Puppy survival thread part 2

[Orangebadger]

Thought I would start another thread for all those puppy owners.

@Riverlee
@Unluckycat1
@Sunflowers765
@BigBundleOfFluff
@Cocopuff

Will have to look back to tag others as cannot remember all names.

Can I join too please? This is Hugo- 14 weeks old- today is first day with us and I am sure I will need lots of advice over next few weeks/ months

He's gorgeous, @Keepempeeled!

We got FluffyPup at 15 weeks and he was toilet trained in a week with barely any accidents. It's a good age to get a puppy, I think.

@NoWordForFluffy That is so reassuring as everything I read was saying it is a bit late for socialisation. So pleased you saw benefits x

@Keepempeeled, we've had no issues on that front at all!

@Keepempeeled adorable pic! Pup is half way through her season now and kind of getting back to her usual self. Went to see the vet today and booked in for her pre-op for spaying. Definitely the best thing for her.

@Keepempeeled welcome Hugo! He's gorgeous. What breed? He has very similar markings to my Blenheim ckc spaniel

@Britintheusa He is a cavachon but certainly more Cavalier than Bichon!

Aha! so sweet

Welcome Hugo. Beautiful colour.

I’m relieved that others found Easy Peasey not that good - I found it made too many assumptions - if you did x, then y would happen. Riverpup obviously didn’t read it, because he would do azyfd. Never thought if giving it to him to shred…. Good enrichment activity!

We've ended up fostering a German Shepard 14 week puppy. He arrived on Wednesday... This evening is the first night we've had some of the puppy witching hour. Now worried about what I've let myself in for!

@OrigamiOwls good name for it!

@OrigamiOwls What time was the that? We attempted the crate he had been happily in and out of all day last night, he got upset and did a poo in there. So I have ended up sleeping on the sofa with him on the floor, snuggled on a blanket next to me. So hard to know what the right or wrong thing to do for him, that will also be good for us, going forward.

Hello! My puppy is a 16 week Italian greyhound called Stella. We also got her at 14 weeks. She has brought so much joy to our family even with DH who was the most reluctant to get a dog.

Last night was the first time she slept upstairs with her us. I’ve been on the sofa with her by my side up till now. It went well though there was a couple of times where she was up. DH took her downstairs for a bit first time as he was still awake and the second time I shushed her and she went back to sleep though I had my hand in her basket for a while so she knew I was there.

im well aware of the socialisation window too so I’m trying to get her out and about as much as I can. Im still carrying her part route on walks and she spends three times as much time sniffing as she does walking. She really hates her collar though and trembles and I did read the Easy Peasy book and do the work to try and get her familiar with it but that didn’t pan out at all. She is showered with patience and affection though. We are going to take her for a walk today with a pub at the end so will see how that goes. Fortunately she’s very portable.

Stella with one of her many collars on. She went back to the one she came with.

Oh Stella is beautiful. That gives me a good indication of how Hugo could progress! She did well last night, hope you feeling the benefit of it x

@Ulysses Stella is beautiful. One of my favourite dogs was a Standard Poodle called Stella. Sadly, we lost her in 2014. I still think of her every day and I miss her.

This is brilliant @AnnieSnap, I've tried different leads to stop our labs incessant pulling without any success so i wasnt overly optimistic about adding another to our collection but this works! The pulling has just reduced massively, walks are a pleasure not the trying to control a runaway train experiences we're used to.
Thankyou for the recommendation!

@AmyyL I’m so glad it’s helped you. Walks are not at all enjoyable when we’re being dragged about are they?

Joining this thread for the first time - we picked up our golden retriever puppy yesterday at 8 weeks old and had what I thought was a pretty good night (waking up every 2.5 hours, no crying in between, no accidents) and DH is behaving like it's the end of the world and we will never sleep again ("I can't take another night like that..." head in hands, moping about). Well seeing as how he did only one of the wakeups and I did the other two, and he snored contentedly from 1.30 to 7.30am, I'm not very sympathetic - it's just the first night! I'm getting mega flashbacks to when the DCs were babies!!

Similar to others I have found that puppy advice seems to have changed (and it's been nearly 30 years since I've experienced a puppy this small and my mum paper trained her - all the dogs I've had in between came to us as adult rescues). We bought Easy Peasy Puppy Squeezy, as well as the Happy Puppy Handbook by Pippa Mattinson and I have to say I am liking the Handbook much, much better - feels more similar to what I'm used to with training and expectations. I think the fact that she's a gun dog trainer (founded the Gun Dog Trust) means she is perhaps a bit more traditional and willing to say "no" to a puppy!! I have said "no" about 50 times already to Xiaopup today (while also kindly redirecting him to something safe for him to play with) so I can't be doing with only distraction. Feels a bit like people that do attachment/gentle parenting....

The DCs like Easy Peasy though because it's funny, so they've read that at least to get an idea of training so we're all relatively consistent.

Forgot the puppy tax!

@Xiaoxiong . Good choice! She looks just like my big bundle of fluff a year ago. Mine is just over a year now.
While I completely believe that a dog that's only ever shown love and kindness will only ever give love and kindness I do set boundaries. So as a puppy if she was chewing something she shouldn't have I would have said uhoh and redirected to a toy. Once you've taught a leave it, drop it, back up etc then it's redundant. However because my goldie wants to join in every conversation we walk past I do say "not today sweetheart" and carry on.

@Xiaoxiong what a beautiful baby. The handbook trainer sounds more sensible. At least reading the “puppy squeezy” book will educate the kids about the nature of puppies 🙂

Thanks @WhippyLongStocking @AnnieSnap @Orangebadger

More details. The puppy's sire is a Shih Tzu and the puppy's dam is a cross between a Jack Russell and a Chihuahua, so I have no idea what that makes it!

All advice welcome.

Oh yes and unless it all goes horribly wrong and she starts biting it or something you have saved my sanity. I tolerated walks but didn't enjoy them. The last few have been pleasant! I so hope it continues 🤞🤞

Riverpup us in everyone’s bad books today.

Whilst cooking this evening, he snatched a (uncooked) gammon and ate it before we had a chance to retrieve it.

Hes also dug a deepish hole a few inches deep in the lawn. He’s never really been a deep lawn digger. He has dug the gravel (we think to get to the concrete supporting the fence posts which he likes to crunch), but, at most, he scraped the lawn in early days. This is a proper hole. I filled it in, and later he dug at it again. Bad boy!