Adolescent Dog Survival Thread - for teenage dirtbags

[Bupster]

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

Yeah, it is that neck/head ratio that's the issue. Sighthounds are generally on a Martingale, I believe, and we do have one... but I feel like she needs something with more substance. But I will have a look around.
I'll keep trying with the harness but it seems to induce paralysis at the moment, she just freezes when she feels it on her shoulders.

@TeenLifeMum Wellies either: on feet, chucked in the back, or in with dog. Mostly on feet as I can’t be bothered swapping shoes around. I tend to leave her travel water bowl/bottle/towel/drying coat in the boot with her too unless they’re being washed, and then I inevitably forget them for several walks until they finally get brought back out again. So best policy for us is to keep everything in the car.

If it helps, my cocker girlie didn’t change at all post-spay – or not that I noticed, anyway. She just grew up a bit. I have even managed to keep her coat in silky shape too which is an achievement as spaniels are very prone to ‘blowing’ their coats post-spay, some colours more so than others. She’s two next week and super chilled, though I constantly get ‘oh she’s very busy!!!’ etc if we bump into people on walks etc and I just smile and wave, because if a cocker isn’t busy on a walk there’s something wrong.

@CoubousAndTourmalet ah I see. We have 3 teens so need space for kayaks and paddle boards.

I think the older dog teaches them to nap/rest more so they are less overtired. She’s definitely better at downtime than the older boy.

We got the second in a bit of an unplanned, fuck it, life is shit and we need some joy kind of way. Ddog1 was given 2 weeks to live in September/october but is still here and has completed chemo (hurrah for insurance because 4 was too young to lose him but only possible to fight due to insurance being amazing). And our vet who worked to keep within the insurance amount (they stopped charging for him to be a day patient because they all loved having him there so much 🥰) you’d have no clue he was ever ill and he plays with the new puppy so beautifully. It’s the best impromptu decision we’ve ever made.

Today we did some river/kayak training.

Fab photo @TeenLifeMum

Ah, I think I remember now, about your older dog's diagnosis, and you being unsure about the timing of a pup... It's brilliant that things have worked out so well. How amazing that your boy has beaten the odds like that (and yes, thank goodness for insurance). Long may his progress continue 🤗

Yes Frank fights sleep even tho he's in constant chomp mode when he's tired @CoubousAndTourmalet that must have been scary!

@CoubousAndTourmalet the reality is we’re unlikely to have him in a year but, right now, he’s well and loving life. 95% of the time he likes the pup. Occasionally she’ll be jumping on him and I swear he looks at me with a “why does she live here?” face 🤣

@Sideorderofchips I realise that yesterday I may have sounded a bit glib re. the mouthing! And I was just going through my puppy pack to new owners for my next litter and was thinking about your Post...

It DOES get better - but you need to channel it into something constructive.

Labs are like Goldies - they love to have things in their mouth. So the trick is to keep their mouth full of things that won't cause harm to you (or them). Lots of soft toys (without squeakers if you can - they seem to stimulate retrievers far too much). Try ice cubes as well as freezed towels or flannels - it helps with their teething. Nothing too stimulating. Try not to shout or screech (I've always found that retrievers find a 'noise' when they bite to encourage them to bite more) but prize their jaws off, say "No" and redirect.

On the off-chance it makes you feel better, my latest Goldie is a total tosser (I have ranted at length about him on various threads). He used to do this evil and I mean truly evil (curly lip, glare, licking his lips) gaze and then he'd launch and chomp. He's an angel now (she says watching as he tosses stuffing around the garden and plays in it like it's snow). He spent this morning's walk, trotting next to me with my hand in his mouth whilst he gave me a lovely tongue massage. Not a single 'chomp' was had. Although my hand still feels a bit slimey...

So it does get better.

Ah thank you! Yes he has lots of toys we redirect him with. He's very destructive with them and have to keep replacing them 🙄. It's mainly when he's excited or tired

Yes! Thank you @LandSharksAnonymous I mentioned the "hand holding" on this thread the other day. I honestly thought I'd be called irresponsible (again) for allowing her to do it, so I'm pleased that someone else has an overgrown puppy doing the same. But slimy hand and slimy lead is yucky, it has to be said 😝

I'd also recommend a washed carrot from the fridge (or even left in the freezer for a few minutes) as a good soother for teething pups. Brie is back on the goats milk ice cubes now the weather is warm and those are great as well.

@CoubousAndTourmalet I don't think it's irresponsible at all! My 13 year old still does it on occasion - sometimes she falls asleep with her jaws wrapped around my wrist. I think it's a comfort thing for them (alongside that instinct part that just comes with being a retriever).

Oh washed carrot is a good one! I might try the goatsmilk...not that it would last long enoguh to benefit them in anyway - one chomp and it's gone!

I've gotta say the hot weather is a killer in terms of trying to keep them occupied. The older ones are okay, as they're used to it. But twatdog (I promise he's called that with love in mind) still very much has that 'I was bred to work, so work me' mentality and given how big and fluffy he is, he tends to get over-heated so quickly. I'm praying we don't have another super hot summer as I am not relishing the idea of 4AM walks...a dog might never have died without a walk, but whoever said that clearly didn't have gundogs! 😄

I haven't had a hand holder before @LandSharksAnonymous , although we've had a few that like to groom/clean us by nibbling, which can hurt! We did have one funny little Pyrie girl who would sometimes fall asleep with her mouth around her own wrist, rather like a little kid sucking their thumb.

I'm with you regarding the weather being frustrating. I'm currently getting up at 4 or 5 and letting Brie sit out. Fortunately, she's not a barker. She is choosing to spend more time indoors during the afternoon, because our back garden is a sun trap from late morning. We have an extension with tiled floor and full blinds, plus two fans blowing so she's quite comfortable in there. She's actually surprisingly good at settling now, without needing stimulus, but it's still a pain having to restrict her walks to 6am or 8pm. I can imagine it is worse with more active breeds such as yours though. The PMD is not a particularly high energy dog compared to the gundogs and some of the hounds.

If it really hots up in June/July, the double coat is going to be a problem for us too, but I keep reminding myself that these dogs work in far hotter places than this. And our previous ones lived through warm summers here, so we'll manage. But it'll be a relief when we get to September and the long walks can resume.

Lovely to see this thread so active again! Welcome to the new pups who have joined us.

@TeenLifeMum gosh that is so sad re your older one. I can’t even imagine. Glad to hear he is still here and they are enjoying each others company! I do sometimes think mine might like a friend but I don’t think I’d have one from a puppy again!! Although maybe I won’t be saying that once we’ve got through the teenage stage…

Nah! We should all get a second dog @YorkshireFelix 😁Go back to the puppy thread and start again 😆

We're fortunate that we have a wooded area with a stream nearby. It is walkable but we drive there on very hot days. But for labs mine don't have super thick coats and they're fairly heat tolerant.

Re: the goats milk ice cubes. Mine used to love ice cubes, and then one day I made ice cubes from water I'd boiled some chicken in and she never touched a plain ice cube again!

Vinny is mouthy, he’s a pain in the arse with it. It’s my only major gripe at the moment! It’s when he’s tired and overstimulated. He attacked the hell out of me this morning and now my arms are covered in scratches from his teeth. The rest of the time he can be an angel so I guess it could be worse. I am confident he will grow out of it eventually…

We had an early walk this morning too. I do actually prefer it to our lunchtime walk as it’s much quieter. Although Vinny was repeatedly chased by a horrible yappy Yorkshire Terrier on the field we always walk on. The owner took ages to come over and retrieve him and then told me he’d just been told off by another spaniel 10 minutes ago for doing the same thing!! She said he was 11 months and getting him neutered next week because of it. Not sure it will make a difference but good luck to her 😬 V has come on loads with his confidence around other dogs as we eventually managed to move on and he was totally unphased by it. A couple of months ago he would have been scared, jumping up at me whining for the rest of the walk.

He was fab off lead for the rest of our walk, and sat very nicely waiting for people and even other dogs to pass by. A lady commented that he was very well trained and I told her she’s not seen him the rest of the time 😂

😱😱😱😱😱

I'm hating the warm weather, and dreading it getting hotter - Bill is awake at dawn anyway and a lot of negotiation has happened to get to the current agreement of 6:15am. I struggle to get to sleep at a sensible hour at the best of times - it was 1am last night - so it's fair to say I'm not at my most sparkly before 7am. Then there's the careful timing needed to get him out for an hour's walk and training in a nearby green space; we can't leave before 7:30am or we run into dogs that hate him/he hates, but if we get it just right we have the place to ourselves long enough to spend 20 minutes training, doing retrieves and hunting and sit/stays, so I'm really reluctant to give it up even though it can be a pain.

He won't poo in the garden, so I still have to get him out in the early afternoon - I've worked out I can walk him down to the nearby cemetery on the shady side of the street and we can sort of trot from shady patch to shady patch there, but then there's nowhere really to take him in the evenings without going back on ourselves, as the dog park has no shade at all till late evening and Bill is currently a nobhead with strange entire males so I have to have eyes on stalks like those 1980s deely boppers.

It's frankly exhausting. I need to start getting him out in the car more (now we have aircon) so we have more options. Bad weather is so much easier - no other bugger is out. I wouldn't even attempt to keep him in all day, even if he'd be willing to poo out the back - he'd drive me completely and utterly insane.

I feel your pain @Bupster Mine rise with the sun as well. Great in winter...not so great in summer!

My DM has one of those cooling jackets for her cocker which appears to work fairly well in cooling her down. Would that work for Bill? I think you can get one for about £50 and all you do is bung it in the freezer (DM then gets it out about an hour before the walk as she has her cocker clipped v. short so doesn't want to risk her freezing). I tried the cooling jackets, but mine are so thick - metaphorically (they kept trying to pull them off each other) and physically (dense coats) that it just didn't work.

If he's okay in the car, you could try dog walking fields in the evenings? The one near me always has slots free after 20:00, so it's a lot cooler, which is great for running off excess energy and you don't need to worry so much about poor visibility once the sun sets as it's not like they can go anywhere. My worst nightmare is one of mine having a night-time flight on a walk and me wandering around in the dark trying to find them. Dog fields definitely can't replace a good walk, but there are so many sniffs in them that it's a good way of tiring out a sniffy type dog once a week or so!

I think dog owners must be the only people in the UK who long for a cold, wet, summer 😃

We are having a terrible time in the sun, as you can see… she rotates between her bed, the (large) bird bath, and a variety of shady spots including under my chair. Did an hour in the woods together this morning, will do half an hour in a different woods this evening. She’s just a bit lazier in the heat – black dog problems – but that works for me.

Vinny lies directly in the sun too, he loves it. I think charges him up like a solar panel.

Would anyone like a neurotic spaniel or up for a swapsies 🤣🤣🤣
He's got his looks going for him

2 minutes later ....
🤣🤣🤣

Think I might need to join this thread, as perfect puppy appears to be turning into deaf adolescent.
She's had perfect whistle recall since 11 1/2 weeks old. She's now 7 1/2 months and you'd think she'd never heard a whistle before in her life. 🙄

Hi @SpanielsGalore
Gorgeous pup, you'll fit in well here, this is Spaniel World 😉Sort of.

Sorry, can't help re the selective deafness; my girl was deaf to recall from 8 weeks and is no better at 13 months 🙄But yes, dog adolescence is a wonderful thing, which somehow feels so much more exhausting in the warmer weather... 😩

Yes I did notice most posters had spaniels. I can't think why. 😳😂