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.

@CoubousAndTourmalet I already feel like the weeks are flying by. She's essentially doubled her weight in the six weeks that we've had her and I'm beginning to wonder where my tiny puppy is going! And she'll only get bigger!

@brushingboots we do use the crate and "settle" as a way to calm the crazy biting, especially if it is directed at DC. She just gets so excited by them. Puppies are just such a bundle of energy until they are overtired and the crazy biting begins. That being said, when it's just me and N she'll settle down and sleep a fair amount before she's awake again for feeding/playing/toilet/walk/training. The list of things I do with her on the daily is neverending. All I mean is fortunately she isn't just go, go, go all the time which I fully expect(ed) from a WCS. Hopefully I can encourage lazy behaviour inside at home, high energy fun outdoors!

Totally fed up with the biting here too. Pup is now 16 weeks and the manic evening phases can be such a pain - literally! We try putting him in his pen but he just barks the house down so just have to keep pushing a chew toy or cardboard box in his mouth until he eventually crashes. And toilet training seems to be going backwards. We have pee pads down in our bedroom which is off our living room and also behind the couch in the living room, and he seems to be using these more often. He gets taken out for toilet straight after he wakes up and he used to pee outside reliably but now he often just goes out and sits and chews twigs - then comes in and pees / poos on the pads! So frustrating.

I believe most people say those puppy pads don’t work as teach puppies to wee inside the house.

I’m sure they do work sometimes but in your situation I would try removing them as seems to be confusing your puppy.

Yep, when the biting starts to get too much I put Betty straight into her crate or pen – she tends to whine for a bit and then falls immediately to sleep! It's ALWAYS a sign that she needs it, plus I like to think it's teaching her that biting = time out which will hopefully lessen it too! It's fine when she's redirectable, but when she gets manic and can't be dissuaded, I know it's time for a snooze. And it really does help. Sometimes she only needs 15 minutes and then she's calm and will come out and just snooze on the sofa/floor. It's like she just doesn't know how to settle herself. They are so liked toddlers!

@haggisaggis It sounds like pup has learned to pee on the pads rather than on the floor though, right? So that is a win. What I would do now is start moving the pads closer to the door, and then eventually outside. It'll maybe be slower, but at least it's saving your floors! Betty is 18 weeks and still peeing on the floor on a regular basis!

@haggisaggis I agree with @peachgreen . Maybe it's time to start moving the puppy pads closer to the door or getting rid of them altogether if you still don't see any improvement. If it's a designated pee time (rather than garden playtime) try to dissuade any sort of play and just keep telling him "go pee" or whatever your cue is.
N still pees in the house a bit although she hasn't pooed in the house for a while now. She'll whine at the back door if she needs to do that! We have had a completely accident free day today though! We haven't had puppy pads since Christmas because she really was pretty hit or miss with them - plus she liked to tear them up. I'd put down a lovely fresh new one and within 10 minutes she'd have ripped it to bits.

Puppy pads worked brilliantly for us because the breeder had already trained the pups with them. We had them on the tiles by the back door. We only had one indoor poo ever with Brie (!) and that was totally my fault because I had the vacuum on and didn't hear her ask to be let out. She did wee on the pads in the first few weeks but it definitely saved our carpets and she was fully house trained by 4 months. I don't know why the pads have such a bad rep on here, I think the washable ones are brilliant. In fact I still use them - not for her to toilet on, but they absorb mud and water off her big hairy feet and stop her slipping on the tiles. So pouring rain and the puppy pads are back down in our conservatory.

@CoubousAndTourmalet I had never thought of using them for that! Bill is a mud magnet and loves to dig, and I'm in a rented house so can't put in an outside tap or anything. That's such a good idea - I have a whole box sitting under the stairs as he never used them as a puppy (tried them once but he ate them, the idiot 😄)

He might still eat them @Bupster , Brie has torn holes in a couple of them, but it might be worth giving them a try on a wet mucky day. I do find them useful because she has such enormous hairy paws they're like mops 😆Our garden is prone to flooding so it can be a nightmare when she comes rushing in through the back door straight onto the tiles 😱

Our living room and bedrooms are upstairs so can’t move the pads closer to the door as door is downstairs. I do have washable pads as well though which are in his pen so could try using them instead. He is consistent in using the pads rather than just peeing on the floor so that’s something! There’s no real playtime when we are just outside for toileting but I do give him time to do his business and sometimes he gets distracted. He does seem to know the cue words though as he sometimes does what’s expected. But at other times (like at 7.30 this morning) I can stand outside for 20 minutes giving cues and he totally ignores me!

I just used to give my pup cues a couple of times and if he didn’t do his business I would bring him back indoors within 5 minutes. But watch him carefully and if he started sniffing again or circling or starting to squat then I immediately took him out again & tried the cue word again. When he eventually did his business outside following the cue word - even just by chance - I would give him lots of praise and treats.

I’m making it sound like it went smoother than it did. We actually had loads of accidents in the house. Then suddenly he just seemed to get it. You just have to be consistent and keep doing the same thing even if it starts to feel like they will reach adulthood still weeing & pooing wherever & whenever they feel like it!

Oh how I loved reading these comments, the importance of solidarity! So many that resonate with me - the difference between the chewing and the manic biting when they need to sleep - I’m now just like ‘in the pen you go!’

@brushingboots so funny you say that about chilling on the sofa in the evening. She was doing it great, but last week or so we’ve had to pen more as she just couldn’t settle, I miss it! So hopefully that will come back again.

With the toilet training, I just looked at our bottle of cleaner today and realised I’ve not used it for over a week… feels like we’re nearly there with that aspect - and I have to say for us it was just ‘wake - go outside, drink - go outside, recent meal - go outside, not been outside in a while - go outside’ and now she will go to the door and ask to go out… or annoy the hell out of me while I’m working until I go ‘oh you need the toilet!’ 😂

Our new irritating phase is DIGGING. My garden is full of holes! It's hard because she clearly does love it so much, but I do NOT love all the mud. And did I mention the holes?! The worst part is that we'd got into a lovely routine where we could let her out in the garden and she would pee or poo and then trot back proudly for fusses and a treat – but now we're back to taking her out on the lead because otherwise she just gets distracted by digging!

Still having plenty of accidents in the house, too. She's much better when it's just me in the house, weirdly. But whenever there's anything to excite or stress her, she can't see to hold it, and just goes without giving any warning or signs. I'm hoping she'll just grow out of that. DP assures me that his last dog he was on his knees thinking he'd never toilet train and then one day it just clicked...

Yesterday was a tough day as my friend's dad passed away so I had his two kids (who are not dog experienced at all) as well as my own, and the puppy, while I was trying to work. I tried to keep kids and dog separate as much as possible, but Betty still can't handle being left alone (unless it's her choice, in which case she's okay, but she needs to be able to get to us if she wants to!) so some contact was inevitable. Anyway, it was fine, but it was A LOT and I feel very tired today, and also quite emotional as I'm very sad for my friend. Excuse the convoluted back story, but he was my late husband's best friend, and when my husband died during lockdown, he and his wife invited me and DD to live with them so we wouldn't be alone. We ended up there for about 2 years so we are very close. So I'm feeling it today! Another day on my own with Betty so I'm hoping she picks up on the vibes and goes easy on me...!

@haggisaggis Maybe putting pads outside might help him make the association between outside and toileting? Then LOADS of praise and treats whenever he goes outside, no reaction at all when he goes on the pads inside?

Sorry to hear about your friends bereavement @peachgreen , I can understand that your additional associated workload would be stressful and exhausting. You are doing amazingly well.

I have no advice regarding Betty and her new habit, but just want to express solidarity because I have an obsessive digger also. She just loves digging holes and eating mud and, since the snowmelt, our back garden is pretty much a sea of mud with hardly any grass visible. When she's outside (which is a lot), I have to constantly monitor her. It does make life complicated. So yes, you most definitely have my sympathy and understanding on that front.

Quick question: what are we storing dog toys in because N just destroys whatever box/basket we put them in! 😂

@ConsternationStation I just got a plastic box from The Range or suchlike for a few quid – pictured here with pupsy in it a fortnight after she came home. Needless to say it is now overflowing and she definitely doesn’t fit in it anymore. She has only ever chewed one corner of it but she isn’t a chewer, to be fair.

Ahh bless you @peachgreen – hope you're doing well today, and well done for yesterday. Hope B is giving you lots of love.

Re digging, I have found that pupsy's interest in it comes and goes but when it's on she is quite keen. Luckily we have quite a lot of garden so there are areas she can dig more or less unseen by most visitors/us but I do feel your pain as it does look dire. Her favourite is to dig down into the mole hills which just makes so much more mess than it needs to. I've read up on it loads and a lot of the advice is to get them a sand digging pit which I like the idea of except you then get sand in the house too! So we've never done that.

@ConsternationStation I got some lovely wicker baskets for Betty's toys which she instantly took to chewing – so now they're on a high shelf! 😂

Thank you all for your kindness, it has definitely been a tough time. Feeling quite glad to have Betty's company today, in fact. She is very tired – probably after her busy day yesterday, as well as all the kids she also had a puppy date with our next door neighbour's gorgeous Australian Cattle Dog! – so she's sleeping a lot. (And, weirdly, not weeing much, which is the opposite to yesterday where she couldn't stop! Puppies are strange.)

We made a sand pit for Rose & Sylvie (both diggers) in what had previously been a vegetable bed. It was great, they loved it. We just emptied it of soil, got umpteen bags of play sand and it really did stop them digging up the edge of the lawn. There was a lot of sweeping involved to keep the patio sand free but we managed.
I'm not especially house-proud though; you really can't be when you have a heavily moulting breed. We did have a bit of a sandy kitchen at times but it was worth it. We have since extended the back of the house so the area is now paved over, but if I can ever persuade my chap to fill in the pond, Brie could have a supersized sandpit!

I might look in to a sand digging pit when we redo the garden this summer. We live near the beach so the house is constantly full of sand most of the time anyway!

My pup who is now 8 months is exactly the same with digging in the garden @peachgreen

We can no longer allow him out unaccompanied which is a pain in the arse. I don’t know if they ever grow out of the habit? Our old Lab did not have this habit (plenty of other naughty habits but digging wasn’t one of them!)

Our previous three girls never grew out of it @Twiglets1 although none of the four boys ever dug at all.

Thanks - good to know for anyone with the same issue. The sand pit sounds like a good option to try.

Ah, she looks just like our girl. What a beauty.

I wasn't sure whether or not to get a plastic one in case she destroyed it and ate plastic. She's daft like that! I think once we are out of the chewing stage I might get a nice wooden one but that won't be for quite a few months at this rate!

Re digging: N doesn't seem to do it in the garden (yet!) but she does like to dig on our sofa. She's ripped a few of the threads so I now have a waterproof dog blanket on it and I'll flip the cushions permanently once she's out of this stage. Ha. The kids have an old sandpit that isn't used any more so I might give it a good clean and refill it for her come the better weather, especially if she is a digger.