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

Ok I feel a bit better about letting her have 'twiglets' now, thank you!

She chews ans spits them out too, but also she does definitely intentionally swallow some too sometimes.
Lovely! Better though than disgarded chicken bones, mini travel colgate tube, rubber glove, mask, rubber band, hair band... the list is endless!

What's the most disgusting thing you've had to pull out of your dog's mouth??
May deserve it's own thread 😂

Just been for a walk and have a new one to add to the list below:
Men's boxer shorts. The tight kind 🤢

Yes Excellent idea.I heard a crackling sound today from upstairs .At the top Dalmation was biting down on a can of lager that he had nicked from my son's room whilst he was asleep.The landing carpet stank of lager,it was disgusting. I only like red 🍷

@Yamyam13 Mac brought me a toad when we has tiny, it was alive and hopped across the dining room in to his bed after he put it down 😯. More recently he’s found and chewed on rabbit and bird carcasses while on walks. I did not try and retrieve them 🤢

We had two lovely walks today. He stayed close, we practised recall, he even did stints of walking to heel next to me. He’s only 11 months and teenage twatdom feels like it’s been going for ages already, but it really gave me hope that he may not have to be on the long line forever! 🤞

Hoping to finally start gundog training next weekend.

FawkesPup regularly eats horse poop. And rabbit poop. Brings me snails. Doesn't eat them, they're purely gifts 😬

@TheBigMacDougal same here. He's been for perfect this weekend. Recalled off other dogs off lead, ignored plenty too. Been using a game for more direct recall and dropping ball and it's worked a treat. He even ignored a field with about 20 pheasants in yesterday. Sits when I tell him "wait", and walking to heel off lead by choice (definitely just wanted the cocktail sausages in my treat pouch)

I am thinking my £30 a month members of the spaniel behaviourist group is worth every penny.

I mean I have no doubt he will be back to being the Hound of the Twatskervilles tomorrow but it's been nice for just a day or two!!!

A toad! Haha I would have jumped out of my skin 😂

It sounds like Mac is in excellent hands and is well on his way to becoming an honorable well behaved gentleman after his adolescence

Hound Of The Twatskervilles 😂😂

My girl loves any poop she can get her hands on! Esp. Urban Fox Poo and Domestic Neighbour's Cat Poo 🤢

I'm rather worried about her actually. She has terrible diarrhoea on Friday so I put her on a bland diet of chicken and rice as advised by the vet who I called in a panic.
She seemed on the mend as poos firmed up (DH and I cheered as we watched her go 😂) but this morning after waking up unusually early, and a few more firmer poos she frantically ate grass, proceeded to vomit it up and then her stomach has been making really loud noises.
I thought it might just be hunger so i gave her another batch of chicken & rice (with some a handful of gastro vet kibble mixed in) which seems to have helped with the noise... seems a bit off though. Fast asleep with me on the sofa now

I always go for white fish and pumpkin puree or squash/sweet potato when his tum is off as the pumpkin bulks and firms up the poop.

Mine has had the runs, but that because he decided to have a good lick of what I can only described as what remained of a "sun dried pigeon" (complete with maggots) on the verge.

The little oik has the temerity to turn up his nose at his breakfast but then eats that and horse poo. Dogs are weird.

I do keep reading that about pumpkin, and white fish - do you just boil the pumpkin up and puree it?
I also read lots of people give scanbled egg.
She's never had any of these so I'm wary of trying something new right now.. but wary that all the rice might be too starchy.
She's perked up a bit now and is chewing away on all the things she shouldn't so hopefully we're on the mend...
Might start mixing her kibble back in and reducing rice right down

I chop it into big wedges and roast, then just whizz it up in the blender, with added water if needed. Put it into freezer bags to keep ready as we use it in Kongs and on lick mats too.

Sweet potato is always easy!!!

I've not tried scrambled egg but it's known to be good for gummy tummies in humans too so makes sense. Very bland.

Hope pup is better soon. We use the buddy and Lola tummy buddy instead of Pro-Kolin these days and it definitely works, even if FawkesPup hates it. It's a Calpol syringe to the back of the mouth job!!!

@GuyFawkesDay I can report agent dickhead mode was back this morning for part of our walk. Can’t wait until we can get to a week of decent behaviour 😂 I thought we were in a secure area, so let him off long line to practice recall. The twonk found his way out in seconds and proceeded to maraud around the bushes until I corned him a few minutes later 🤦🏼‍♀️

Definitely more snoozy around the house though, so that’s a win!

Can I join you all and then immediately offload stress about our puppy? He's 16 weeks old today and so far our actual dog-dog interactions have involved: terror (secure field with one other dog, yelped, bolted and pooed himself along the way); submission (rolled over on his back when we got space invaded by a dog that was on a lead but was being held by children who were running it all over the place); fear aggression (puppy socialisation class yesterday, four other puppies playing very happily together right at the end, ours sat on my DD's lap, and when one of them came to investigate, ours air snapped; he's also air snapped this afternoon at a dog on a lead that came over to investigate); and over-enthusiasm (full on puppy enthusiasm at a dog that was happy to mooch around ignoring him). Otherwise, we've done a fair bit of dogs at a distance, where he watches a lot and will generally still take food. So, I'm panicking that I'm going to have a fear reactive aggressive dog and the dream of long walks through the woods with an off lead dog who will calmly greet and then carry on walking with us is already a non-starter. Am I completely over-thinking this as he is still just a baby? Has anyone else had similar and their dog got better at the interactions?

Thought I would join in too.

Got a 10 week old cocker spaniel, had him a week now to go with my 12 yr old JRT x Bichon.
So far pup wants to play with J when he sleeps & vice versa. Totally forgot how intense puppies are, but at least this one seems to want to learn.

But we are only a week in so...

We are coming up to 12 weeks for our wolfpup. He is so chilled for a puppy in general, worst things are that he has started standing up to see what's on top of the kitchen counter, he is just about tall enough already so that is our next training target.

He has his 2nd jabs on Thursday, I cannot wait to get him out for walks.

@wherearemychickens do you have anybody you know with older or just very laid back dogs? It's not ideal to socialise puppies with dogs whose owners don't have control or are far too boisterous and playful. A chilled dog who will just sit and let your puppy build confidence would be great.

Puppy socialisation should be bringing in experienced, bomb proof dogs so the pups learn about correct socialisation, not a free for all. Having a pup is hard work!

Another ferry, the woods and beach today.

Ada is being mostly well behaved although she has managed to get her paws on two baskets today and shred them to bits. Managed to mostly sort out the evening silliness by putting her in the car for a quick nap.

When we go out and leave the pup alone, we use a stair gate to limit his access to some parts of the house. But the little Houdini has worked out how to open the gate and escape. I suppose it is a brain puzzle for him so in that sense it's probably good for him. 😅

TerrorPup has pretty much completely recovered from her spay, if anyone is on the fence between keyhole and traditional our experience with keyhole has been amazing.

Her loose lead walking has been horrendous since her op, but she's now clear for off lead / long line walks and her recall hasn't regressed. I so wish she wasn't so dog obsesed with a high prey drive as we just can't ditch the long line yet.

Had to remove a tick today 😱

@abeanbaked Thanks, and we don't really, sadly - most of the dogs we know are young-ish themselves. We have started puppy classes and are going to try meeting one of the trainer's own dogs tomorrow evening. Fingers crossed. I'm really conscious that the first experience he had just wasn't at all great and that single-event learning is a thing. I'm really hoping this is something that with experience of more dogs he'll get over.

@wherearemychickens it would be good experience for your pup to meet the trainers dog so that's good. Your dog is still super young so don't worry about them becoming aggressive right now. I have a two year old retriever and although other dogs aren't our issue, I wish I had set clearer boundaries from the start so just keep going - they do get better with age and consistency!

The golden git had her first session with the Gundog trainer today - ofcourse she pulled on her lead terribly, whined when told to sit at heel and sniffed the ground. After minutes of the trainer handling her she walked perfectly. We have a loooong way to go with her but the trainer thinks she is bright and has it in her to work so here's hoping!

Have been fairly quiet on here recently, but nice to see everyone’s updates - @tizwozliz Ada is gorgeous, I do love a black lab.

I wanted to ask who gets a written prescription from their Vet for worming tablets? Called up today and asked however seem to have walked out with one nexguard tablet for £18 as they won’t give me a prescription because he’s still growing. He’s currently 12kg and 7 months - and I don’t really expect him to get to more than 15kg so slightly confused as to why they wouldn’t give me a prescription and wanted to see if there are other pups who get written prescriptions out there!

We get treatments supplied rather than prescriptions but they were only providing month by month until Ada reached 25kg. Once she reached that, we could get a 3 month supply

We had a good dog-dog interaction with the trainer's dog, hurrah! So our puppy appears to be fine with other dogs who are happy to ignore him, it's the ones that don't we need to work on...