Adolescent Dog Survival Thread - for teenage dirtbags

[Bupster]

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

@tizwozliz
Thanks. Exact same ratio as litter Algy was from. Brie was from 5f, 3m.
Great photo!

@VanGoSunflowers
Never apologise for long posts; we all share, we can all learn from each other and it's good to have another thread regular/member of our little group.

@SpanielsGalore
Jealous! Since being 4 years old I've wanted to live in Scotland, it's the only place I've ever felt I belong. Northern climate suits me well, but June/July can be too warm here (west Pennine moors).
Hopefully your pup just stepped awkwardly on a stone or a twig, nothing more. I'm still trying not to think too much about the carrying thing 😨I'd probably need to call out emergency services or local mountain rescue for help.

Yes, lucky escape for all of us with that branch this morning, it definitely would have killed someone or crushed a car if anyone had been passing at that moment. It's one of the biggest/oldest trees in the area.

@SpanielsGalore @CoubousAndTourmalet can I add in my appreciation of Scotland! I’m dying to head up again. Would love to retire up there!

Just to add to this, I’ve no issue with commands such as spin or paw or whatever - but I think I’d prefer to wait until he is a little older and has the basics down and then I can show my son how to teach him.
No obvious harm done, of course ☺️

@CoubousAndTourmalet - no breeding for the satan dog! She's an old girl now (and was rescued after being used for breeding). She's just stroppy! She has that 'I'm an old woman. I want things my way and I want them now' thing going on and, bless my dad but he's far too soft on her (and that makes her worse)!

I've got a fairly even split - 7/5 in favour of girls, which is handy. I was slightly dreading a 8/3 split or similar (which is what someone I know had recently).

So jealous you and @VanGoSunflowers are getting some sleep! Mine are honestly like a heard of elephants at the moment!

@SpanielsGalore glad it wasn't anything serious! Perhaps it was just a melodramatic moment of 'mummmyyyyy carry me!' 😃I know someone who's dog did that once and they rushed them straight to the vet...and the dog, when put down on the floor of the vets room, just bounced up and down and ran around happily!

We have never even mastered ‘down’ on command to be honest so I am in awe of anyone with ‘spin’ or a successful ‘paw’. I watch spaniels doing tricks on Instagram like their owners are speaking another language. But pupsy can pick shot game birds, so that’s her special skill.

Very jealous of anyone who isn’t sweating in their own house right now. Our house is usually extremely cold and very old but I am still roasting.

I meant was devil dog a past pup of yours @LandSharksAnonymous but said in jest of course.
My dad was soft with our dogs too, particularly Rosie, who used to get away with murder! I regularly refer to Brie as Devil Dog when she's lead ragging. More often though I tell her "oh, you're a wicked, wicked girl!" which is generally a cue for play growls and hilarity.

Sounds like you have a good m to f ratio of pups, although obviously I have no idea what sexes your puppy list people were waiting for. With the dog before Brie, we were originally on the list for a girl, but the breeder suggested a particular boy for us, and we never regretted it. He was amazing. Might be a long wait for a male this time, but we want to get the right dog from good European lines.

@brushingboots I was just considering putting my heating on. It's 13° and damp up here today.

I love Scotland. I used to live in the centre of England, but when the children had all grown up I moved up here. I've always wanted to live by the sea. And now it's a three minute walk away and I can see and hear it from my garden. Some evenings I can hear the seals chatting.

@LandSharksAnonymous It did make me wonder if she was just tired and wanted a carry. She was perfectly happy and didn't struggle once to be put back down.

Have you got 12 puppies? Was there a later arrival?

Oh gosh! I can't even check my typos - should be 6/5 (that's what I get for multitasking)! @SpanielsGalore @CoubousAndTourmalet but still in favour of girls! Technically it's 5/5 as one of the girls will stay with me.

@CoubousAndTourmalet oh no definitely not one of mine! 😃She's a plucky little cocker spaniel. I don't breed devil dogs...just massive bellends that, apparently, think a bowl of fruit and yoghurt left on the dining table is definitely an early lunch.

Do you know which girl you're keeping yet @LandSharksAnonymous ? At what point can you tell which is the best prospect? Sorry for all the questions, but I just find it interesting what breeders look for when they select their own dog, or help to match a puppy with the right owner...

My elder one stole the end of a gluten free loaf of bread off the worktop the other day, she soon realised it wasn't even worth eating when untoasted and dry and gave it to me in the garden!

It's bloody boiling here and my bedroom faces east so heats up instantly - but luckily I was in such a deranged state of perimenopausal crazy a couple of years back that I invested 300 quid in a cheap, crappy portable air conditioner, that at the time I absolutely couldn't afford, and it cools the room down enough for us to sleep at night and I can take him up to nap on the bed during the day. And my dining room is a dark cave all year, with wooden floors, for which I'm deeply, deeply grateful when it gets hot - I can generally keep the temperature in there down to the low 20s even when it gets crazy.

My office at work on the other hand is on the third floor of what is basically an overgrown portacabin and it is hideous. I'm just grateful I bought the dog a car as I have air-conditioning in it - it was broken in my old pile of junk. God knows how I'd have got him to daycare otherwise.

Yesterday I bought an aluminet and spent a happy 30 minutes hanging it off some clothes dryers to make him a portable-ish sunshade for the garden. First gust of wind and it'll be in Skegness, but it made me very happy at the time 😄

Still haven't worked out how I'm going to get the little bugger out for a poo on Saturday/Sunday afternoon/evening; short of putting the fridge on wheels.

@CoubousAndTourmalet not yet! By around week 5(ish) they tend to show personalities. I do first 'meetings,' on week 6 and have usually narrowed it down to 1-3 dogs per family by then (i.e. I know there are three suitable dogs, its just a question of which one). So, I'll watch how the families interact which each dog and how the dog behaves. In the past it's sometimes been really clear that a puppy has 'chosen' a family. I can remember one family where on their second visit, the puppy they had held the longest on their first visit escaped the whelping box and raced over to them when he saw them - which sort of took the choice out of my hands!

With my last two girls, I kept back the puppy that was closest to mum or I felt had bonded best with the rest of my dogs. Even though I don't really believe in 'pack' hierarchy, when I have so many dogs I don't want to run the risk of keeping one that is a bit too bolshy.

Helpfully this time, most of the homes lined up are fairly relaxed including on whether they get a boy or girl and none want to show, so that makes it easier as well. I think I've only ever once not really been able to give a family the dog they wanted - but in the end they did agree I had made the right decision (the bitches were a bit rowdy - read drama queens - tbh and they wanted one and I didn't think it was the right choice given they were slightly older).

@tizwozliz I imagine you really appreciated having the dog-chewed bread back 😄

@Bupster can I ask where you got the A/C unit from? My various fans are not up to the job but I am so reluctant to shell out good money on A/C without a decent recommendation! Does Bill refuse to go in the garden at all!?

Thank you @LandSharksAnonymous , that is really interesting. I love that a puppy chose its own family 💞how amazing is that.
I hope you'll let us know when you have decided on your girl...

We've generally trusted the breeders to match us with a pup or give the option of 2, and they've varied. We've had small and quiet, big and calm, a mensa child and a ginormous great hooligan! Don't really mind what's next. We're oldish, so calm would be good, but equally, we do have the experience to be able to cope with a boisterous one that may not be suitable for a novice owner... We shall see.

I am sure I have said here before but Vinny was the last pup as they were all spoken for a long time in advance, but we were lucky when enquiring to be put on the waiting list for the next litter as someone had to pull out due to ill health. The breeder was actually going to keep him but then we contacted him the same day! There were 2 black pups in the litter and mountain rescue had the pick of them basically, then we got whichever one was left. Apparently they were there for ages trying to choose and there was barely anything between them both. Which makes me laugh so much as there was a 50% chance of Vinny being up a mountain but instead he’s chilling at home with us 😂

His litter as all boys and one girl!

@LandSharksAnonymous this is the kiddie, and it's a hundred quid cheaper than it was! https://ecoair.org/products/portable-air-conditioner-cyrstal-mk2-7000-btu-pac-100015

I would warn you that the vent tube thingy is too short - it's a pain in the arse if it has to go out of a top window - and so my unit has to stand on a box; and the window seal kit only works on vertical windows that open inwards, which mine don't. But for that price, especially at the level of crazy I'd hit, I simply didn't care.

PS and yes, the little bugger will occasionally have a wee out there but he has outright refused to poo unless absolutely desperate for some months now. I'm going to be getting up at ouch o'clock over the weekend I think, and watching for cloud cover like a crazy person - it does look like it's going to be very cloudy and muggy here which hopefully means that the pavements won't get too hot, and I have ordered a cooling coat, so I should be able to get him as far as the cemetery one street away.

PPS for those dying to know if I've been blown to Skegness yet, I gave up on Sunshade Mark One, as it was definitely going to get a bit Mary Poppins. Sunshade Mark Two involves elaborate draping of aluminet over the washing line and a pile of yoga and bath mats creating a soft cushioning on the gravel, next to a paddling pool, in the hope that he will choose to nest under there instead of lying on the garden chair directly in the sun.

Bill is scared of the garden hose, so as I was filling the paddling pool I was gently encouraging him to explore. Little sod grabbed hold of the end of it and soaked me 😄

You’ve just reminded me I was going to see if I could Amazon prime a little paddling pool for Vinny! I bet he would like it. He also saves his pees and poos for walks and it is SO annoying. He makes the whingy ‘I need the toilet’ noise at the back door but then won’t ever go…

We got a paddling pool for pupsy and so far I have spent more time in it than she has, @YorkshireFelix! Now she's such a keen swimmer I might get it out again this week seeing as it doesn't look like it's going to get any cooler AT ALL.

V jealous of 13 degrees, @SpanielsGalore.

We used to have a paddling pool like this

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Jsdoin-Paddling-Foldable-Swimming-Non-Slip/dp/B08XNK2WYG

Neither of ours were that keen, despite loving water out and about - possibly too clean! Big pup chewed the top edge so she could remove the inner panels so it is no more.

Those are the exact type I was looking at but Vinny will probably do the same thing and chew it so I might not bother!

It still lasted a couple of years despite the chewing, better than something inflatable for sure which would have lasted approx. 20 seconds

All of you trying to keep cool and this was our walk this afternoon. (The dogs are there somewhere.)

I've got one of them too; Bill also chewed it a bit but it's quite resilient to chewing. He drinks out of it, but I strongly suspect I'll be spending more of the weekend in there than he will.

Oh God I'm so so jealous!

ok maybe I will rethink the pool and buy one then!

I'm also jealous @SpanielsGalore- I love Scotland and I dislike hot weather. My sister lives between Oban and Bute and it’s so lovely to visit!!

I've not been over that side, but I know a spaniel breeder in Oban, so have seen lots of scenic photos.
I'm further north - between Aberdeen and Inverness.
We do get nice weather sometimes. Yesterday I walked wearing shorts and t-shirt. Today it's back to a hat and coat.