Adolescent Dog Survival Thread - Bark the Herald, furry angels sing!

[YorkshireFelix]

New thread to get us through the festive season! Angelic and naughty teenage pups all welcome

Only did a pavement walk around the village today as I've been busy sorting out household stuff, but Vinny stopped then growled and barked at a random tourist who was just walking past minding their own business!

He's never growled and barked at a person out and about before and I was very apologetic. No idea why, it was so random. I hope he's not going to start making a habit of it.

@YorkshireFelix
Did you feel threatened at all?
Or did the tourist get too close? Or do something sudden to spook him?
If it happens again, try to make a massive fuss of it, because he obviously felt threatened, just apologise to the person and walk on, be confident in front of him.
It was probably a one off.
I remember once, I was in the fridge and Milo was eating his breakfast and my husband sneaked up behind me getting up for work and I gasped and Milo sensed it, turned around and barked.
So it could be something simple but try not to overthink it.

@CaptainBeanThief looks perfect to me! Pupsy is 12.5kg ish, and she's been spayed which made her bulk up a bit. She's on Skinners too with raw too, as agreed by the vet. A vet nurse at our practice tried to tell me once that I couldn't feed working dog food if she wasn't working and I'm afraid I simply laughed. Which Skinners is he on?

@YorkshireFelix I'm amazed V is that heavy! I expect he's taller than pupsy though and bitches are usually smaller anyway.

No they were quite far away on a wide bit of road but he just stopped when they were in the distance, so must have felt threatened for some reason. He's also taken to barking at random noises in the house too so maybe he's just a bit fearful at the minute. He usually loves people. Maybe they were serial killers and I just didn't know it!

I know, he definitely doesn't look it. He is quite leggy though and is taller than most cockers we meet now. I struggle to pick him up but I am particularly weak 😄

@brushingboots he is on the duck and rice,
We do sometimes add the skinners pate in when he's been wormed as he will lose a couple of KG after being worked.
What's pupsy on, I don't give him the chicken as I think he's allergic, it also makes his poo stink to high heavens.

Dogs are very good especially our spaniels @YorkshireFelix so yes he was probably a dodgy fucker 😂

@CaptainBeanThief aha! She was on duck and rice and lamb and rice alternating 15kg bags, but when she got to a year ish or a bit more – whenever the big bag ran out – we tried her on their Maintenance and that's been excellent. It's for off season working dogs which about sums up her life: super active but not out all day. Oddly she was sensitive to the puppy chicken too but I think Maintenance is chickeny and it doesn't bother her at all and with the raw her poos are 10/10.

The raw element has been a serious life changer though as she now actually eats all of her food every time which is a big change from 'wet' dry food as it were.

@CaptainBeanThief Chonkface gets 100g of Millie's Wolfheart duck and veg in the morning and evening, with 60g for lunch, topped up with a can of Lily's Kitchen puppy food over the course of the day if he wants it (that gives me a bit of flexibility, e.g. today when he got back from our morning walk starving). I want to move him over to twice a day, but he's not quite ready for it yet.

He also gets a LOT of treatos at the moment, as we're working on loose lead walking as well as recall and sit-stays. I use chopped up Pooch and Mutt and other teeny treatos for walking nicely and training at home, and teeny chopped up bits of paté for outdoors work except for recall, which is chunks of chicken or steak about thumbnail size. He also gets natural chews (e.g. disgusting hairy rabbit feet, or dried goat ears) for in-between snacks or calm-the-fuck-down bribes.

I do sometimes worry that he's carrying too much fat; he is wonderfully squidgy-headed, and I've never been able to see his ribs, but his poo is perfect at the moment and he needs the training rewards if I'm going to have any chance of ending up with a dog that doesn't drive me into an early grave 🙄.

Just chipping in to say that we've always kept our PMD on the lighter side, another reason I prefer to keep them unneutered. I'll try to find a pic of our previous boy; I think I've posted pics of my girls here but not him. I like them in good lean, working condition even though they're pets. I haven't increased Brie's food since she was 6 months; she only gets 500g of kibble a day but she's still carrying a bit of puppy weight at the moment. Hopefully that will fall away by the time she hits a year old at the end of March.

Do you buy her raw ready prepped from somewhere or do it yourself? I am interested in doing a mixture with the Millie's dry but I don't know where to start!

Curled up like an angel after a day of being a menace.

Milo loves his natural chews but we have to limit them as they give him terrible terrible diarrhoea 🤢 usually all over the house.
He loves rabbits ears and I feel cruel because of bonnie and Clyde but he loves the rabbits and not to eat them 😉
He loves a pigs ear and chicken feet.

In terms of wet he loves the skinners salmon.
He can't eat the raw because of diarrhea,
When he was a puppy like puppy puppy not just puppy mind anything would give him the shits but he's ok now

My dog is a weirdo

I think I'm going to sacrifice him to science 🤣

@YorkshireFelix I mostly use DAF (Durham Animals Foods) as they have a really good selection of flavours and it's excellent value – round here about £1.30 for 455g. All pre-packed, you just have to defrost and then keep in a Tupperware in the fridge between uses. It's not icky at all, genuinely. If I'm feeling flush or just want a change I buy her Naked Dog or Nutriment which also comes in pre-packed boxes/chubs but it's literally double the price, as is Naturaw, and she loves all of those too.

If you want to try him on a bit to begin with, tripe is usually recommended. DAF do beef tripe and lamb tripe individually, which I always have a few of in the freezer to put in her Beco bone and just in case I'm running low on 'normal' food.

Just a baby!!

Ooh amazing thank you! That's way cheaper than I expected actually.

A vet nurse at our practice tried to tell me once that I couldn't feed working dog food if she wasn't working

What was the logic there?

Milo has taken to running around with his frisbee around his face I honestly love him so much 💓
Of course I have to share because you can never have too much Milo

oh god I've just realised I'm like one of them annoying mums that show pictures of their children that no one is interested in 😱😱😱 what has become of me

We used to buy DAF raw for our Maine Coons. We've also always fed our PMD "working dog" kibbles.

That is hilarious @CaptainBeanThief 😂

Don't worry - I'm one of those Mums too and at least your boy is more entertaining than my little princess 🙄

He is such a character!!

@tizwozliz Good question! She was absolutely adamant that working dog food was only for working dogs in work. I suspect it was something to do with the protein content but Skinners isn't even the highest rated for that so not sure where she was going with it. We originally started pupsy on Skinners because they sell it at our local ag shop and it's VAT free!

@YorkshireFelix pleasure! For ref pupsy has about 200g of raw a day with about 180g Skinners, so a pack lasts about two days once I've put some in her Beco bone.

I was going to ask how you work out how much raw to feed alongside kibble. He's currently on 300g Millie's gundog mix a day across 3 meals. I have tried googling and searching the spaniel groups but I'm getting confused!!