Puppy Survival Thread - as we approach Fireworks night for the first time…

[Riverlee]

Apologies if someone has already started a new thread. Couldn’t see one when I had a quick look.

As it’s a new thread, why don’t we all (re-) introduce ourselves. Ie. Good excuse for more cute puppy pictures!

I have RiverPup, who is now a 15 weeks old black Labrador.

Two pictures of when we first got him, and more recent.

Oh he’s very sweet @AltKat87

i saw a picture on a Goldie FB group of a nearly 50kg GR….fuck me if my dog gets that big!

Wow - he’s beautiful if rather big!

We met a 14 week old St Bernard puppy on Saturday - he came up to my waist already. He will be utterly enormous when full grown!

We have a less bitey landshark these days, and Leif's personality is starting to come through rather than the teeth!
He started puppy class last week and was vastly bigger than the other pups, but he did manage to behave himself and not bowl them over.
He's also started coming with me to the horses every morning and gets to spend time off lead zooming around and eating horse poo and bunny poo! These are, according to hi, the best thing ever. There's also lots of rodent runs through the grass so it's sniffy heaven.
Also had his first puppy groom, groomers sent us pics!

All the solidarity is lovely, thanks everyone! And yes to the wailing!! Compounding our situation is I don’t think my kids have had so much illness - eldest had pneumonia a month ago and was hospitalised, while we’d only had pup 10days, and she’s not fully recovered. Youngest has a yucky virus and I’m on night 5 of her in bed kicking me and waking often. So while pup got the hang of nighttime sleeping quickly (one big blessing that I easily gloss over when moany!!) I am still so depleted and pulled in ten directions. It’s all made routine quite difficult.

Ours is 16weeks now so I am clinging on to hope that we can deal with the most annoying behaviours in the next few weeks. Puppy class this week was the first time it was nice and not totally stressful. We did ‘leave it’ and he learned it so well. So this is helping a bit with nipping. The teachers are getting to know him now as well and think all his barking is attention seeking rather than fear, that he’s got poor frustration tolerance. I can empathise!!!

Ahhhhh how beautiful is Leif!!!

Can I join here pls with my 8 wk almost 9 week old puppy. She's a basset fauve de Bretagne... I'm knackered, not because of the pup but my kids have all been sick, so I am a sleep deprived wreck which is not helping my puppy training plans!

Toilet training is slow! Mouthing is pretty constant and dire, The whining is heart breaking. But she likes her crate, her food and sleeps though and it's going well with the cat.

Leifis gorgeous, and obviously uses the same washing powder as Coco!

@Orangebadger Welcome. The first rule of puppy club is that you most post a picture! (Off to Google a Bassett fauve de Bretagne).

Hope the dc are feeling better.

Oh loving the pictures!

Welcome@Orangebadger . Would also love to see a puppy pic.

Just put the Christmas Tree up. This year's is half the size and now on top of a table. So far pup isn't interested. So far.
He is absolutely desperate to go out for a walk though and has discovered he can now reach things on the coffee table which has always been our safe space. Everything is now piled in the middle as he's rather partial to dds cereal bowl and my cup of tea.

We've put our tree up today too - it's an artificial one and had a few 'branches' that had come off and pup thought they were great and kept grabbing them and running off. She has been sniffing the tree and baubles but left them alone for now. The kids have wrapped a couple of test presents (towels, I think) and put them under the tree to see what she does!

I think I’ve brought more presents for RiverPup this year than anyone else in the family!

Evening all and welcome @Orangebadger Coco continues to be a pain to walk - tried the house line on her harness today (lighter etc) but she still wasn’t playing ball with walking No 3 sons parkour class today. She’s also refusing to use her crate during the day which means we end up wit sleeping dog in various comedy poses around the downstairs rooms.

We are getting a real Xmas tree next week - and putting it up in a room Coco is blocked from going into.

Happy Sunday everyone!

Iris is well and truly settled and her lovely little playful personality is coming through.

Can't start puppy classes yet as we have had to restart her vaccinations.

Still having accidents in the house (she sees the puppy pads as another toy to play with!) and can still be very bitey when overtired but she is lovely and brings so much joy when she's in a good mood 🤣

Loving all the photos and welcome to the new ones. Really feeling it this week and that this is all there is to life and resentful that it revolves around pup. DH and DS can come and go and do what they want as they please, whereas I have to plan my day and anything I want to do has to be done during pup's nap times. I find myself wishing that he is a year old already and that we've hopefully got through the worst of it. Doesn't help that it's cold and wet and I'm not enjoying taking him out for walks...

Thank you for the welcome. Loving all the puppy tales! Makes me feel like we are not alone with the bitey puppy! She loves our socks and trousers especially which is a bit nuts whenever you move!

I cannot figure out how to share a photo! Using my phone. Will see if I can figure it out.

Iris is a gorgeous bundle of fluff!



Ok that clearly did not work!

@Orangebadger Have you seen the “Add image “ button below the Message box? Press on Add Inage and Then go to Photo Library and select your picture.

Iris is lovely.

Riverpup woke at 5am, and then slept in until 9ish! Sounds bliss, except the only way we can get back to sleep is if we let him go on the sofa, and I sit with him. Dh and ds also had a lie in. I did doze, but you don’t sleep properly, plus I was sitting up in an awkward position.

@CockapooMadness I so empathise with you about only being doing things when they’re asleep. It really defines your day.

Yes I have but it only comes up with old photos on my phone, not the recent ones. No idea why! I have shared photos on MN before but not really working now for some reason.

Hi, I’ve been lurking for a few weeks and enjoying all the new puppy stories.
Can I join you now? I brought Duggie home this afternoon and everything’s been lovely so far. Early days I know 😊

Oh Duggie is just gorgeous! Welcome to the thread

Welcome to Duggie. He's lovely.

Hi all, it’s been a couple of months since I’ve posted anything but it’s been nice to come back and see all the new puppy pics!

I thought I’d do an update to hopefully help stressed new puppy parents see that things will be ok eventually. I was pretty much in tears a few days after getting our cocker spaniel pup (at 12 weeks) and thought we’d made a huge mistake. I was so tired I couldn’t even trust myself to drive sometimes!

I’m pleased to report that now my pup is 6 months life has become a lot less stressful. At 5.5 months toilet training just seemed to click once and for all. She went from still doing at least 1 wee in the house each day to being a 100% outdoor toilet dog. This has revolutionised everything as I no longer need to watch her constantly.

I think the best thing we did was commit to training really early. Once she learned the key skills like ‘leave’ ‘drop’ ‘come’ and a few others we felt like we had some element of control back in our lives. Don’t worry if your puppy is naughty in puppy classes, ours was too! it’s a really hard environment for them to concentrate in so we just took the handouts and did the proper training at home.

In the last few weeks she’s been walking off lead and even though she runs faster than lightening, she always waits for me and is mostly good at coming back. If not, I just pretend I’ve found something interesting in a bush and she comes running over to have a look 😆

I’m sure once she becomes a teenager she’ll present a new range of challenges, but at least for now I really enjoy having a lovely cuddly and fun dog. A few months ago I couldn’t ever have imagined this.

Thanks for the welcome ZiggZagg and Rowgtfc72. We've had a great first night. Put him in the crate at 11, hot water bottle, blanket over the top and radio playing softly. He whimpered for two minutes then was peaceful until I got him up at 6.
Toileting however .. he has tremendous bladder control but not willing to go in the garden despite spending hours out there last night and today. We've had one enormous wee on the kitchen floor though. Persevering!
Isthislife that all sounds amazing. And encouaging for challenging times. We start puppy training classes in January - earlier not possible because of the Christmas break - but might fit in a 1-2-1 soon, after a week or so to see how he settles and what we especially need advice about