Puppy Survival Thread: muddy footprints into Spring 2022

[tizwozliz]

Discussion of all things puppy...

Previous thread here

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/the_doghouse/4451767-Puppy-Survival-Thread-surviving-into-2022

Teenagers also welcome

Yep, I have gone right back to square one. Eat he'd an interesting webinar on teenage spaniels (I am on a subscription group for a spaniel specialist) and it talked about how they go through exactly what human teens do; their brains literally rewire. So they actually do forget their basics. And their peers become their focus. And they hit all sorts of worries and anxiety.

So, back to basics. Stick to lead of long walk for most of today. Made him sit as other dogs passed, he was fantastic, far less pulling etc. Made him "watch" before letting him have a few minutes off lead, whereupon he twatted off to play with another dog. He did try to return but got chased down by other dog but then got distracted again 🙄

So yep, right back to basics. Doing the watch me, sit, lie down, wait, stay drills and signals. Am wondering whether to introduce a clicker but then realized DH who is home with him in the day is effing useless.

Another training session tomorrow. Am really lucky there's bronze classes on 6 days a week with the trainer which are pay as you go so you can go as often as you like. Bearing in mind Saturday's fail I will try another tomorrow. Hopefully fewer dogs and bigger space so FawkesPup won't be so overwhelmed by it all. Will wait and see, bit let's just say my expectations can't get much lower.

And his tracker is now here so hurrah for that reassurance. I'm sure he will hate having it on but tough luck, mate!!!

Was having a great day, pups did some amazing recall in the field we’d booked. Thought we’d go to the garden centre for a cup of tea - he jumped, pulled, general manicness then did a huge poo on the floor. I can NEVER go back 😳

My dog is 18 months and has decided to start being a PITA, 2 weeks before getting new pup. He is obsessed with eating stuff again in the garden and completely ignoring leave it or drop it commands. It seems completely obsessive, he will keep going back to the same place over and over again even if I've taken the offending object away.

Back to basic leave it training for the next couple of weeks. So frustrating.

@abeanbaked @GuyFawkesDay I can empathise with what you’ve both said. Mac pup has been on the long line the last 3+ months as we hit adolescence HARD. I am starting to see a real change with him but I don’t trust it yet. I now have 3 places I trust him to be off lead or I can drop the long line.

I’ve cut our walking routes back to 2 main ones and I’ve found that slowing down has seemed to help him. So a few times on the walk I just stop and stand around for a few minutes, he stays fairly close and sniffs around and it seems to help him not get so overstimulated. If we’re somewhere heavily scented like the woods he loses his mind, I get no focus and wouldn’t trust him if I dropped the line not to bog off free hunting. I also spend ‘walks’ just zigzagging around and reinforcing him for being in my space. I must look nuts 😂

I’m also working on getting him retrieving. I wouldn’t have a hope in hell of him doing it most places but at least now he will in the garden or on the village green. I just keep it to 2/3 or he gets bored.

The patience of keeping going with training is the hardest part!

We’re starting kennel club training tomorrow night and if we get through the puppy plus hopefully we can do our bronze! Will definitely need wine after!

Sorry that’s an essay 🤦🏼‍♀️😳

@TheBigMacDougal you're right, it's really hard to keep going when they are acting possessed.

Ours loves to retrieve but in an open space often loses her head and ends up sniffing instead so needs reminded with her long line of what she is meant to be doing, she also loves finding things so I sometimes plant dummy's and balls along the hedgerow for her to sniff out. We are working our way through Total Recall by Pippa Mattinson (for the second time!) and it's going well, although it is a slow process to get through every step.

Dog ownership is hard. Attempting responsible dog ownership is even harder. A lot of people think I'm uptight about it all but these are people who just let their dogs go free and 'grow out' of running away or chasing things. Some get run over, some go missing. I'm not prepared to take that chance, she is far too precious to me. Even though I am really sulking with her 99% of the time right now. There's a dog missing from round here just now, went away chasing the scent of a deer apparently.

Not as much as mine was!!!

I am really thinking I need a gundog trainer as FawkesPup is such a WCS mentally. Nose down, scenting and looking for the sniffs constantly.

Bathed the horrorbag in my new doggy shampoo tonight (i made it!) And he's soft a floofy and smells nice. He's also been way calmer with a new brain training puzzle. He figured it out quite quickly but it's really handy for when he gets a bit antsy/silly in the early evening.

@GuyFawkesDay what kind of training have you done so far? I've had two trainer experiences if you like, none of which are specifically Gundog trainers and I so wish I had just taken her to Gundog classes from the off.

We are going to see her breeder soon (we all keep in touch). But I have asked for advice with the chasing. He is fair but doesn't take any nonsense. I'm absolutely affronted at her behaviour around people whose dogs hang on their every word.

@GuyFawkesDay - how far are you from Evesham? I think clicker gundog is round there

www.clickergundog.co.uk/

The lady there has done some guest workshops for the group I attend.

I'm about 30/40 minutes from Evesham....their courses look good but they are really expensive!!!

I hadn't looked at the courses in detail, they are a bit spendy. Our gundog training is 85 for 6 sessions.

@GuyFawkesDay mine is 7/8 WCS and 1/8 show and heis all nose and excitement, I feel your pain. He did puppy training with a gundog background trainer and we now go to classes with two different trainers: a drop in general obedience class (non gundog trainer) and a regular group gundog class for pet owners. He is generally able to be better focussed/behaved at the gundog class, if that helps. I think it's a combination of factors but a really big one is that he's just so thrilled to be asked to do rewarding stuff in class (under control), so I've got his attention! It's all relative though, but def less of a humiliating ordeal than the general obedience class :-) I did have one bad experience with a shouty man gundog trainer we met so have chosen this class carefully. I watched a free webinar that Helen Phillip's clickergundog.co.uk did and it/she was fab but agree, v expensive courses. The lady we train with charges £15/session or £35 for 1:1 if paying for a block of sessions.

Have you come across the Ladies Working Dog Group? They have a subscription service with access to a range of trainers and lots of online training including a beginners basics bootcamp which I've found really helpful, it's all positive reinforcement based and supportive.

Apologies if you have already come across this podcast by Jo Laurens but this episode is right on topic www.listennotes.com/podcasts/hold-the-line/episode-61-adolescence-and-OSF_zfBpVdH/ "In this episode, I talk about some difficulties I'm experiencing with my 7 month old Weimaraner, Roche - and I go through a list of suggestions for people who are also struggling with this especially challenging time with their dog! This info will also be useful for people whose dogs are very interested in the environment, whatever their age."

@abeanbaked @Thereisnolight thank you.
She’s a Romanian rescue, goodness knows what breed. Labrador sized.
I have had 4 one to one sessions with a trainer which has helped but it’s up confidence in letting her off outside that is worrying me.
I have booked an enclosed field to up the training, fingers crossed!

I've just listened to the podcast @Cockerdileteeth

Really interesting. I have Jo Lauren's book and found it super wordy and it's massive so I picked bits from it that I wanted to try and left the rest as it is very much aimed at training to work. The book didn't go into how to teach the dog what you don't want or that a certain behaviour is undesirable but he does touch on this in the podcast. Going to take pup into the field later and do some elastic recall, sit stay and sniffing.

She did a really good walk this morning on the slip lead. No lunging at a car that went past and lots of eye contact. Thank god because yesterday almost broke me.

I was on these threads before but lost track, dpup is now 18 months old, perhaps not a puppy any more but definitely an adolescent knobhead.

She was doing pretty well, but then a season, followed by a phantom pregnancy, then spay seem to have set us back a bit

She’s a spaniel and having similar issues to other spaniel owners - I might have to get the longline out again which is v annoying as I hate it!

We’ve started 1:1 with a gundog trainer at great expense 🙄 but seeing some improvements so hopefully will be worth it in the future. We really struggle with places to walk/train and only have a couple of “safe” spots at the moment. Everywhere is either full of dogs or next to a river, and then she loses her mind and any ability to concentrate. Also loses her mind in any wood or any field that is too big/open. It’s a bit of a nightmare! Some days she’s brilliant, others it’s like we’ve never done any training, the inconsistency is so frustrating..

@abeanbaked agree on the Jo Lauren’s book, I have it, but yes very wordy and perhaps I’m too much of a novice. I also have a book called Mission Control by Jane Ardern which is quite good for high-drive/working type dogs. Progress is slow though and it’s hard work to keep persisting!

@SpreadHummusNotHate what does the 1-1 gun dog trainer work on?

We’ve only been to three classes so far but it’s structured in way where we do an exercise each week in each of these areas building on it each time

Focus/impulse control - things like look/watch me, throw some food out, they have to look for permission before getting it
Steadiness - sit stays, building duration and distance etc
Heelwork
Recall
Miscellaneous - settle, retrieve

It’s been good so far, and good for me to have some structure to our training at home and some ideas of things to do

Hi@SpreadHummusNotHate we were on the same puppy thread, pugpup is 18 months also. He has decided this week (2 weeks before new pup arrives) to start acting like a teenage arsehole. Today I have done some focused stuff like dropping a piece of kibble and asking him to leave it. He's completely able to do it when I tell him but he's decided that unless he's told what to do he will do completely as he pleases.

I was looking at gundog training near us but have just paid out for 10 1:1s for new pup for next month so am hoping that doing the basics with new pup will help pugpup behave better and in the meantime I am going to be on him to behave better. Its mainly eating stuff he shouldn't (anything off the pavement, dvds, wood and snails in the garden!)

@PugInTheHouse it must be their age! Yes HummusPup is also good in a ‘set up’ but it’s getting her to transfer that to other situations that’s the problem! Pugpup must be a good boy if you’ve decided to get another, I am still traumatised from puppy number 1 🤣

I took Jo Lauren's advice and picked my corner of the field. It is covered in sheep 💩 but we haven't worked in the field for so long because I just didn't believe that I could actually get her working for me in such an environment. We've just had forty minutes of loose lead, elastic walking, steadiness training and lots of breaks for her to explore. I think the release to go sniff is helping a lot. She ran off but it was to collect her dummy and bring it back to me to play 😳 usually she would be running round in circles consuming her body weight in crap and looking for pheasants. She is such a dick and tomorrow will probably be different but she's been a good pup today!

@SpreadHummusNotHate well he was good and 2 weeks after we decided to get new pup ( to be known as wolfpup) he has started being really hectic!

Had a little scare at the weekend, wolfpups litter mate choked on his dinner and spent the night in an oxygen kennel. It made me remember how much you worry about them when they are tiny. Although I say tiny, wolf pup is over 7kg at 7 weeks so nearly as big as pugpup already!

New pic attached of wolfpup, and current pic of pugpup

I’ve discovered the key to recall around other dogs: borrow someone else’s dog to take for a walk with you and then they won’t bother about other dogs!

Awww that's lovely!

Went to another session today (my day off) with trainer we had for puppy classes and she was funny, and said "ooh you've gone all teenage, haven't you?!" at FawkesPup. She has spaniels, she gets it!! Told me her youngest one was threatened with having his 🥜 off this weekend and she's a trainer and she still struggles with the teenage thing so that made me feel a bit less rubbish!!

He was OK at the exercises today, some great bits, some getting overexcited. Instructor showed me how to correct him and reward calm. We then braved the deer chasing route on the longline and did lots of recall with a game of tug as reward rather than food, and praise for checking in as we went. He was MUCH better at sitting when I stopped walking (gates, poo picking) and lay down whilst I chatted to someone so that felt like a big jump forward.

It's a relief to know it's normal but yup, typical spanner. Impatient, impulse control is non existent. Once on a scent goes "deaf". Sit and stay lasts only a second or two, needs work on his steadiness.

It's a good jobs he's cute