Puppy Survival Thread for New and Old Pups - here comes winter 2024

[Bupster]

I thought I might as well be the one to start the new thread! Nothing to report but a sleepy puppy over here.

Glad things have got slightly easier with Betty @peachgreen

Welcome to @ConsternationStation and the bitey stage is the worst stage! My Lab puppy Roman didn't stop trying to bite me every moment he could until his baby teeth fell out and were replaced by his big teeth. It can feel personal if the biting is mostly directed at one person which in Roman's case was me! He's still quite mouthy but now his mouth is gentle and he has learnt to apply just a tiny amount of pressure. I don't think there is any cure for it, I just used to redirect him by offering soft toys instead.

@peachgreen
In the early weeks they do seem to get into a frenzy of frantic biting, zoomies, hyper behaviour and won't switch off. But, like everything else, it does slowly tail off and they stop fighting sleep so much.

I think that is where these threads are so valuable; while we can't physically hold your hand we can say "yep, same with us". It helps to normalise things. By the time you move up to the adolescent thread (or if you take a peek on there now) you see that the challenges change and the focus is more on lead training/pulling/recall, less on toileting and biting. It's interesting from a training/behavioural perspective to see this developmental shift. Although all dogs are completely different, there is definitely a pattern and knowing what to expect is key to feeling more in control of the whole process. Regardless of dog breed or size or our own level of experience, we're all facing the same issues in more or less the same sequence.

I hope you have a good day today with your little Land Shark. Mine is more a Beluga Whale these days which brings its own set of challenges 😆

We had some tears about an hour after bedtime but luckily he calmed quickly and went back to sleep until 7

hes very nippy and has teeth like pins! He’s worse with older dog so lots of physically removing him before he can bite his tail! Older dog seems to be coming round a bit

There's definitely a lot of comfort in knowing that this biting is just a stage all puppies go through. I knew that before we got her, obviously, but hearing people in the same boat right now (or just out of it) is reassuring.
Fortunately, she seems to be quite happy to take an enforced nap - on or beside me mostly. I sometimes pop her in her crate once she's sleeping so I know she's somewhere safe while I get some housework or actual work done. It so much like having an actual baby in some ways! Luckily I am mostly a SAHM with a small business that's winding down for Christmas so I'm able to make her a huge focus, especially in these early days.

I do feel like I have to have eyes on the back of my head when she's awake though!

They are just like babies @ConsternationStation and you can get all the advice in the world about establishing a routine, but it's not always that easy in reality! Even when you've been through it before with a puppy (as I have) and you know roughly what to expect, it's still exhausting going through the sleepless nights, toilet training and teething. Again, all that can equally apply to human babies although admittedly their teeth aren't as sharp...😉

Man I so wish I could move Betty while she's asleep. I can't even shift in my chair without her waking up. I have a little mirror above my desk so I can see her without turning around and even the act of looking in that will wake her! She's ALWAYS ON ALERT. Poor wee pup, it must be exhausting!

We've had only two accidents in the last 3 days, one on the puppy pad and one right at the front door so she was at least trying to get out! Hooray. She is definitely a wee lead puller though so that's definitely on the agenda... But priority one is getting her used to being alone. Any tips on that? Did anyone else have a puppy that would not be left? We've made it up to about 45 seconds now – anything beyond that and she gets SO stressed.

Vinny used to freak out if I left the room without him when he was that small. Then as he got older he seemed to get better with it, and eventually I could go upstairs to put washing away or use the bathroom and he wouldn't panic. I started leaving him at home only a few weeks ago, and started with 10 minutes then built up. We went to dd's Christmas concert at school last night and left him at home and he was fine! When he was much smaller I thought id never be able to leave him. So I think with some dogs it's just a case of waiting for them to mature a bit.

On the dog training and advice Facebook group that's been mentioned here before, there's some details about something you can do called 'the flitting game' which helps get them used to being left for short periods of time. So that might be worth looking at.

@YorkshireFelix , how old is Vinny? Our girl will let me leave the room for a minute or so before she's whining for me. I'm not sure how much I should begin leaving her when we are all going to be home, and in the house 95% of the time, for two weeks over Christmas! Starting small at first, of course. I've got my parents coming to meet her and watch her tomorrow so we can go to DS's Christmas show

He's just turned 6 months, but I think I started leaving him from around 5 months onwards. Both me and DH work from home split between us through the week so there's always someone around, but it's really helpful to be able to pop out to the shop etc with him.

I started literally with 10 minutes, then 15, then 25. Before fully leaving him I would go upstairs for maybe 10/15 mins to do random jobs which I think helped. We got a cheap WiFi camera from amazon so I can see what he's up to via an app when I'm out and about, which puts my mind at ease a bit.

He is only crated overnight to sleep so he gets free roam of the living room and kitchen when he's left in the day, but he always just lays on the sofa and snoozes or sometimes looks out of the window. The longest we've been out was 1.5hrs so far. It got to a point where he was mature enough for me to trust that he wouldn't get up to no good while I was gone, so I don't think I could have left him any younger than 5 months. I'm sure there will be a time where he does something naughty while I'm out though!!

@peachgreen She will eventually chill out more but I have to say even my 18-month-old spaniel knows when I’ve moved from my chair when I’m working and she is always instantly ready to go when I could have sworn she was dead to the world a second ago. I often get up from my chair, see her eye open, and say 'it's ok, you can stay there' or whatever and she goes back to sleep again. They just want to do stuff with you but they do get less alert and more settled. I take it as a compliment but I accept that that may not be helpful right now!

Amazing news about your wee training progress, that is fab.

Agree with @YorkshireFelix about the flitting game that’s on the advice group on Facebook. But I didn’t do it as I didn’t know about that group until pupsy was a bit older and I just put up with her crying a bit, to be honest. I had to have a bit of space to myself and to do things in places she couldn't go, and she had to learn that she was safe and could be perfectly happy on her own. She whinged a bit but if I could I would do it when she needed to have a nap anyway, so she would naturally be inclined to sleep. She quite quickly understood that I was always coming back, and now she is genuinely fine and unharmed by a tiny bit of cold turkey.

I’m not saying I left her for hours to begin with but I did need time without her when she was at her most horrible – plus I was on my own most of the time and had to go out and do the food shop etc – and it was the ideal time for her to learn.

@YorkshireFelix sounds like a really good way to do it. At the moment there's no way I could leave her just in the living room, obviously. When I'm in the living room I just let her sleep wherever she wants (normally on or beside me) but if I need to do something I pop her in the crate asleep. I'll probably start by consciously leaving her alone for a couple of minutes and doing something upstairs then eventually to 5/10 minutes out of the house!

I'm probably going to sound harsh here but the only way to get them used to being alone is to start leaving them alone. Only for short periods of time at first, but they do have to get used to us going upstairs without them (cue crying at first) then us leaving the house without them (cue crying at first) then us going shopping without them (cue crying at first) etc.

Maybe I got lucky with Roman & my previous Lab (as a breed they do tend to be highly adaptable) but they both picked it up quickly that I would go out a lot but come home again and didn't get overly stressed. The more you do it the more they learn that it's normal and nothing to worry about, particularly if we act normal and not like it's a big deal.

I do appreciate what I am suggesting feels impossible at first and then extremely difficult. But leaving them alone has to be done and puppies are more resilient than we think.

100pc agree with @Twiglets1. I am with pupsy 90pc of the time because I WFH, but she still needed to learn that being on her own is fine. And frankly if I hadn't left her when she was very little she might not still be with me as I needed time away from her in order to cope. I took the view that, as with offlead walking and so much else, the younger they are the easier any skill is to teach as they’ve grown up knowing that it’s normal – particularly if it’s part of a routine and they kind of know to expect it at certain times and if you line it up the same way each time. She knows now that if I lock the back door from the inside it means I'm going out and she puts herself to bed.

I know people talk about spaniels being very needy and I'm not saying she isn't – particularly as she's lying sprawled across my lap right now – but she is pretty hardy overall. It's easy to project our own worries about how they might react onto them.

Honestly just leaving her and putting up with the whining is definitely what I would do if it was just whining – but unfortunately she also anxiety-poops everywhere, even when crated! So it's just not really doable. Although it's hard to know exactly how long we'd get before the anxiety poo happens – we know at least once it was less than five minutes because that's when we went back in and checked.

I wonder where the anxiety-pooing comes from, @peachgreen. Would she do it, do you think, if she’d just been? Ie if you made sure she’d gone, settled her, and then popped out.

My youngest is 17 months now and she never was "bity". The other one, now 9 was . Both border collies. Shes asleep hanging on my lap now. They've been on the beach for a good run,a game of ball and a couple of little dogs joined in.apart from feeding, we've never had a routine with them, and have found that they all melded in with us, and whatever we are doing. She does chew furniture,mind,so is crated when we got out. I just say "crate" she goes in quite happily and settles down in there. The older one did a lot of furniture chewing at around a year,then just stopped.. just had the second season (as recommended these days) and appointment with the vet in march for spaying.

Maybe it's a bit too soon for Betty and you need to wait until she is house trained which doesn't sound too far away. But I would still practice leaving her on her own by going upstairs for short amounts of time, or into another room.

I started off leaving Roman in the house on his own very soon after his morning walk so he was tired and also had weed and pooed very recently. I can't remember his exact age but obviously he was old enough that he had received all his vaccinations, was going out for short walks and was kinda house trained, apart from occasional accidents. He obviously had a nap when I went out as when I came back he was always stretching & yawning (not devasted as I was expecting)😉

@peachgreen @ConsternationStation Bill's seven months and I've still never left him alone for longer than it takes to go to the car and back.

There is mixed advice about it, and many - like @brushingboots ' pupsy - are absolutely fine with being left. Bill has never felt like one of those puppies, and I've never wanted to rush him and risk tipping his normal puppy need to be with someone into full-blown separation anxiety.

The DTAS site recommends not leaving puppies alone till they're at the age where they would be more independent if they were living without humans - i.e. seven to nine months, so I decided that I'd work seriously on alone time after Christmas; it's a much less stressful time for me at work, and he'll be older and more able to cope. But I do have the capacity to pay for daycare and puppy sitters, and I'm happy to get my supermarket order delivered - I recognise that this isn't going to be true for everyone, and that sometimes, for your sanity you might need to be able to leave the house without them!

I'd ideally like to at least to be able to do the school run without her on occasion, like those days that it's absolutely chucking it down - or roasting hot in May (Scottish optimism there haha!). That walk is about 25minutes altogether. So that's what I'll be working towards before the summer. She doesn't love being left alone in the crate awake just now but doesn't panic immediately when I leave the room so hopefully she's one of those dogs that's cool with being left alone a bit.

I think it all just goes to show that while dogs are very similar in the way they develop and learn, they truly are their own little personalities.

@ConsternationStation That sounds very sensible, though if she's anything like mine she won't mind the rain at all! We didn't crate train and that may have had an impact on pupsy's ability to settle, I don't know.

What colour is she? They are 100pc the best dogs – I wish I'd enjoyed our young puppyhood more than I did, but it was hateful, frankly, and I'm glad to have an almost grown dog now as she has become who I wanted her to be.

That all sounds pretty sensible by the sounds of your puppy! Bill is only barely past coming into the shower to rescue me. He's replaced that with waiting until my eyes are closed to wash my hair, when he dives into as much trouble as he can find in the unguarded bathroom 😄 You definitely have to work with the dog in front of you...

@brushingboots she's mostly black except from a white patch on her chest. Absolutely gorgeous - and so different from our last dog, a mostly white JRT! If the last week is anything to go by, I think she'll love the rain but I know there'll be some days that I just can't deal with a soaking wet dog on the school run. It's tough enough some days dealing with all the bags, wet coats and shoes without adding a soggy dog. ha!

@ConsternationStation snap!

Ha, my favourite phrase, @Bupster! You absolutely do and they’re no less wonderful for being who they are (especially Bill who is the best)

@brushingboots oh how beautiful. So lovely that's what my girl is going to look like too!

I did so much research into getting a WCS to see if she'd be a good fit as our family pet. We are a fairly active family already but truly I was looking to be even more active and outdoorsy. I've got the time to dedicate to her, DH is willing and able whenever home from work and the kids are getting a bit older so more responsible. But since we actually got her I've only read absolute horror stories about them being such tough work who need "jobs" to be happy. Although, to be completely fair, I heard much the same about JRTs and our girl was the sweetest, kindest and laziest dog on the planet!