Adolescent Dog Survival Thread - for teenage dirtbags

[Bupster]

I've buckled again, I can't take the pressure of being on page 40 😄

Oh my goodness @LandSharksAnonymous How exciting!
Good luck! I hope all goes well.
Please let us know how mum & babies are when you get chance.

@LandSharksAnonymous How exciting! I hope everything goes well. Looking forward to hearing all about them.

@MooseBeTimeForSnow Happy Birthday Rundle. 🎂

@VanGoSunflowers - welcome. Your puppy is very cute. 💖 Glad things are going well so far. I taught 'leave it' with a treat like Brushing Boots. Only mine isn't rock solid where poo is concerned unfortunately. She doesn't eat other species' poo, but likes to eat her sisters while it is still warm. She's been known to bring one in from the garden and sit on my lap to eat it. 🤮
This puppy wasn't too bad with biting as a little one, but her sister was awful. She'd be up at 6a.m. and spend the next two hours attacking me. I don't know about puppy blues, but I hated her at times. I'd often sit on the kitchen worktops out of reach, crying and bleeding. Once she was passed that though, she grew into the loveliest dog who has never been any trouble.

@brushingboots Glad pupsy is all better and you can get back to normal walks and swimming. I miss being able to go for long walks when the dogs aren't up to it.

Hi @VanGoSunflowers and welcome. I always tried to remember that if Bill was biting and chewing, it was probably because (a) his teeth were hurting and (b) it's really the only way he had to explore the world, and that seemed to make it much easier to cope when he was hanging off my earlobe. But yes, frozen carrots, ice cubes, and natural chews as soon as I could find some he was allowed - yak chews were (and still are) good, and I think dried rabbit ears, but I wouldn't swear to when they're okay with them.

And naps, as everyone else says. Bill was never really interested in his crate and to this day sleeps in the bed with me - and right now will only nap while in direct contact with me in the bed, which is a pain in the arse. However, it does mean that even at thirteen months I can spot when he's tired and get him to take a nap, and when he's home with me he gets something like 15 hours of sleep a day. As a puppy he was getting more than that as his naps were about an hour and a half followed by an hour awake.

PS just a thought that it might be worth posting on that old puppy thread too - when we moved on to this one it was still quite lively but it does need people to post saying help puppy 😄

@brushingboots wonderful news about Pupsy! You'll be pleased to hear that Bill, the hooligan, took his first proper swim in the proper pond on the Common today. He has swum before, but only in a pond he was very definitely not supposed to be in and I had to haul him out by his longline, so this was much more relaxing to watch 😄

@Bupster
There is no puppy thread currently. I checked last night. It went to the final page with a few people chatting, but nobody has started a new thread. It's why I said I'll start one if we get a pup in the autumn...

Ah, what a shame! I hadn't realised. Would be great if you did on both counts - I want to see lots of pictures of your new puppy 😄

Thank you so much!
That sounds so tough with having to hide on the kitchen counter! It must’ve taken an awful lot of resolve to get through that!

The carrot didn’t go down well but I did manage to have a shower with minimal chaos so I will call that a win 😂

The biting he does when he is tired is very different to the biting he does when he is excited, as you can imagine! The tired biting is more like nibbling, not at all painful and easy to redirect him. The excitable biting, jumping up at your legs, can be pretty painful though! That’s the one I’d like to minimise as much as practical and stop him directing at my 7yo! My son is a calm and sensible boy, but he is playing with a puppy at the end of the day so sometimes it gets a bit more energetic. I don’t want him to be put off playing with him so I need to think of some strategies - training the pup obviously but what should my son do if the pup is excitably jumping up at him and biting the inside of his thigh? He comes up to my son’s waist and can reach some danger zones on him if he’s not careful 🤦‍♀️

Sympathies @VanGoSunflowers the nipping is so difficult to channel when they're tiny. Really, for most of us it's the hardest phase. It can indeed reduce you to tears.
As you've just seen, SpanielsGalore and YorkshireFelix have both mentioned keeping out of reach. For me it was a case of wearing long sleeved tops, and tucking my trousers into long leather riding boots, right through last summer. I've even seen people mention wearing wellies indoors because of pups targeting ankles. Hopefully you will find a solution to keep your son from being nipped, whether it be thicker trousers or a safe space.
Just keep telling yourself it doesn't last forever!

Yes, @VanGoSunflowers , once the puppy teeth fall out at five months-ish it all gets easier. When I look back though, those first few months took YEARS 😱

@Bupster Hooray for swimming! That’s so lovely. I think we might go to Whisby tomorrow for proper swimming though probably the whole of the county will have the same idea seeing as the weather's so nice.

@VanGoSunflowers I think in your position I’d be training both pup and son at the same time – I realise I haven’t been seven for a very long time so I’ve forgotten how it feels, but I wonder if you can teach your son the signs that things are getting too much for pup, the moment when he needs a little time out, so he can just remove himself? I think a lot of the advice generally given about squealing when they bite doesn’t help because it just excites them more – it never worked for us. The best solution I found to that kind of savagery was to just get out of her reach – even for 30 seconds, just to reset the situation.

I think if I had another pup now I’d work on a ‘that’s enough’ command – ie, that’s enough of that thank you – which could be transferred into various situations. I use it for training so we always end on a high but I think it would have been useful for other things too. A girl I follow on instagram has her dogs trained so that she can immediately stop them play-fighting and zooming on top of each other by saying ‘finished’ and it's amazing to watch.

@brushingboots
As you know, I admit that training is not my forte, but I somehow muddle through.
I shout "enough" when Brie misbehaves, she generally stops and looks at me then mouths off, but I use it so rarely that it does get her attention.

I'm having visitors tomorrow - my cousin with her husband and their two daughters; fortunately, they're early twenties, not little kids. They haven't seen Brie since last summer when she was 5 or 5 months old. I've given them the instruction CALM, no squeaky baby talk, we keep it low, we keep it quiet. Because 50kg of overexcited adolescent Brie is a scary thing, even for me. So yes, I do agree that all puppy play needs to be as calm and controlled as possible. But, like you, I acknowledge it's not always that easy with young children.

I used to keep a toy to hand too, so when they started to get bitey, I'd redirect to that instead of me. But if they were in full on Tazmanian devil attack mode, I'd pop them or me the other side of a stairgate for 10 seconds to restore calm.

@brushingboots & @CoubousAndTourmalet
Thinking about it, I think you’re absolutely right about the over stimulation thing. I am pretty sure Landsharks mentioned that on another thread too. He rarely bites me in the same way because things are much calmer when it’s just the two of us. Even when he is lively he seems to channel it more sensibly so I will explain that to my DS. Not that he can’t play with him of course but to be careful not to run around too much or constantly squeak his toy at him etc
I am also considering a baby gate. My house isn’t huge, two decentish sized rooms downstairs and the garden is perfect for a puppy because there’s nowhere for him to hide and get in to mischief but I may get a gate to partition off kitchen and living room in case DS just wants to chill and watch TV!

Im lucky in that DS is very accommodating and an easy going kid and he will follow my lead on stuff. There’s never any shouting or tantrums in my house thank goodness 😂

@MooseBeTimeForSnow happy birthday to Rundle! Looking absolutely gorgeous as ever 😍

I highly recommend gates @VanGoSunflowers I couldn't be without them. We currently have 5 in use 😆

We're end terrace, we have gates on kitchen/hall, kitchen/living room, kitchen/tiled extension. We've put a gate on the understairs cupboard because somebody sussed that the kibble bag is in there and figured out how to open the door....🙄Now we have a double gate across the French door to the garden, so it can be left open with dog(s) inside the house. Works brilliantly if you don't mind the house being like Fort Knox 😁It'll be a challenge for my visitors tomorrow!

It sounds as if your son is very sensible for his age, so I'm sure he'll soon get the idea about calm play being safest. That will really pay off as pup gets into adolescence too.

Haha yes I definitely think they will make life easier! Off to Amazon I go!

Thats the thing isn’t it? A wee pup jumping up and excitedly biting is one thing but if he’s still doing it in 8 months time, for example, when he’s nearly fully grown and DS is 4ft tall, it definitely wont be great!

It really wouldn't be good @VanGoSunflowers I know this better than anyone, having a breed that, when fully grown, is taller and heavier than I am.

Calm is the way to go. Not always easy, I grant you, there will be moments of mayhem with any pup, but still, it's what all of us with the bigger breeds have to focus on, for our own safety.

@VanGoSunflowers I recommend going for tall stairgates. My cockers can jump over the usual height baby gates.

Good point @SpanielsGalore I really should have said that! Yes, ours are all tall ones also.

Vinny jumped over a high dry stone wall into a farmers field the other day (😡😡😡) but is too scared to try and jump the baby gate 😂

Nightmare! I hope it didn't have animals in it. 🙈 Did he come back when you called?

My dog the seal…

No animals thank god!! It’s actually my friends farm we walk past and that’s one of her fields, but all her cows were up the top end. He’s amazing most of the time then pulls shit like this and makes me question my own sanity. I’ve realised the best tactic is to walk off and he will panic and follow me… I said to dd I’m not walking him that way again!

I still need to find a good spot to see if Vinny will swim! The river is manky here 🤢