Adolescent Dog Survival Thread - welcome to the teenage wasteland

[Bupster]

Buckled (under instruction 😄)

I still work on rewards though, because even after 9 pups I know that trust is a fragile and precious thing, so I never take it for granted

100% @CoubousAndTourmalet

@Beansandcheesearegood what I would say is 100% stop your DH from taking things straight back from him. That's the biggest 'no' when it comes to resource guarding - because it can escalate to snapping if the dog deems the value to be 'high' enough. I'm sure you're already aware of that, but definitely one to consider.

@brushingboots - I feel your pain on 'cow pat' and the need to ignore it. Mine seem to have a thing for deer poo...but they run in circles around me throwing their heads around as though it's the highest value substance known to man and I know if I tried to take it off them they would probably get all stimulated, so I ignore them. Although I'm not sure why I couldn't have bred dogs that retrieve something useful...like gold or diamonds.

@LandSharksAnonymous Pupsy does exactly the same with the head tossing! She loves deer poo and to be honest I just let her have it if she's messing around. When she was little she had a particular taste for dead and flattened voles. On one of her puppy checks I told the vet this, and got told off, but honestly, she's raw fed – a vole that has died of natural causes in the middle of nowhere isn't going to do anything.

Friends, I'm taking a break for a bit.

There's a nasty goady thing just started up by a person with a small crossbreed who is singling out any large breed as being dangerous, unsafe and a threat to children and small dogs. The dogs in question have done nothing aside from being bigger than her own dog and therefore scary. These people say they love dogs but they seem to have an agenda.

If I stick around I will get my head kicked in. Seriously. It'll be the same crowd that called me irresponsible. I'm already in therapy for my anxiety and I just can't cope with any more stress right now. So I'm walking away before I get kicked.

My girl is the sweetest, loveliest creature. She is today looking after two blackbird fledglings in my garden - one of them was in the middle of the lawn earlier and she just stood watching it, made no move to chase it. That is not a dangerous dog.

I just can't deal with all this big dog hate any more. It's unjustified and unfair.

Bye for now
Nade & Brie xxx

We traded so much, my sprocker would steal things and take them outside. And then sit and stare at the door, waiting for his treat to be delivered. He had us well trained. 😂

@CoubousAndTourmalet I haven't seen the discussion (I'll have a look in a minute) but please try to stay posting on this thread. Everyone here is kind and respectful to each other.
I've said this morning that I need keep off other threads, because some people are just complete arseholes. They probably think the same about me, but I don't care.

ETA - the only reason I joined MN was because FB kept taking me to posts that were full of people slagging off cocker spaniels, despite never owning them. So I joined to defend 'my' breed. So I do understand why people slating giant breeds upsets you.
Oh and by the way - those baby blackbirds wouldn't have lasted 30 seconds in my garden.

@CoubousAndTourmalet don't go! I'll fight the fight for you 😁

The thing is, OP's behaviour (in that thread) is more likely to get her and her dog into trouble than anything anyone else is doing. I wonder what that OP will say about my Goldies...because if anything is dangerous, it's probably that many dogs being walked by one person. But I am sure that because it's Goldies, they'll say it's fine - because a Goldie never hurt anyone...

And the blackbirds might have lasted in my garden, but that's because my lot are too thick to do anything (as we learnt from catgate!)

@brushingboots oh I'm glad it's not just mine! I did mention it to a vet once and he said deer poo would like benecol, and to let them have at it 😷Does pupsy still eat vole?

@CoubousAndTourmalet Oh no, don’t go! I am supposed to be working but found the thread you mean. Just ignore! The goadys are gonna goad wherever you go. I just hide stuff that annoys me and actually I’ve hidden lots of topics now which has made my Mumsnet experience much more peaceful.

I branched out onto one other thread beyond here last night because – incredibly – someone was asking for book recommendations on the very specific subject of my own book which is out in September, so I couldn’t resist plugging it.

@LandSharksAnonymous No, actually, she seems to have gone off them – or maybe we just don’t see so many. Perhaps the local cats have got their act together. I think it was part of her learning about the world, the vole-chomping – a bit like the slug phase puppies often have.

Another vote for you to stay here and don’t look at anything else however tempting it may be @CoubousAndTourmalet !!

Cockers were the slagging off dog of choice on here when I got Vinny and now it seems to have turned to large breeds! The whole of MN is absolutely crackers, I’ve never known anything like it. It’s definitely not a reflection of real life.

Totally get this, it’s so hard! I have a dd who is 11 so not super young, but she still forgets a lot and it’s meltdown central when Vinny gets her stuff. Sometimes she forgets to close her bedroom door and I’ll let him upstairs and he makes a beeline for the Sylvanians 🙃 He loves to destroy and chew everything too so as much as I’d happily let him just carry stuff around until he gets bored, it’s just not safe for him a lot of the time. I’ve sacrificed many socks and other random stuff as I pick my battles now.

@CoubousAndTourmalet I have found the thread now. If anyone is getting a kicking, it's the ridiculous person who started it. None of the dogs she mentioned were causing any trouble. Two were on leads. Sound like the big scary beasts were more under control than her children and dog.

@CoubousAndTourmalet I don’t know if it’s my place to say this but can I echo the others and say please don’t go?? Just stay on here 😊

AIBU is so well known for being totally batshit that I’m sure it’s got a sub Reddit dedicated to the stuff that gets posted on there. And what you know about dogs massively dwarfs what that poster knows. I will be surprised if she even returns to it. And as @YorkshireFelix said, it is so totally not representative of real people in real life.

I’ve no idea if blackbirds would last in my garden or not but on introducing Pabs to some ducks and geese earlier (from a safe distance!) I will say that, again, he seemed more interested in trying to eat their excrement 😂

25 here today. Why?! Just give me rain and cold.

Satan is coming over again today (with coffee and cake, apparently - but we shall see). I joked last night to DMum that Satan needs to make the most of it whilst she can because in four weeks the puppies may be bigger than her (she’s tiny for a cocker - only 9kg), and some of my last litter were 8.5ish KG when they went home!

I hope everyone’s dogs get to have a good day (despite the heat)!

Want to swap? Rain and 14 degrees here

15 here and my sea view has disappeared.

@LandSharksAnonymous Satan has a kg on K. She's just reached 8kg at 9.5 months. I think she's fully grown now, but might fill out a bit more. She'd have a whale of a time playing with 11 puppies the same size as her. 💖
Perhaps they could teach her some social graces. 😂

@tizwozliz would happily swap! I'm not really a warm weather person anyway, but the heat this summer is really getting to me!

@SpanielsGalore On bless K! She's so tiny! 😍I think that's what Satan likes most about the puppies - they're smaller than her, so for once she gets to be 'big dog' (even though she 100% bullies my Goldies). I can't believe K's social graces are so bad that puppies could improve them 😃

@LandSharksAnonymous The problem with (for ?) K is she came to live with 2 total softies, who didn't tell her off for inappropriate behaviour. She would literally hang off P's ears and climb all over N. So when she met other dogs, she would charge straight up to them and be right in their faces.
Perhaps that's normal. I'm judging her by P's standards. She's always had impeccable manners. 😇

K is getting better. We met two cocker spaniels last night and she sat and waited at a distance rather than go charging up to them.

@SpanielsGalore ahh that makes sense! I guess that's the downside of two well-behaved and mild-mannered adults - the benefit of owning mum whenever I keep a puppy is that mum is very good at teaching them their manners.

But K is still quite young though, so (perhaps?) she can be forgiven? 😄

@LandSharksAnonymous When I spoke to their breeder, he said the resident bitch would tell the puppy off and teach it some manners. I assured him P would do no such thing, so he said I'd be better off with the calm black bitch. That calmness lasted for the first half hour. 😂

@SpanielsGalore8kg is so tiny! I am sure Vinny was 8kg at birth 😂 He is 16kg now so double her!! There’s someone locally who has a black cocker girl that is 6 weeks younger than V and she is sooooo small. She looks like he did when we brought him home. And she trots along on the lead like an angel 🙄

😂😂😂
K was only 2.5kg at 8 weeks old. Her little head would fit in the palm of your hand.
Be funny to see her next to Vinny. 😂
I thought P was small at 12.5kg, but even she's big next to K.
My boys weighed 14kg and 15kg, so were more V sized.

Unfortunately K does nothing like an angel. 😈 😂

@SpanielsGalore and @YorkshireFelix your posts have made me look out the puppy records. M was 2.75kg at 8 weeks and is now 23- 24 kg at 18 months, so enormous compared to yours!

@Nella68 - is he the sort of size you expected? 2.75kg at 8 weeks seems tiny to me for a dog that ends up 24kg but my experience is only really with labs.

My older one was nearly double that at 8 weeks and she's 25/26 kg as an adult.

@Nella68 That's tiny for a larger dog! P was 3.5kg and she's only 12.5kg at 4 years old.

@Nella68 that's so tiny!

Twatdog was 7.6kg at eight weeks and he was amongst the smallest in the litter! I'll be doing weigh-ins at the vet this weekend with my latest litter and I'm expecting most of them to be around 4kg at only 4 weeks old. Goldies do make for chunky puppies though...

I had to double check- yes 2.75 at 8 weeks, 3.4 at 9 weeks, 4.7 at 10 weeks and then it was a consistent 1kg a week until it really slowed down at about 9 -10 months old.

@tizwozliz yes, we had met parents and a sibling from a previous litter so knew what sort of size he would be. He was the largest newborn pup. The runt of the litter (also male) is now 30kg. We’ve been really conscious about the risk to M’s joints with over feeding so he is on the lean side. He’s recently made the transition to adult food and I think he has lost a bit of weight. He’s going to be weighed tomorrow at the vets for his worming tablets, so I’ll see what they say.