Puppy thread 2021 alumni, where are you now?

[LadyCatStark]

Hi gain, I fell off the puppy thread a while ago but have been wondering how all the pups (now dogs I guess!) are getting on?

Billy is 18 month old now and is the most gorgeous, good boy we could ask for. He was neutered on Wednesday so has been feeling a bit sorry for himself as he wants to get back to playing in the fields and he doesn’t like his special collar (but completely freaked out at the cone the vet sent him home in!). He’s thriving on raw food and is super fit and shiny but he is a typical greedy lab and could happily eat all day long 😂. He totally failed at gun dog training but is a super star at agility and fly ball (although he is having to miss a few weeks while he recovers). The only bad thing now is that he’s decided 5:30 is time to get up in the morning 🙈.

It feels like those early days of wondering what the hell we’d done are a life time ago 🥰.

LOVELY!!

im sure you know but just be careful with his weight now he’s been neutered- but he sounds really active and fit.

what a nice post

It's all good here

Ada finished her second season a couple of weeks ago so she's getting spayed for Christmas! She does seem to have matured all of a sudden.

She's still in our bed and we keep talking about training her to sleep elsewhere but then she'll happily sleep in until 8:30 so maybe it's a price worth paying.

She's generally pretty good though, chilled round the house apart from occasional bouts of attention thievery. Although we do still have odd occasions of evening silliness. Still particular about food and treats but I know what she likes now so not as much of an issue. Really well behaved on walks, especially if she knows I've got a ball in my pocket! We're doing a lot of mantrailing which she's amazing at and starting back gundog training next month (she's less amazing at this!)

Hi! TerrorPup is now two and generally a lovely dog.

Recall we are still working on, to be honest it's the prey drive letting her down. Still has major separation anxiety and we are discussing medication to support our training now.

But otherwise she is great. We can walk her through central London, do tubes/buses/boats etc all fine. She finally calmed down at around 18 months, stopped trying to greet anything with legs. Still gets over excited but in general she's pretty chill now. She was spayed at Easter which has helped a lot as she really suffered hormonally.

We are still struggling on finding boarding options for her though, nothing is proving quite right. Probably our biggest challenge!

Stunning pictures @tizwozliz, I hope you’ve got some framed! I had some nicer pics of Billy but they were too big to upload 😭. I would like Billy to sleep on our (or DS’s bed) but DH won’t have it. He’s not even really allowed on the sofas but as you can see from the pics, he ignores that rule 😂. Billy is also ball obsessed although his recent neutering has earned him the nickname Billy No-Balls 🙈.

@TerrierOrTerror wow, Billy is a country pup and he couldn’t imagine the sights of London! He’s scared of busses but loves sniffing at massive tractors and combine harvesters.

Those of you with the lovely labs what were they like at 12 weeks? We are three weeks in to our dog journey and whilst we love our boy and he is doing really well, the chewing and the nipping is exhausting!! Tell me this eases off as they get older!

I don't remember the early weeks being that bad tbh. I wasn't working though so I wasn't trying to juggle puppy and work (no kids either), and I think she wasn't a particularly chewy or nippy pup 5-6 months was the most difficult time for us I think.

@peacypops the early days were hard for us. The nipping stopped around 16 weeks when he lost his baby teeth and he does still love to chew but he chews natural animal chews, bones, horns etc now. He calmed down nicely around a year old and now he’s an absolute dream and it was so worth it.

Waves to the 2021 gang. My pup is now 15 months old and absolutely wonderful. He's sweet and playful and an all around delight. He received an injury a couple of weeks ago that required stitches, necessitating sharply reduced exercise for 10 days (short walks on the lead only). I thought he would be climbing the walls, but he was surprisingly patient and calm. He was beside himself with joy as soon as he could tear around the fields again, though!

Over the summer he swam almost every day which he adored. I'd like to get him started in agility or fly ball, both of which I think he'd really enjoy. I'm still dithering about when (or whether) to have him neutered. The only issue we still have is his habit of overly exuberant greetings. No matter how much we've worked on it, he still tries to jump up on people.

I'd also like to thank you @LadyCatStarkfor your wise words a few months ago. When my pup was about 10 months old he went through a horrendous adolescent phase. I had never experienced the puppy blues, but his adolescence made me quite despondent. You were very encouraging to me on one of the puppy threads and said that things improved for you when Billy turned one. I held onto the hope that the same would happen to my pup and sure enough, when he turned a year old he just seemed to sort of settle into himself.

FawkesPup is 16 months old this week. He's 90% lovely and 10% absolute terror.

Had some real regression recently. Was neutered 8 weeks ago and has had a skin allergy and also just....a teenage spaniel!

He's the most loving, sweet boy. Goofball. Desperate to please but like a bull in a china shop. Has limited impulse control still.

He will get there but oh my word, he's full of it at the moment!!!

Awww @GuyFawkesDay it’s lovely to see FawkesPup again.

@certainshepherdpups no problem, I’m glad you found the same as me!

At the moment I’m regretting the neutering. Billy won’t wear his cone so I bought him an inflatable collar thingy but he can still get to his bits and got himself an infection. He’s much better now with antibiotics but stopping him from licking is a full time job. He’s also going stir crazy with the reduced exercise 😖.

That sounds difficult @LadyCatStark - one of the main reasons I'm wanting to get a laproscopic spay for Ada is it usually means no cone and only a couple of days restricted exercise

@LadyCatStark we found the surgical suit worked well. He did lick through it so we ended up using the proper cone of shame from the vet for the last few days.

He's now definitely settled without his balls and the lack of marking, bed humping and getting into scrapes with other entire dogs who wanted to beat him up has been a bonus. He pees like a girly again too 🤣

Actually got a retrieve today. Now, I will caveat with the fact we are back on the long line as he recently has refused to come back to me properly and takes the scenic route instead. But I lobbed the dummy, he sat and actually waited instead of tearing off after it, retrieved it and actually brought it back to me.

Hurrah for small wins.

He then barked the place down cos I sat on a bench too long and pulled like a bloody loon. After 14 months training I am resorting to a headcollar for a short while I think. Sick of it now.

Thanks guys. He’s getting a lot better now and has another check up at the vets yesterday. She wasn’t happy so gave him 3 more days of antibiotics, k-laser treatment (which they did for free which was good of them) and some cream that seems to be stopping the itching and so the licking. He decided at 2am on Saturday morning that he’d had enough of the inflatable collar so for out of it and chewed it to bits 😂. He’s also doing girl wees now which DH keeps teasing him about and although he’s still marking a bit it’s reducing as the hormones leave his body. He’s stopped making that god awful green goo that sprayed out of his willy all over the house too thank god.

When we did gun dog training, he was awesome at retrieving but terrible at the steadiness. On our last session, he actually broke my finger trying to retrieve someone else’s dummy whilst on his lead 🙈. That was the final straw for both of us!

Oh @LadyCatStark I am SO pleased about the fact we don't have willy goop over everything any more. It was beyond grim. So far absolutely no issues other than the poor lad appears to be a shag target for still entire males and we have to step in to stop it. You can almost hear him saying "but I'm not that kind of boy!".

Chased pheasants again today, little sod.

Yep not a single drop of goo 😊. We went back to flyball tonight and he was amazing! So much calmer and he didn’t mark once. One of my parents’ dogs has always hated him and tried to go for him many time but tonight she greeted him like they’d been besties all along and even rolled onto her back for him 🤯.

Same here.

Though we have had what I can only call a second puppyhood. Absolute numpty. Good job I love him!

Loving flyball, I think I'd love to try it but I think mine wouldn't give the ball back. We've had to stop using balls so often, he gets a bit possessive and obsessed 🙄

He gives it back because I bribe him with another ball 😂. He can be a bit of a knob about it but he is the youngest by far.

Ada can fit two balls in her mouth now so sees no reason to drop one if I show her another!

Hey everyone, it's lovely to see the pups now they are grown up! I'm not sure if you'll remember us but SPup is 16 months now, he's still a big baby and I admire the enthusiasm he has for the world. We got married a month ago and he came to the wedding and was well behaved shock horror! Probably because his chaperone, the dog walker is basically a dog whisperer. We've just got back from honeymoon and came back to an emergency vet bill as he ate a load of fire lighters. Argh!
Everyone keeps telling me he is 'such a nice person' I do agree although I'm not sure if what they are trying to say is 'it's okay that he's naughty because he's such a nice person 🤣🤣🤣'

@LBF2020 aww he’s so gorgeous! How did he manage to eat firelighters?

@tizwozliz to be fair he can sometimes manage 2 at once 😂. The funniest thing was when he go to the end of the run and there was a spare ball on the ground, he couldn’t decide which one into get so he stood there for ages trying to get one then the other til he eventually got both 😂.

Wow, he looks so grown up @LBF2020 and what a handsome chap.

@LadyCatStark they were left within reach (my fault!!) they'd been there since he was a pup and he'd never touched them before. Lesson well and truly learnt.

This is very impressive! SPup hasn't tried two, but then again we do have a collie so balls are never his property 🤣

Ball is life here. We have to limit its appearance as he gets a bit guardy (won't come near us or have lead on) if he has it so we have to use dummies and other things too but his chuckit is his favourite thing. Tennis balls get shredded and result in slightly neon fluffy poo 🤢

Today the little oik was angelic on our walk, we had proper drop, leave, heel and wait for ball throw routine going.....this afternoon was totally opposite 😂

Back to gundog training today after a break. Didn't do too badly considering we've had a long break and it was a new class with new dogs. Shattered afterwards