy to have for when visitors come so we can stop him going totally giddy.

@TheBigMacDougal we've got a medium size Rydale fleece. I mean, he absolutely doesn't need it for the temperature, but it's so useful for the rancid mud.

6 months old this weekend.....how did that happen???!!

Ada managed to snuffle out one of her Christmas presents earlier, oh well, she has plenty more!

We've also been working on teaching her to go down the stairs, one of us is still having to work from the kitchen at the moment when we could be warmer upstairs and she could be sleeping on the spare bed. She can manage half a flight if you pick her up and put her halfway down but won't try from the top yet.

Going for an indoor swim on Wednesday, one of us can get in with her and there'll be an instructor too. Hoping a bit of gentle encouragement is all she needs to take the plunge.

Nice! Apparently there's a horse pool you can rent for doggy swimming nearby, I must find the details. That said I've found a secure dog walking place with access to the river so I suspect he will go in there. Can't wait!!

I need to work on timing our outings a bit better. The pup really has been coming along so well, but if he doesn't get his walk/run/play in at the right time he becomes a bit wild (zoomies, nipping, grabbing things he knows he isn't allowed). I know it's just high spirits and energy, and if I could arrange our schedule properly he wouldn't reach that point. But sometimes other things get in the way, like work! Though DH and I are fortunate to have very flexible work schedules and work from home most of the time. I just have to juggle the organisation a bit better.

Hi all. LegsPup is nearly 5 months old and I feel as though we've turned a bit of a corner. He's not jumping quite so much or biting quite so much. On the other hand, the barking at the doorbell and people on the street has gone to the next level.

We went up to the dog park this morning with a puppy friend, and he had a totally brilliant time. Didn't come back to recall twice, which is incredibly rare outside the house, and a bit nerve wracking. But then it was very exciting for him up there. Will need to work on it without the combo of other dogs and puppy friend. He does come back from those situations if they are separate!

I was wondering with the sleep stuff for Wombling, if you just need to try the same thing for ages. I'm sure you're not doing something new every 2/3 nights, but perhaps to persist even longer with whatever you're trying. Obviously I'm no expert (see above!) but I've got the early morning wee to 5.40am (haha, what a luxury!) by doing the 5 minute thing every few nights. I don't know. Legspup will probably all go to shit tomorrow!!

AwesomePup barked like a mad thing at a big snowman this morning. So he loves snow but snowmen are too weird for him to cope with. I think we woke up half the street with him barking at this bloody snowman at 7am. Snow's melted now anyway, so no dangerous snowmen to bother him tomorrow morning (I hope)

Oh bless awesomepup and the scary snowman. That's very cute. Mine is scared of unreasonable things like ..... blueberries!

Aww bless him @MsAwesomeDragon. Billy isn’t a barker luckily but things that he’s been scared of this week include: some traffic cones that had blown over in the wind, a drain cover that made a noise when he stepped on it, a neighbour’s Christmas lights, the bins that were out on bin day. Basically, he doesn’t like change!

Haha @MsAwesomeDragon! Pup got scared of a giant inflatable Santa outside the post office the other day, it was blowing in the wind and the air pump was humming loudly! She's also been too scared to walk past a bronze statue