Puppy Survival Thread - for old and new pups

[Riverlee]

Thought I’d start a new thread as the old one is at its limit, for new and older pups.

please come and share your tales of success, woes, concerns and questions, and of course, photographs.

My pup is on raw and we bought a pack from the local place, it was rank. I'll be sticking with naturaw for the time being, that's what he came to us on. I suppose it depends if you want to persevere with the raw or are happy to flip over to kibble which is definitely easier to feed.

@userxx puppies need about 18-20 hours of sleep per day.

Hazel's day looks like this at 11 weeks:
06.15-06.30 wake for the day. Pee/poo.
06.30-06.45 training breakfast - her normal kibble used to do training.
06.50-07.15 - in pen, then pee/poo.
07.15 - sleep in crate.
09.15-09.30 wake & pee/poo
10.30 - training mid-morning meal
11.00 - pee/poo
11.15 - sleep in crate or pen
14.15 - pee/poo
14.30 - training lunch
15.00 pee/poo
15.15 sleep in crate or pen
17.15 pee/poo
17.30 training dinner
18.00 pee/poo
18.15 sleep in crate or pen
20.30 pee/poo, sleep
22.30 pee/poo
22.45 settle in crate for the night.

Those are rough timings. She gets short bursts of play with our other dog, cuddles on the sofa, run around the garden. But largely, her day still consists of sleep, pee/poo, eat, pee/poo, play, pee/poo. Repeat.

Thanks for this, it's a big help. I definitely need more structure to my day.

That's a lot of poo! My pup probably goes 3 times a day.

Ooh she doesn't always poo. They are just poo opportunities.

Hazel is going to be an assistance dog, so we are using all of food for training, but most puppies would eat from a bowl, I guess., and have training in addition to their meals.

Should I put crate in bedroom but not by bed or sleep downstairs on sofa and have crate right next to me?

God I’m so anxious about this 😂

DD2 has the crate at the end of her bed, with a pen around it. Her bedroom is downstairs. Hazel can hear her but can't directly see her from the crate.

How big is your crate? They need to be quite small if you don't want the puppy to poo in it. We have a 36" crate but Hazel was toileting in it until we used a divider to split it in half.

I chose to sleep on the sofa. If we have a few more nights sleeping through, I might move back into the bedroom.

its 30” long, he’s a cockapoo. I think a divider would make it too small.

I slept downstairs with ours for the first 2 nights but she didn’t wake. The next night she slept through. Last night she did have a bit of an accident (actually did a lot of poo, far more than she does in the garden 🤷‍♀️) which I think was just unfortunately her having an upset tummy, and she’s been a bit off all day. She didn’t cry in the night, she must have just done it. I’m a bit apprehensive now about tonight, but I am just going to stick with what we did previously and hope that last night was a one off. That’s interesting about the crate being too big though, ours is quite large. If she poos again tonight I will maybe get a divider.

I’m so anxious about it all! We had a puppy years ago and it didn’t go well! It didn’t help that ex-dh was awful and made things loads worse.

But finally in a place to have a dog again and I so badly want it to go right!

I also wore an old sweatshirt for 2 days that then I have put into her bed, she seemed to really like that. Except she then pooped on it, so I will have to redo the process, not sure if I can bring myself to wear the dog poop sweater though…. 😂

Have a look. Our dog is a Labrador. They should be able to stand up, turn around, and lie back down. Not much more. Our crate was divided to 18 inches (½ the crate length) when she was 8 weeks old. She wouldn't settle in it and was toileting in it until we divided it. Now at 11 weeks, it's about 22". She can still lie upside down in it along the diagonal.

Vet bed is excellent. I bought a large piece on the internet, then cut it down into crate sized pieces. I put a piece of vet bed in the crate, then a towel (she likes to pull it around into a lumpy bed to cuddle up against). It means that if she does have an accident, it just goes in the washing machine and I can put a clean piece and fresh towel in there.

Glad you've added this bit, I seriously thought I was lacking on the training part too.... more anxiety 🤪. Isn't Hazel a clever girl 🙌

Oh no, don't worry. We're only doing basics, though. So training might be sit, down, settle mat, etc. Or chucking her food into a pile of boxes so she has to snuffle through them. Or giving her food in a Kong Wobbler or star puzzle, so she has to work out how to get the food. Crate training has gone a bit too well because she won't come out, so we need to fix that.

They're so new at this age that anything you do is training, isn't it? Even if it's just politely waiting for food.

Up at 5.15 - crate was clean and dry, and she went straight out to do her business. Successful start to the day.

hazel’s day looks packed, I’ve wondered how you actually train an assistance dog, that’s amazing. So far with Maggie we’ve done sit, which she picked up very quickly, and I’m now working on getting her to sit on a towel and have her paws wiped when we come indoors- we’re about 50% successful with that one. Her recall is pretty good in the garden/house even when there’s delicious cats and other exciting things around. I’ve been looking at her natural behaviour for things she already does, such as retrieves and brings back - so we’ll start to reinforce that as well once I’ve got myself sorted. , (I’m struggling to get my head round the feeding/treats, and I haven’t got used to carrying treats in my pockets yet), and I guess I need to have a few treats in my pocket all the time to reward the behaviours we want to keep.

I’ve found the weekend incredibly hard and I’m really quite looking forward to just me and the pup being home today. I work from home, on Friday we just got into a nice groove and had a lovely peaceful day so I’m hoping for similar today (please!)

I thought I was done with getting up in the night for doggo now she is two and half but the last two nights she has had a slightly upset stomach, and has stood by the back door at about 3am quietly whimpering to go out. It is a miracle I heard her from upstairs in bed. I suspect she probably stood there in silence for a while thinking I'll just know via her thought waves and finally started up a bit of quiet grumbling when I didn't instantly get out of bed to open the door. Knackered today!

@thenewaveragebear1983 that's great. Long may it continue!

Hazel's day really isn't packed. Her main activity is doing nothing - chilling, sleeping, whatever.

@ilovesushi I hope she gets better soon!

@FoxRedPuppy don’t put too much pressure on yourself!! I was so anxious to get it right (I have two older dogs and seemed to have forgotten the puppy stress- probably purposefully), that I don’t think I’ve enjoyed it as much as I could have done.

Try to enjoy it as best you can- the last 8 months have flown by and I often think, oh my god. Where has my little dot gone? I wish I’d worried less to be honest!

Excited for piccies of the arrival 🥰

And if you are getting a fox red lab, my eldest is fox red- and she has been by far the easiest to train of the three. She is so obedient and clever. The chocolates are letting the side down completely. She is totally embarrassed by them at all times.

Here he is 😁 He loves the tennis ball. I feel a lot more chilled now he’s home. He was great in the car, no crying or panting. He just went to sleep.

Two Weds in the garden and now trying to convince him to go to sleep

oh good lord hi 😍😍

He's lovely!

I want a cuddle (said in petulant, demanding voice!)