Puppy Survival Thread: surviving into 2022

[LadyCatStark]

The other thread is full and I can’t see a new one! Hope it’s OK to start one. I’m actually barely surviving puppyhood, actually teenagerhood, this week 🤬😡😭.

Agreed, FawkesPup is so used to it being just me or me and the kids when it's two adults he is worse behaved.

Anyone else reducing lunches? FawkesPup seems to not be interested in lunch really so I'm reducing it down to a snack and upping the two other meals. He will have a bit on the Kong wobbler about 2/3pm but otherwise it just gets left in the bowl. Morning and night he can't get ear fast enough so I'm thinking maybe he's moving to 2 meals.

Tried not to get my dd face in but this is why the pup follows her for food lol!

Hahahaha yes @Aria20 that furry shadow looks familiar! Though mine has started getting some branflakes with his breakfast for the fibre these days 🤣 but he follows the kids as they have croissants at the weekend and he goes nuts for them. I usually stick him on the crate or he is a total pest and has stolen them before now.

I have the house to myself all morning. Just me and the dog. We are going for a nice walk over the fields and then I am going to leave him with something to chew whilst I go to the supermarket and leave him solo for an hour.

This feels quite civilised all of a sudden!!

Yes it’s so annoying! DH doesn’t believe me that he’s good when it’s just the 2 of us 🤨.

@GuyFawkesDay yes I give an occasional handful of bran flakes too lol. Mine would eat any human food if she could lol today she's had some wet food in her kong and some of dd's multigrain shapes with lactose free milk and some blueberries!
@LadyCatStark mine also rolls his eyes when I say she is fine with just me or just me and kids....I have videos of her recalling from the bushes/ditches, even chasing birds it's so frustrating!

Yep, all same here!!! Mine is looking at me longingly for some of my lemon drizzle cake and he can get stuffed!!!

Our pup also loves most human food, not sure if it's the food itself or just desperate to share what you are having.

Bought a dog whistle on the recommendation of a owner that we regularly bump into at the park as apparently all our recall problems will be over anyone use one?

We do, use it for recall ( repeating pips) and just starting to do sit (one pip). Then got to learn stop (long blast) but we can't get stop with verbal yet!!

We use a whistle, five pips for recall, one longer pip for stop. Our stop has gone backwards lately, at training today used whistle plus hand signal and Ada tried to do touch to my hand at head height This evening practicing she stopped but then tried to do high five!

I don't see that the whistle is a magic answer for recall, you still need to train it like everything else.

Thanks GuyFawkesDay I have bought a whistle recommended for Spaniels

Yep, the acme 210.5??!!

I do get a more reliable attention from FawkesPup with it than just my voice but he's still selectively deaf.

Just airsnapped at me whilst he was chewing DDs shows under the kitchen table, so he got unceremoniously dragged to the hall and put out there!

@sandwiches77 we did try a whistle and had mixed success we did 4 pips for recall and a long whistle for stop BUT my 4yo dd found the whistle and just started randomly whistling at the dog and now it's meaningless to her so hard work out of the window!

Yep GuyFawkesDay the acme 210.5. Ddog is currently snapping and growling at DH. Ddog bites me but growls at DH

We use a whistle. When he gets it, it’s brilliant… however… I am finding with Macpup that I can’t just generalise with him. I now have 3 areas where we train/practice while walking and he’s generally great.

Walking a less known area yesterday and he got a scent in long grass and subsequently bogged off for a few minutes running riot between it and a copse. He was absolutely deaf to the whistle and blind to me when I got close as he’d lost his little mind 🤦🏼‍♀️

We’ve been doing much better since he’s been on the long line and really bumped it back up on basics and having fun. Just getting confident to drop the line in some places and yesterday I chose very poorly 😩

Dog walker has reported that other dogs taking more of an interest in Ada today so may be that her first season is on its way. I know her mum had her first season at 7 months and at least two of her sisters have already had theirs. Time to invest in lots of washable blankets!

@tizwozliz we liked the extra large fleece blankets from Dunelm. Absolutely massive so can cover sofas/beds as required (TerrorPup sleeps on the double bed in my study whilst I work and that is completely covered). They wash well and dry super quickly, very reasonably priced too. Good luck!

I know it’s all going to go wrong now I’ve posted on here but newsflash Billy recalled from every dog he played with including other Labradors, who are his favourite. Other dogs came running up to him (which I don’t mind one bit) so he was actually the best behaved dog there for once 😂.

That's wonderful @LadyCatStark.

I am happy to report that my pup is much improved, he's had completely normal poo since yesterday. I think I will keep him on a bland diet (boiled chicken, rice, a bit of yoghurt) for another day or so just to make sure. Fortunately he loves the bland food. But then he loves all food, including his regular kibble. He does not have a very discriminating palate!

@tizwozliz how old is she now? Ours was 8.5 months when it started. She kept herself mostly clean to be honest only ever saw a couple of spots on the carpet. Her bits swelled up massively as I'd been checking for swelling and kept thinking is this it but no it was really obvious and she was licking herself a lot and weeing more!

@Aria20 - she's 8.5 months now. No sign of swelling yet. I know with her sister they said that the extra interest was a good couple of weeks before she actually started bleeding. She's been a bit barky today though and doesn't seem quite her normal self. She's so up and down food wise that's not much of an indication of anything with her. I'm hoping we might get through the week before she starts as we have swimming and mantrailing scheduled this week.

@tizwozliz yes it was about 10 days after dogs at puppy class had been sniffing around mine too! Mine was grumpy, off food and slept a lot first few days. I did feel sorry for her.

Hi everyone, I’ve not been on here for a while but it’s lovely to still see some familiar names and to read about how the pups are all doing. I’m also relieved to see that 567pup’s behaviour seems relatively normal for his age. He’s now 7 months and a total teenager. He’s back on the long lead as the little recall he did have has now totally gone.

We finally got into a puppy class before Christmas after being in their list for months, and safe to say he’s the class bad boy! Not interested at all in joining in, he’s much prefer to bark at the dogs in the group across the field and then sniff the grass! And typically everyone else has such well behaved dogs who all sit obediently waiting for instructions. I’m actually embarrassed to go this week! I think we’ve 4 weeks left so should really see it through.

But he’s a joy when we’re at home. Enjoys his training, has a snooze most of the afternoon and loves playing. Just need to tackle his behaviour when we are out of the house!

I’m actually embarrassed to go this week!

I know that feeling, was actually saying the other day that driving to training I get the same feeling of nerves as when I'm driving to a job interview! Ada's ok at doing things, but sitting patiently whilst waiting for instructions is not her forte. I end up missing what we're meant to be doing as concentrating on trying to get her to sit still.

That’s the same as us! He’s barking to another dog across the field and I can’t hear what the instructor is saying! I dread going, but they’ve given some really good tips that we just practice at home. And I think it makes the other dog owners feel good that they haven’t got the worst behaved pup! 😂

Just done a nice morning walk and he’s flaked out on his blanket. Wish they could see how calm he is at home and that he’s not always a terror!