Adolescent Dog Survival Thread - get teenage licks right through the night!

[Bupster]

I've buckled and started the new thread - welcome to the horror of adolescence!

@CaptainBeanThief they are sent to try us! But how utterly gorgeous does he look?!

I had a funny moment this morning where Belle did some nice heel walking for once, and a lady with a 13 week old cockapoo spoke to me saying what great control I had, I nearly burst out laughing but I guess she does compared to 13 weeks! I reassured her it gets better and it felt very strange - the shoe was on the other foot to normal!

@ComeTalkToMe
Isn't it funny/strange when someone else compliments you on your dogs behaviour 🤣🤣🤣
It almost seems alien, a lady with a ten month cockerpoo said how good Milos recall is.
I said this is a one off, believe me 🤣

Weirdness reigns over here. Took Bill up to the dog park late (after daycare) Thursday and Friday, then again tonight as he lied through his teeth about needing a poo. Each time he coped with strange or not very well known dogs without turning a hair. Tonight, he spotted a cat through the fence at the end, and ran over to it to bark. Not only did he not wiggle through the extremely large gaps in the fence, but when I walked over to him and called him away, he came! I sent him off ahead of me using 'this way', and he went! He's been barked at twice by strange dogs on the park today, and been absolutely fine with it, and taken turns chasing when playing, even when the other dog was a bit shy, or a bit of an arse, and eaten his own body weight, and just in general not been a nob for 90% of his waking hours (he does save 10% for nobbery, e.g. cat barking, but in fairness who among us doesn't).

Anyway, this is probably just a blip but I'm seeing what he might be as a grown-up and oh my God it's all worth it. Mostly 😍

Wanted to post this here as tomorrow he'll probably pull me into a ditch trying to eat a horse or something.

Pictured: mostly not a nob

It's great when you have them days, when they "pretend" to behave and lure you into thinking they've 'grown' up then the next day you want to scoop your eyeballs because they've outdone themselves yet again 🤣🤣

Milo is being an absolute knob this week he better grow up pronto or ill be sending him straight for surgery and incapcaiting him 🤣🤣
We do have him registered for a new vets now :-)

@peachgreen was just wondering if your pup was still having accidents in the house? Our pup is 6 months now and is still liable to pee (and occasionally poop) in certain places in the house. We do let him go downstairs by himself now and I think this is part of the issue - we should really continue to closely supervise him. But occasionally, even now at 6 months, we can take him out for a while with no luck then he comes in and poos / pees on ‘his’ spot on the floor! He never alerts us to if he needs out or not so still just taking him out regularly. I’m finding it quite frustrating, although dd reckons our last dog was the same but I can’t remember.

@haggisaggis what are you using to clean it up? If he's going back to the same spot, it's possible he can still smell something there. Could you block off that spot and/or scrub it down with one of those special pet poo cleaner sprays? I mean if you're not doing that already!

Three weeks ago I would have said no, but unfortunately it’s back with a vengeance! After she was spayed she was really good – two accidents the day of the op, which we were totally expecting, and then nothing for ten days. But as soon as she had her protective t-shirt off they started again, although only in the evening! Our working theory is that she’s scared of going out after dark – she’s in a fear phase and got spooked by a motorbike a few weeks ago – so she’s just not relaxed enough when she goes out at night to go, even when we’re taking her out every half hour. We’ve restricted her roaming in the evening now but it’s pretty miserable for all concerned as she basically spends 3-4 hours pacing agitatedly (when she hasn’t got the zoomies!) and we therefore spend the whole night up and down letting her out. But our new plan is to actually take her out on the lead when it’s dark rather than just letting her out, hopefully that will help her feel more secure and stop her from sneaking off to wee on the floor! Hopefully this will all be a distant memory for both of us soon…!

@peachgreen we always take Midge out on the lead when it’s dark/ we don’t want him running after the cats. He’s a pain to get back in otherwise.

When he was younger and more restless we found that getting him to use his nose would really wear him out and help him settle. We would break sprats or rabbit ears into really tiny pieces and throw them around the room for him to find. It meant that we could sit and watch the telly and M could have a good sniff. Win win all round!

I have to take Bill up to the dog park in the evening now as he hates pooing in the backyard after dark. Great for the step count I suppose!

@Bupster yes we’re using one of the recommended clean up sprays. I can’t really block that spot off. He’s already denied access to all the other spots he used to use. I’m hoping that he just grows out of it but it’s really annoying. He gets taken out on a lead too as our garden isn’t secure. But he’s also decided he no longer wants to poop in the garden so I have to walk him down the road to his chosen spot. (Last dog was exactly the same and would only poop in the garden if it was a middle of the night poop emergency)

Ok,
So... Milo has officially out done himself... EVER.
Enjoying some time at my mums house, having a coffee and waiting for my husband to come back from shooting to join us for tea.
Milo just jumps on my mum's other sofa, cocks his leg up and pisses all up her throw cushion.
I was mortified, absolutely fucking mortified.....
He wasn't desperate for the toilet, he'd been for a walk about 15 minutes prior.
I've just stripped my mum's sofa (luckily she's always got layers of throws on or I'd have to buy her a new sofa as well)
What the fuck dog?!

Oh FFS Milo

@CaptainBeanThief I was going to tag you in my next post anyway as you were right and today I want to scoop my eyeballs out. Having a lovely time up at the dog park when a new puppy arrives, and the little bastard decides to be the playground bully and fixate on him. I put him on lead and kept him on it but he still kept roaring at the poor little sod for absolutely no reason every time he remembered he was there. Honestly I could cry. In fact I have. I can't look at him when he does this, I have to dig so deep for the affection. You want to believe your dog is basically a nice bloke, and he's not, he's an arsehole.

@Bupster Remember - love of your life!

In seriousness though, it's okay! Some dogs do just never 'get there' with puppies just like some people never 'get there' with babies. Bill's also still young - his hormones are all over the place.

Doggy puberty is in every way as crap as human puberty. Some days are just crap but as they grow up, those crap days happen less and less often. It's a blip. Try not to worry about it and try not to feel guilty - these things do just happen. He'll get there eventually 🙂

Also, don't worry about the puppy either - they're resilient little beasts and I can guarantee it will have forgotten about what your boy did about 2 seconds after it happened.

Thanks, @LandSharksAnonymous (or Jack-in-the-box 😄) - it's genuinely appreciated.

This is the one thing he does that really hurts the way I think about him. Not for long, but for a couple of hours at least. He is a bully, and he's been doing it since he was tiny himself when he'd pick on puppies who were less confident than him.

I know I'm projecting human feels and morality on him here, which is something that winds me up when others do it, but you can't help imagining your dog as ending up as a nice grown-up, kind to children and puppies etc., and puppies will always be in the world. Other dogs were so kind to him when he was small. I don't want him to be responsible for traumatising some poor little bug because I can't catch him to put him on a lead in time (though in fairness I was able to recall him away this time, which I never used to be able to do).

Anyway. I've bought Jean Donaldson's Fight - she seems to be the only person who talks about this stuff - so I'll have a read of it and see if there's any wisdom as to how I cope with this other than crying in the shower.

@Bupster
No I 100% agree with you!
Some of Milos behaviour makes me dislike him - like he's a person and makes think "badly of him" but like you say only for abit.
Ill have a cry and then forget about it.
It's literally just learning curve and what we can accept from our dogs I suppose.
Milo still jumps and nips and bites me and my mum and it's embarrassing and I feel like a failure no matter what I do. It's horrible.

Oh @Bupster support from here, they can be such little arseholes can't they? I know exactly what you mean, you just imagine them being grown up good doggy citizens and anything that doesn't align with that is so frustrating - especially when you put so much work in.

@CaptainBeanThief Belle also jumps up, nips and bites - and mainly to my kids or my mother-in-law which is annoying and embarrassing. I keep thinking we will never get past this, as I have tried so hard to be consistent with training. My daughter did say to me this morning, it used to be so much worse but that is hard to see when she is jumping up like a maniac!

Well this is why Milo annoys me -
One day he is a little swine and the next day well.... He's...
👇👇👇👇👇

Any others have dogs that go off their food? Loki has been on the same brand of dry food since birth. We couldn't get it recently so had to get a small bag of another brand, which he ate but probably not with the same vigour as previous. Now we are back to the original food and he will often go hours without eating- only had his breakfast at around lunchtime and only when I put some peanut butter on it.

Hi everyone,

I know some of you are nobhead-wrangling while in the grip of long-term medical stuff. Any tips for managing a hooligan when you've got a lurgy? I am pretty sure it's only a virus and I'll be okay in a few days but I'm absolutely exhausted today and he's still a bloody nobhead. I've put on my out of office though I've got deadlines so still have to do some work and entertain the little lunatic. All advice very gratefully received.

Yrs nauseously,
Bupster, wrangler of nobheads

Flirt pole. Best thing ever.

@Bupster I am still v much lurgified (sp?) after about ten days and it still remains appalling. I'm afraid to say I've just had to get on with it, coughing up my lungs while quite frankly phoning it in behind her. I wish I had some better tips. Night Nurse has helped though and this morning and yesterday morning we have gone out way later than normal because I've just been too tired.

I've chosen to see the walks as an opportunity to try and feel better because the fresh air does help and I've also accepted that pupsy isn't getting much training while I'm ill because I just can't take on much else.

Commiserations xxx

Sorry @brushingboots , I did know you were sick and had forgotten. Hope you’re feeling better soon. Phoning it in is excellent advice, as is flirt pole @Khaleesi90s except he eats the rope 🙄

@Bupster it's incredibly easy to put human emotions onto a dog - and not something to feel guilty about. Puppies are right little tossers and some are knobends who never grow out of it! But they're still our knobends and we love them all the same. If you are genuinely worried about him, it is always worth speaking to a behaviourist - but very often these things sort themselves out, particularly when dogs are young.

Sorry to hear you're sick though. Is he toy orientated and do you trust him around toys with stuffing? Whenever I'm really sick, I crack out the 'sexiphant' (do not ask about the name - but it is, essentially, a giant child's stuffed elephant that is roughly the size of a five year old child) for baby landshark and he happily amuses himself for a few hours dragging it around the garden and subjecting it to all manner of nefarious act. He's needed it less as he's gotten older, but I find the bigger the toy the longer it lasts and less bothersome he is. The other dogs mostly entertain themselves or sleep, but he's a massive turd and is a constant reminder of why I prefer bitches.

Otherwise, I recommend ball launchers (if you can trust him with that and have a big enough garden) - no, chasing balls isn't great, but for a few times a year where you're sick, it won't kill them!

Sorry to hear about nob head dogs and being ill! I would do the absolute bare minimum you can get away with @Bupster- are you able to send him off to his daycare at all?

We saw my parents at the weekend and my DM has just messaged me to say they have found a couple of fleas on their greyhound and now I am freaking out. Is it a given that V will now have them?! I don’t have a flea comb and finding it hard to check him because of his black fur. He was gnawing at one of his paws last night but I’ve not really noticed any excess itching apart from that. He has his Canitrio tablet a couple of weeks ago which I think includes some sort of flea thing. I’m not sure what to do apart from go and buy a comb tonight and see?

Also @Bupster I'd just add that it doesn't hurt them to sometimes have a day off. I haven't given up any walks because I'm stupid and pig-headed but my gundog trainer is always talking about giving them a whole actual day off – she doesn't take hers out at all one day a week, they literally just go out for the loo and that's it. So if he isn't going to be a total menace without a walk (or with one fewer walk a day) then look after yourself and give both of you a break. I realise that that's easier said than done though x