Puppy Survival Thread - for old and new pups heading into winter

[Lougle]

A thread to continue our journey with our puppies as we head into winter.

If you're new to having a puppy, jump straight in.

@BleakGarden puppies are so full on. Ours is almost 8 months and we've had him since Oct. I still feel I'm adjusting. He is a very good boy but still so much work and with young kids it's a lot. Like @Lougle I've had puppies before so I'm not completely naive but the amount of work is insane to train and then reinforce. If I had a reactive dog if be even less likely to push through on difficult days.

Thanks @Whyisitsosohard yes that's it, I've invested so much time and effort and feel like I'm seeing things get worse so it's hard to keep pushing on. I feel better for some sleep. Today's another day!

DH has done absolutely zero training with either dog, his suggestion last night was that he and pup move out... I'm not sure how that helps pup but it solves quite a few problems for me 😂

Haha yes, I made it very quickly out of an old fleece as everything was too big for her! I think the IG genes are strong in her despite being 3/4 whippet, she's 3.25kg at 10 weeks!
While people are sharing... I am amazed at the intensity of toilet training, I don't remember it being like this before.
She's able to hold it overnight, 7 plus hours, sleeping in my bed, but my God she makes up for it during the day! Sometimes every 20 minutes around mealtimes or when having a long play session. But if I get her out in time she's immediately squatting for a wee, a poo might take more waiting 😆
I'm wondering if I might be overfeeding her a bit, she was from a litter of 10 and it seems she's making up for it, but she does seem to poo a lot, 7 or 8 times a day and healthy, not loose
And around that I wonder if her belly gets irritable and her play gets bitey... Land shark, or at least piranha!
But then... Whippet puppy what do I expect! 😆
Excuse the wall of text, I'm a big overthinker 🙄
Photo without clothes!

Hi, just to say I'm completely empathising with you, I don't have any advice really other than to say I won't be judging you if you have to re-home your pup.
I had to do it once, it was a combination of factors including me dad's health, but mostly he wasn't the right dog for me. I felt devastated, like a horrible horrible person, but he walked happily into the rescue kennel and was soon rehomed as I had put in a lot of work with him and could vouch for him being a great dog.
Very best wishes to you.

@yllasin how much are you feeding her and what with? Hazel pooed a lot when she was little but in hindsight I think we were overfeeding her. She was on 4x60g of kibble at 10 weeks, so 240g per day.

Now she's 7 months old and she gets 270g of kibble per day, plus 100g of liver cake at dog training class once per week. She could probably go down a bit further, but she's in fairly good shape, I think, so I've left it.

Hazel is a lab, though, so it's important that she doesn't get overfed because it will make her grow fast and her bones won't be as strong as they should be. So we're going for slow but steady growth.

@PinotPony how is Logan? Love to hear about a fellow Wylanbriar pup!

Not sure if you can over feed a whippet? Compared to a Lab?

We put food down and they never finish it, so I take their lead. I’ve only ever had sighthounds though, so not sure with other type dogs

This is Milo,
He is 8 months old.
He is hard work, very hard work. I've cried on many occasions and thought about rehoming him a million times a day 😂
Nearly have one time but so so glad I didn't.
Puppies arent just these fluffy cute things, they are relentless, hard work and frustrating,
He still isn't perfectly behaved and we still have good/bad days but I love him, he is so affectionate and I don't know where I'd be without him ( probably more sound of mind 😄)

She's seems to get gassy with much kibble, she's having mostly Butcher' Puppy Perfect 300gm and 50gm kibble, a few training treats too but often she's happy with some of kibble as reward.
The recommendations on packaging I expect are rather generous!
7 poos yesterday, 2 in first hours this morning.
She gained 60gm a day from 7 to 10 weeks, I had her from 81/2 weeks.
But yes, my previous sighthounds I could trust them to not overeat.

I need a rant, I’m fuming! Some May remember my pup refused to walk with just me, fine with me and boyfriend, anyway I’ve put in loads of work and we’ve been enjoying walks together. Today on our regular walk he got ambushed by 3 dogs off lead, a big one had its ears pinned back and ran at him, it made me nervous, it was giving off signs it was going to run and the owner did absolutely FA 🤬 carried on chatting with her two mates. Really worried this will have undone all my hard work. Why don’t people read the signals their dogs are giving off. Idiots.

More pupdates. Boo: just under 6 months old, been with us since the middle of December. 17kg of staffie & who knows what else.
There have been tears. There has been 'what have we done'. There has been 'should we give him back'. Would not be without him. He is turning into a most excellent dog.

Consistency, determination & this thread

What a cutie @JamieJ93 butter wouldn’t melt!

Ah, I’m so sorry!!… Dog ownership would be much easier if others didn’t have dogs 🙄

I hope pup is okay on next walk.

We've been playing "go find" this morning,
I hide treats or his favourite squeaky ball somewhere,
Say go find to him and he will not stop till he's found all the treats or his ball,
He could play it for hours ( find ball) but it gets annoying with the squeak after an hour.
I haven't managed to walk him yet as I'm feeling under the weather today so I'm trying to keep his mind occupied until my husband finishes work then we can go out together.
He mainly goes to places where we can let him off lead as he would go off his head ( more so than normal 😅) if he didn't get his exercise this way
Xx

This winter thread is almost full!

Spring awaits us:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/the_doghouse/5024087-puppy-survival-thread-for-new-and-old-pups-spring-is-around-the-corner

@userxx that's horrible. I hope you're both ok. It's such a stressful time when that happens.

@BackToLurk what a gorgeous photo. How they grow!

@JamieJ93 scent work is so good for dogs. We're with Adolescent Dogs for our online training (we do in person training weekly as well) and we're just going through their nosework challenge using the Kong as the scent ID. It's good fun.

So my puppy and I showed at Crufts today, we came away with a lovely 5th place!
So proud of how well she coped today

Congratulations @hennipenni ! You must be so proud.

Hazel's Dad got 5th place in the working gundog section.

Well done. Crufts was fab today. Really enjoyed it. I watched the flat haired retrievers for a while - friendly bunch of owners and dogs.