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.

@ConsternationStation I don’t know if it’s just my weird girl but when she does chew stuff (receipts, empty loo rolls, any loose cardboard, all permitted) she tends to chew it into a smallish and then spit it out, so it’s more like having a shredder than a chewer. We often joke that we could give her confidential documents to shred as they're in such disarray when she's finished that you'd never be able to piece them together – plus they're soggy. That was our experience of the plastic toy box too – tiny bits appeared on the floor all making up the shape of the corner she’d nibbled. Quite odd but better than a chewer who swallows!

All of ours have been sofa ratchers/cushion flingers and carpet diggers @ConsternationStation but it doesn't always seem to tie in with outdoor/garden digging. Only three of our nine were serious garden diggers. I think indoor digging and scratching is more of a general puppy/adolescent thing. Outdoor diggers are far more obsessive about it, but that's not to say that your girl won't be an outdoor digger as well, she might be.

Vinny is also a shredder! I gave him a raw brussel sprout and he even managed to shred that into tiny bits 😂

Brie shreds everything all over the floor too. Cardboard, stolen pieces of kitchen roll, tissues stolen from my dressing gown pocket, leaves from the garden and, annoyingly, most of her tug toys 🙄 Most puppies are shredders I guess.

@peachgreen I used an old potato-growing sack and put play sand in it, which was just enough to divert him from digging up all the gravel in my rented house's garden. He doesn't really bother now the weather's colder, but he does like to dig when he's out, so I let him - he has some holes under the hedge in the dog park (though I now don't trust him under the hedge, but that's another story) and in the wooded bit in one of our other enclosed places, and I take him on the Common where he can dig up mole hills to his heart's content. They love digging and I don't think it's fair (or in my case, frankly, possible) to stop it, so I think it's about letting them do it in a way that doesn't lead to you losing your deposit/marbles (delete as appropriate).

Oh I'm glad it's not just pupsy who shreds! I don't mind it at all as she seems to enjoy it, though did find a soggy half shredded Lidl receipt on my pillow the other day which was less charming.

@brushingboots I bought a special puppy-proof recycling box before Bill came home, and I now stack the recycling on top of it so he has free access to shred 😄

Ooh that's a great idea @Bupster! We will give that a go! She was just playing outside with DD and came back in with her nose absolutely covered in mud. I went out and DD had covered the hole in the lawn with a lantern so she couldn't get to it!

Betty also a huge shredder. Empty toilet and kitchen rolls are her absolute favourite treat. And the wrapping paper on Christmas Day – well, she thought she had died and gone to heaven!

@peachgreen you can stick a couple of little treatos in those and pinch/fold the ends together - they get to shred for a reward and it keeps them quiet (in Bill's case for about three minutes, but still)

Remind me when they start sleeping all night? Currently doing a wee at 1am, and any time between 3am-5am then up at 7am. I’m so tired. She whimpers when first put in her crate so we end up laying next to the crate to settle her (dh got out the spare duvet so we have a nest down there and regularly fall asleep on the floor. It’s comfy to a point). She’s still very little and only lived with us 2 weeks but ddog 1 was sleeping through by the end of his first week. Please reassure me I’ll sleep again 😭😴

dh had a second stage interview last week and she and ddog decided to play up so dpup joined the call. I can’t help thinking a man would get away with that more than a woman, but maybe I’m wrong. Dh is through to the next round so it didn’t harm the chances so far. Next stage is in person so no puppy to interrupt.

God, @TeenLifeMum , I can't actually remember, it all became such a blur. I know the first couple of weeks I got up every couple of hours and then it became more a matter of waking up when he whined or stirred (I had him in the bed with me). I think it didn't take long, though, he was more or less house trained by the end of the first month. But I might be making that up as the trauma might have wiped my memory 😄

Hang on in there, it gets better so quickly, though it might not feel like that at the time!

@Bupster i can’t imagine having her in my bed this young. I worry what she’ll eat/chew while I’m asleep. Possibly due to all the stuff crammed under my bed 😬 ddog sleeps on our bed so I’m not against it but once pup stops eating everything.

Ah, @TeenLifeMum, there was only me, and I buckled on the second night when he was waking up every hour crying. He snuggled into the crook of my neck and that was me done for.

It actually worked out really well for us. He only had one accident on the bed and he was wide awake at the time, so I could strip off the cover instantly. He was much bigger before he could jump off by himself and I still wake up when he does - a couple of times when he's been a bit unwell that's been handy! But yes, all my shoes now live in a zipped-up suitcase, and my socks are in a plastic storage box, and they're not coming out anytime soon 😄

@TeenLifeMum
In my experience, everything takes a little bit longer with girls than it does with boys. Three of our boys were dry through the night by 3 months but one of the girls took 5 months to housetrain. They can't seem to hold their wee quite as well (though I'm sure somebody will contradict me on this...) so I'll say that this is true in my breed at least. I can't remember what breed your pup is though, sorry.

Our current pup is 9 months and she was fully house trained by 4 months but still waking me at 4am/5am for several weeks after that. That was through the summer though, and I did wonder if she was being woken by the birds, but I still suspect you have quite a long way to go before she will sleep through. Yes, it is exhausting and really it only starts to massively improve once the adult teeth come through. 5 months was when I really noticed that she was behaving in a more adult way, but, like @Bupster , I don't crate my pups so I can't truthfully say if the situation is the same for crated puppies or not.

@TeenLifeMum there are so many different ways of raising pups and we did it rather differently at night as didn’t use a crate. So my pup was sleeping on his own in his bed in the kitchen/diner overnight. He only cried the first couple of nights (and got comforted when he seemed upset).

The upside was we got a good nights sleep from night 3 onwards. The downside was coming downstairs to wees & poos on the tiled floor and having to clean up every morning. And they do say that toilet training takes longer this way. I’m afraid I can’t remember how long it took before he was clean overnight but it seemed ages (probably 2-3 months). We weren’t that bothered about how long it took and accepted not using a crate would probably mean it would take longer.

I remember reading that the reason crates worked for toilet training was that they didn't like to mess where they sleep, so I decided to gamble that would apply to the bed, too, and it seemed to. But as I say, there's only me, it definitely wouldn't work for everyone. I have a crate for him but I never really bothered with it in the end.

My pup wouldn’t mess in his own bed but had zero qualms about weeing & pooing on the floor by the side of his bed so it only worked because the kitchen floor is tiled so easy to clean.

Milo sleeps until about 11am now at 18 months which is pretty good going! He also is free roaming at night and he doesn't even steal anything.
He's not allowed in our bed at night though.

We crate but in our bedroom and she’s telling us when she needs a wee by whimpering. In the day, she jingles the bells we’ve hung on the back door to let us know. I just remember ddog1 eating everything so it felt safer to crate at night to know he was safe. She likes her crate in the dining room and moves between sleeping on ddog1’s bed, my lap and her crate during the day with the door open. Then she has the bedroom crate which is smaller.

My pup is free roaming downstairs now he is toilet trained and chooses to sleep in the living room. Not allowed upstairs though ( used to have a stair gate until he learnt the rule).

Our pups have always been free roaming downstairs but we use puppy gates to restrict to kitchen and tiled extension, unless under supervision. They aren't allowed upstairs because of their size.

Our girl is 14 weeks and still not sleeping through the night - but then again my DC are 6 & 8 and still end up in my bed every night at some point! Maybe it's something with my family. Ha. Some nights she's up at 1am and then other nights it's 4am, before starting the day between 6-7. She doesn't even need out, she's just lonely and wants a cuddle! We've got the spare duvet downstairs for snuggling on the couch. Would be a complete zombie without having a snuggly spot for through the night.

My pup will be 17 weeks tomorrow- male rough collie. He is not toilet trained yet although have noticed a slight improvement in the last day or 2. After crying and not settling at all through the night we ended up with him on our bed after about 1 week. He generally sleeps from about midnight until 4 or 5. Then back to bed until 7. Sometimes I’ll put him back to bed to try and stretch it until 8. He lets us know he needs out at night by moving to the far corner and giving a solitary bark! During the day he does not let us know at all. We have bells on the top of the stairs (living room upstairs) which we make him ring before taking him out but he’s not made the association yet.

@TeenLifeMum I am likely in the minority here but we didn't crate and I didn't get up with my pup in the night at all as I needed the sleep to be able to cope with her in the daytime on my own and also work. She went to bed in the kitchen in her own bed at, say, 11pm/midnight and then I got up again at 7ish and dealt with whatever had happened overnight then. She was pretty quick to overnight train and she didn't whinge about being left as she had her bed and her toys – I'm not saying she didn't have accidents because she did, but it wasn't traumatic and it didn't have any lasting impact on anyone.

Like @Twiglets1 I wasn't in a rush and knew that not using a crate might mean it would take longer. Who knows if it did in the end.

I’m interested to read all the free roaming pups. Ddog 1 (now 4) spent his first year eating stuff he shouldn’t. I’d have been really worried leaving him over night without supervision for that long, hence the crate. He now sleeps on our bed and I’m sure dpup will end up on our bed far sooner than ddog did. She does currently eat less than ddog did - I used to scoop slugs and snails out of his mouth daily 🤢 for about a year.