Your biggest puppy mistakes

[foreverinmyheart]

I am currently sat with an 9 week old puppy after a lovely 5am wake up call from him! Keen to get as much right as possible with his training and I wondered... Looking back what have been your biggest puppy mistakes / regrets that with hindsight you wish you could do differently?

Not taking pup in the car much when she was young so for her whole life she howls and sings constantly in the car. So we don't take her anywhere which is sad. Walking her on an extendable lead when young so she is hard work on the lead- not pulling as much as wandering about. Apart from those two she is the best dog ever and was easy pup. Best thing- doing good citizen classes and getting brilliant recall and "drop it" when she picks up something she shouldn't. She'll literally spit it out if you shout drop it!

Getting one

I love ddog to bits but he was such hard work as a puppy and although he’s a dream now having a dog is quite limiting in a lot of ways

Leaving the kitchen door open thinking everything was safe and out of reach.We caught him licking the bread board.Now all doors are closed except the lounge...he's a Dalmation.

You have literally wrote the exact same thing I was going to write.

socialise the dog properly. That doesn’t mean puppy play dates, greet every dog you see, say “hello” to every person you see … it means teach the dog that the rest of the world exists, but YOU are what matters.

Take him on a train, take him on a bus, take him around garden centres and pet shops, take him to pub beer gardens, take him past cattle and horses … introduce him to all the things he might encounter later on in life but first and foremost, teach him to ignore other dogs and people.

This is my biggest regret ever and I’ll never make the same mistake again.

Ours were terrified of the car so getting the puppy used to the car would be my tip. Sitting in it and going for short drives to go for fun stuff so they don't always associate the car with vet trips.

Claw cutting, should have cut them more often when he was younger to keep him used to it.

I did chuckle at your last point @Bedknobbroomsticks !! Let's hope I can take every valuable bit of advice on board!

So many good insights in here...

Key word that stood out was calm @Strokethefurrywall - linking this with other posts this is a big one we have realised is key.. Especially when socialisation actually the more 'uneventful' the better...

The lead walking training feels like a real mission. We haven't started this yet but plan to this weekend in the garden. He's too young to go out yet so it'll be in a couple of weeks we take him out.

Things that have gone well/we've taken on board so far & worked:

• enforced sleeping / naps (@MrsElijahMikaelson1 100% this has been a game changer)
• positive reward for ignoring loose clothes/not nipping on clothes or feet
• being as calm as possible... so much better and less hyperactivity from him!
• socialisation carefully by ensuring he isn't overwhelmed... calm introductions to things and by the sounds of it keeping it focused on letting him see the world, thank you everyone
• quality dog food (thanks @rnsaslkih totally agree)
• crate training / being left alone (@cheeseisthebest & others thank you!)
• recall, doing this everyday

Still working on:

• car journeys (will squeek/whine for 10 mins when we set off!)
• swap/drop commands
• bath/grooming
• seeing the world including rivers/sea etc and horses/cows etc

For future:

• lead walking
• ignoring dogs, sounds like a big one!!
• claw cutting
• teeth cleaning

I'm sure there are more I have missed but honestly thank you everyone...

Never feed them at the table or off your plate… or you’ll be out in a cafe in 3 years time cursing because your bloody dog is woofing and embarrassing you begging for treats…. I’m looking at you Buddy-dog 😡

Oh and we trained our dog to be good in the pub, that has been very useful, he is initially excited as they give him treats but we can take him for a meal and he just snoozes under the table

Will they genuinely not beg if you train them and don't feed from plate : table ?

I would say so, our one is very food motivated and will counter surfe etc but never begs from the table, whereas my inlaws dog who regularly got scraps from the table was shocking, she would literally sit and whine until someone gave her something.

Our puppy desperately tries to steal from our plates, we have never fed him our food, he's only 19 weeks so a work in progress but it's really frustrating. The fact he's huge and very quick doesn't help.

The biggest mistake we made was to let the pup play with a football in the garden

• as soon as he was bigger he could burst the football

and it meant we could never go to any park where they might be playing football - which turns out to be pretty much everywhere!

Noises. Ours is a second lockdown pup and a rough collie so hypersensitive to noises. Will ignore all noises including fireworks on the tv but real life... go on a bus, a train - just carry them on. Make it a norm don't just do it once. Ours wouldn't do steps and stairs for ages but is fine now so just let some things happen in their own time. Puppy biting - time out in the pen stopped that very quickly but ours isnt mouthy. Let them amuse themselves - it doesn't need to be constant interraction. Get everybody and anybody into the house so it is a norm. I really wished we had the opportunity to do this as now she's reactive to visitors in the house unless all gone about very carefully. Leave on own for short periods of time. Don't buy too much stuff - I have tons to get rid of and spent too much.
Enjoy them and it is very easy to get wound up because people get quite wound up about what you should and shouldn't do. I left the facebook group in the end because the crate police were doing my head in.

Great advice here!

Quick question, if you carry your puppy around outside to get used to things before fully vaccinated, what do you do when it needs a wee? Or if it’s older & you’re getting it used to buses & trains?

Don't pull your pup backwards , pup will just lean harder on the lead forward.
Pull up ( so don't wait till they are far infront ) short firm but don't jetk pull and relax lead straight away.

If they still pull turn away walk in the opposite direction, use high value treat to get their attention.
When pup stops pulling turn back to where you were going .

KEEP doing this * *for days untill a very gentle upwards pull stops them in their tracks and they wait to see where uou went to go

Be prepared for the first couple of days you probably won't get more than about 3 or 400 yards in half an hour it's time consuming but pays off.

I would find a grassy area and put my puppy down for a wee. The risk of him catching anything in the 5 mins he was on the ground seemed minimal, the risk of problems due to a poorly socialised pup is a much higher risk imo.

We had a sling for our puppy and I also lined it with a puppy pad so if he did get caught short it was contained (more or less 😬)

Know that many things can be retrained/untrained later - we adopted a 3.5 year old and have had to do a lot of work with her and generally speaking we have been able to modify most behaviours (not her reaction to cats though, I think that’s imprinted!)

This. A millions times over. Our pup is pretty much perfectly trained in every way apart from this and it's entirely my fault and i kick myself every day for it.

Don’t let them get away with things just because it’s funny or cute. If you let them do it once they’ll keep doing it.

Keep touching their paws so they get used to it ready for nail clipping. My pug x poodle is an absolute nightmare when I have to cut his claws.

Hopefully I won't get shot down for this. Apart from my parents pug that died at eight years old all our dogs had regular exercise maybe this could be a factor in the lack of major operations or treatment needed.There was no dietary or grain wheat free foods back then ,pretty much chappie or pedigree chum with no mixers was our food of choice.Even though my friend had the big op early on with one of his pups he is still not going for insurance and is putting aside the payments in an account as per some ops above.

Apologies wrong thread probably a good job really.