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

I LOVE the puppy pics!!!

AwesomePup used to be very bitey with dd2 (aged 11 at the time). We were very strict about not leaving them alone together unsupervised, and if pup got bitey he went straight into the puppy pen, and DD would leave the room. He stopped after a couple of weeks and started playing more nicely. Now they're "besties" and he sits with her every meal time (because she shares her food with him cos he's cute and she's fussy), and snuggles up to her on the sofa to watch TV.

We've just signed up to try flyball!! I don't even really know what flyball is but a friend does it with her dog and says it's a lot of fun, so we're going to go along this Sunday and try it.

We tried to recreate some of our puppy pics yesterday :-)

We went for a long walk on a beautiful walking trail that turned out to be quite crowded with people and dogs. All dogs were supposed to be on leads, though some were not. Grr. (As an aside, why do people ignore prominently displayed signs saying that dogs must be on leads? It's so inconsiderate.) My pup walked beautifully on a loose lead, despite all the distractions. A few months ago that would have been much more of a challenge for him.

I also nearly ran out of poo bags! He decided to make the most of the walk by stopping four times for a poo. I was praying he wouldn't go a fifth time and fortunately he didn't.

@certainshepherdpups some people think they and their dogs are special and therefore the rules don't apply to them! My dog did more poos than anticipated once and I had no poo bags left - the only suitable thing I had in my pocket was as disposable face mask 😂
@tizwozliz what a difference in size

@Aria20 I had to go hunting in bushes for some suitable litter ones. Turns out discarded crisp packets aren't great for the job. Bought a poo bag holder for the lead as soon as I was home!

@tizwozliz what a fab idea! Great pics what a beauty!

Tonight our pup got to run off lead with another puppy on the beach. Ten mins of pure unadulterated fun and bolting, as well as lots of sniffling and paddling.

She came home and has passed out like this 😂

When your bestie has been on hols for a weeks

Too cute!!!

Aww bestie is the double of my daughters dog!

Hi! I'd like to join you on this thread.

New puppy, 9 weeks old. Toilet training is haaaaaard, chewing and nipping! But he's adorable and we love him already! Very keen to read all your advise that comes along on this thread.

One whole year of this arsehole little darling!!

Ah, cute little pup and he's grown up into such a handsome fellow.

Morning all,

@GuyFawkesDay your pup is so handsome!

Can I ask when you guys moved your pups from three meals to two? Our pop has quite loose stools during the day and I'm wondering if she's being fed too often. At the moment she gets breakfast about 7.30am, lunch about 12.30pm and dinner about 6pm.

I'm wondering if we should give her more at breakfast and dinner and start making lunch smaller, in case it's overwhelming her system? I've read being fed too often can be a cause of loose stools..

Our pup still has 3 meals a day at 15 months. She had 4 meals a day until 14 weeks. I've never heard that feeding often causes loose stools, only feeding too much.

That's interesting. I asked on here about quantities as the food we're giving her has odd food calculations, and almost everyone suggested we were not giving her enough.

We upped it a bit as a result and now she's loose - I hadn't connected that together!

Yep, take 10% off and see if that helps. Anything else changed? Treats etc.

Mine went to 2 feeds at about 6 months and seems to have self moved to 1 a day now. He ignores morning food so I just put a snacks worth of kibble out and leave it. It's rarely touched.

Which is good as once his 🌰🌰 are off next week I have to cut his food down anyway, poor fella!!

@FuckingHateRats what food are you using?

We have her on Gentle complete dry food. She get a teeny bit of something in with it - sardines, cooked chicken, etc. That's been the case since day 1 though.

Treats haven't changed - we give her the odd chicken foot or pigs ear to chew on, and for reward treats when training it tends to be a very small piece of something like chicken or beef mince.

Welcome @MrsThaskala ! The first few weeks can be tough, but we've all been through the 'what have I done' moments and happy to help!

Such cute doggos everyone!

Chenpup is pretty much down to one meal a day at dinner time - we put kibble out at breakfast but he's not usually interested. May have a bit of chicken or something at lunch, and then has Lily's Kitchen kibble mixed with some beef mince or other meat at dinner time. He has some treats like duck during the day, but he just doesn't seem to have a big appetite and is very fussy - typical cockapoo. Loads of energy and very bouncy though, so he must be OK.

Welcome to the thread @MrsThaskala ! Don't forget the puppy tax. 😀

WRT feeding, my pup (almost 14 months old) was on two meals a day for quite a while. That seemed to work best for him for a long time. However, we are now moving in the opposite direction: he's currently back to 3 or 4 meals a day due to his tummy troubles.

Lots of lovely new pups and photos of some of the bigger ones!

My 8 month old is still on 3 meals, no idea how we’ll drop it to 2 as his favourite thing after running is eating 😂 he will eat anything and everything at any time……… is always pacing around for an hour before mealtimes on high alert

I think we dropped to two meals a day around 9 or 10 months. She started at doggy daycare and I would send her in with her lunch but she was always too distracted playing with the others to eat it. After a while I stopped sending her lunch in as it never got eaten and then started dropping the occasional lunch at home until we down to two meals a day. She usually does training for treats in the middle of the day so she always gets a little snack then. (Lab/Goldie very food oriented!)

Welcome to all the new pups!
So cute.

We dropped Yampup (9mo lab) to 2 meals a day very gradually from about 6 months by just reducing her lunch and giving it to her as a scattered handful of kibble on the floor. Eventually it just merged in with her day time training treats which is a mix of her kibble and good quality dried meats like venison etc.

We are away for a week in the countryside and Yampup is having the time of her life. The first night was a nightmare as its a big old country house and she's not allowed upstairs and she barked at every noise she heard but by the second night she was more settled in though is waking up for the day at 5am with the neighbouring cows! We're in the middle of nowhere so noone and no other dogs around so walks are lovely off lead (long line though!) and we are taking the opportunity to practise her recall.

Went to the beach for a day and she was straight in for swims, giving it her all to 'save' us when ever we went in!
So cute. So lovely to see her out of the city in other environments... and no litter for her to pick up!

Noticed we're at 999 so new thread

www.mumsnet.com/talk/the_doghouse/4604298-puppy-survival-thread-surviving-into-summer-2022