Adolescent Dog Survival...Sharing Tips & Tails

[BrodiePup]

Moving on from the puppy survival thread, this is for anyone with a hormonal teenager 🤪

Brodie is just over 7 months now, and is a fun loving pup who is (mostly) a pleasure to be around. My main issue is still walking him which can either be almost a pleasure, or like having a Tasmanian Devil doing breast stroke and bunny hopping down the road 😡. There seems to be no reason for which dog gets attached to the end of the lead, but at least it shows he can do it if he's in the mood!

We've also had our first proper tummy upset this week 🤢 no doubt due to some rubbish he picked up and swallowed before I spotted it. Thankfully it seems to have passed now.

@PyreneanAubrie Oh that's so interesting! I honestly can't imagine pulling pupsy anywhere. Girl is so keen, all the time, always with the wiggly forward motion.

I am dying for a Brie cuddle! Though I suspect she wouldn't be able to lie up my body as pupsy is currently doing, from my almost-prone position on the sofa.

i'll give it a go @brushingboots. In my head i'm thinking he's only a baby it will come with age and then i see all these dog videos where they say your pup should be walking to heel more or less straight away and i think ahhh i must be doing something wrong !!!

@lookwhatyoumademedoo Nooo you're not! You can only train the dog in front of you – don't be dispirited by what you see x

Thankyou @brushingboots. It just makes you question yourself sometimes doesn't it when in reality on the whole he's a lovely dog. Yes he pulls on lead but, he's friendly, good recall (for the most part haha) loves to learn, he can sit, lay, stay, wait, heel and middle so for 8 months, he's not doing bad really x

She just puts the brakes on when we get near home, then she'll obstinately sit on the grass verge outside our house and stare back down the hill, as if to imply that I'm the meanest person on the planet for bringing her home so soon. Rosie was exactly the same, she would literally walk all day!

Awww, pupsy girl lying on you sounds cute 💓 Our cats have always loved to lie on our chest. If Brie lay on you, I suspect you wouldn't be able to breathe terribly well though... 😆She does sit on my lap, they've actually all been lap dogs, they do love a cuddle. She tried to sit on the cat this evening 🙄needless to say, the cat was not impressed.

He honestly sounds amazingly well trained to me. I hadn't realised he is so close in age to Brie and she is nowhere near that good. Don't be disheartened by the training videos! Brushing Boots is brilliant at all this, you can definitely trust what she says.

Thanks @brushingboots for the great training suggestions. I'm also copying and pasting them to work on with Lemon Dog!
In park this pm I tried your earlier suggestion of asking him to heel before I let him off for his first run. Definitely useful and needed.
I've gotten into habit of driving to quiet field within park which I can drive straight in to. If there's no-one else there, I can often allow Lemon Dog to launch himself from car sans lead (on command) to bolt about. This time he was taken aback by the short lead start. He pulled so hard he almost pulled me over. After a few unsuccessful attempts of heel on lead, he managed a short heel before getting released to run. Definately an exercise I'll be repeating and building up to doing off lead. Thankyou. I echo others who've said how useful these suggestions are. More in future would be most welcome here!

@pyreneanaubrie I hope you feel well enough for a short walk with Brie and your chap soon too <3 but I hope you don't pressurise yourself to go before you feel up to it.
I can totally empathise with having a dog pull on lead who's stronger than you. Even though Lemon Dog weighs a lot less than me, he's surprisingly strong. Grown men have to brace themselves to avoid being pulled over by him, as do I. When he catches me off guard he could (and once has) pulled me over. I think Lemon Dog is more independently minded than the average Labrador. I can only imagine how much more challenging pulling from an even bigger, even stronger, and likely even more independently minded dog must be. So I fully appreciate that what works to stop Lemon Dog pulling (when I find out what that is!) may not work for Brie and vice versa.

@LemonpaIms you're very welcome! I stress that I am not a trainer and it's just what has worked for me but if I can help I always will :)

We will end up with a virtual gundog training group here if we're not careful but that's fine by me! I've got loads of next step exercises for the 'back' so that's definitely one that keeps on giving.

That sounds excellent, hooray! A lot of our walks are those that jump straight out of the car and I don't even use the lead at all so it's a helpful reminder to me too to firm her up and not let her be (controllably) feral, if that's not a tortology.

@lookwhatyoumademedoo he's doing fabulously! If your only real issue is pulling at his age (though I appreciate it's a pain, literally) then I think you're doing wonderfully x

Thanks @LemonpaIms I will be taking it slowly for a few days; a 3 day migraine and no food takes a bit of recovery time these days.

I can well imagine that Lemon Dog is very strong; he has an age advantage over Brie so probably more muscle built up and he's male. It is scary when they pull so hard. Do let me know if you find the solution!

thankyou for your reassuring replies! i think i sometimes feel i have to prove myself and that i can raise a well rounded dog because he's my first pup.

Hope you make a speedy recovery @PyreneanAubrie

Very soggy walk this afternoon. I felt a bit better yesterday but woke up feeling hideous today 😷 DH is at the restaurant until late tonight so had to drag myself out so V could let off some steam. He does this funny thing when it's wet where he puts his head down, sticks his tongue out and runs full pelt to lick all the water off the grass 😂

He looks miserable but I swear he had a nice time. Straight in the bath when we got home!

Thanks @YorkshireFelix

I was wondering how you were doing...It's really brave of you to get out for a walk, especially in this miserable drizzle today. I hope you were wearing full-on Spaniel Person layers to keep dry.
The grass licking routine sounds hilarious - I've never heard of anything like that before 😆

I hope you start to feel better soon x

@PyreneanAubrie I have a very unflattering full length waterproof jacket which is amazing for the rain so I was very cosy! He seems to have decided to be the devil incarnate today so definitely needed a walk. He's just lost a tooth though so maybe that's why he's being unusually wild 😄

I love my long raincoats too, even if they do make me resemble a character from Michael Bentine's Potty Time (oh I know, you're way too young to get that reference).

Teething can make pups a bit hyper for a while, but fortunately it doesn't last long. Must be uncomfortable for them though, so I guess it's understandable that they go a bit loopy.

@ILoveaSunflower We're over here if you need help! x

@YorkshireFelix Ahhh that is such a glorious image of him running around having a weird drink! He looks so wise beyond his years, somehow – in a strange way I think he looks older than pupsy does, I think it's just his expression.

@brushingboots I always say to DH that his his face reminds me of an old man! He sometimes looks at me like a wise wizard who is trying to take me on a side quest...

@YorkshireFelix yes, that's exactly it! He has a bit of Gandalf about him!

Is anyone else forecast lots of snow tonight? Maybe @PyreneanAubrie since you're high up too! I usually hate the snow but dying to see what Vinny thinks of it 😄

Yesterday it was only saying sleet, but now we seem to have heavy snow starting overnight but turning to light snow. Looking at the radar we might be right on the edge of it.

We're just forecast a bit of sleet tomorrow morning but that's it! Amazingly, I've still got quite a lot of flowers in the garden but the frost must surely be coming now. We only had one day of snow last year and pupsy loved it! I did... not.

I thought this morning was the first properly cold walk though – actually put a jumper on under my Barbour and I've come in with cold cheeks.

My hanging basket in the yard is still flowering too which is odd!

I really need to invest in a warm coat for dog walking. I have good waterproofs but nothing actually warm. I have a Barbour parka jacket but despite it being a size 16 and I usually wear a 12, there's not enough space in the arms to layer anything cosy underneath which is annoying and I'm always freezing in it! I've been looking at long puffers from M&S but I bought one last year and ended up returning it as it made me look like the Michelin man. But maybe my vanity just needs to go out of the window at this point 🤣

Not sure if we'll get it, although it is cold and we had a hard frost last night. The yellow area on the map covers us, but we could just get sleet; our snow is often quite wet compared to what you get east of the Pennines.

I love snow, our dogs always go bonkers for it, as you'd imagine!