Adolescent Dog Survival Thread - welcome to the teenage wasteland

[Bupster]

Buckled (under instruction 😄)

Happy Gotcha Day, Vincenzo. 🥳
Such a little cutie. 💖

He’s cute until you get to know him properly 😂

You know it's love when.......

you look out of the window and see your puppy struggling. And immediately glove up to go and lend a helping hand. 🤢😂

Had quite a stressful day yesterday at a family gathering (20 plus people) All dog fans so despite me asking for them to please ignore M until he calms down, the all made a huge fuss of him so he turned completely feral jumping up and charging round with the excitement. Normally that would have been ok but a couple of toddlers were there and he sent them flying. He had to be on lead for most of the day (to prevent him taking out the toddlers), so by the time the little ones had gone he was like a wild child. It was the zoomies on steroids; he hasn’t mouthed me for months but it was like having a small puppy again but this time a huge puppy. Fortunately his teeth aren’t as sharp but he still managed to bruise my arm. He hadn’t slept all day so it was like having an overtired human toddler in full meltdown.
On the plus side, I didn’t wake up until 9.30 this morning and he was still fast asleep!

@SpanielsGalore is puppy a bit constipated or eaten something like grass? That happened with M when he had swallowed one of my daughter’s long hair and it made M’s poo into a string of sausages 🤢

She'd eaten grass. Felt like a magician pulling out a string of handkerchiefs. 😂

Sorry you had a difficult time yesterday. It's so annoying when people can't follow simple instructions and it's ultimately M and you that suffer the consequences.

Yay for the lie in this morning though.

@SpanielsGalore Next time I have a litter, I might enlist your help! 😁Your post gave me flashbacks to week 3-5.

@Nella68 Oh that sounds so stressful...people really can't help themselves when it comes to young dogs, can they? I hope no one was angry at him when he knocked the toddlers over. Do you think he'll stay sleepy today or he will bounce back with a vengeance?

@YorkshireFelix He really was (and still is) the most handsome little chap. 😍

@LandSharksAnonymous I'll come prepared with my own box of gloves. 😁 God imagine having to do it for 11 of them!

My sprocker once ate a leg (tentacle?) off an octopus cuddly toy. He ran round the garden like a dog with two tails. One of them being purple. 😂

@SpanielsGalore My sleep deprived brain did not read the 'cuddly toy' part and it took me a moment to process! 😅What makes me smile is they're always so proud of themselves when they destroy something - I'm sure it's the being told off, or thinking they've done something naughty, that makes them happier...

Twatdog does that. He's not happy unless he's destroyed something, or stolen something, or is being told off. Honestly I am sure he gets himself into trouble on purpose because whenever he's being told off he just grins up at me - any attention is good attention, apparently, even when I'm threatening to send him to live with Satan.

@LandSharksAnonymous Oh god! Can you imagine him prancing around the garden with a real octopus tentacle trailing out his backside? 😂
He had Pica so we had to remove all toys in the end.

I love Twatdog. He sounds like my kind of dog. 💖

Just realised - is it puppy rehoming day today?

@SpanielsGalore oh god my dd has really long hair and the amount of times I’ve had to pull out a poo dangling on a piece of hair 🤢🤢🤢

@Nella68 that is so frustrating, I’m sorry! It makes such a huge difference if they are allowed the time and space to settle first. V is a nightmare in a new place with lots of people about so I know he would react in the exact same way. Not exactly the nice relaxing get together you expected!

@SpanielsGalore Oh God that image 😫Tbh he'd probably have been even happier!

One more week. By this time next Sunday it will just be me, DDs and five dogs. Only one more week until I get to move back into my bed. My beautiful bed. This week will be a bit mental though, lots of people want to come as often as possible - so my house is turning into Piccadilly Circus. But that is because I've confirmed to everyone which puppy they are getting now, so now instead of coming around and handling 2-4 puppies each they can now come around and just bond with 'their' puppy.

@YorkshireFelix it was a bit like when my twins were toddlers and I didn’t have enough eyes - not relaxing at all!

@YorkshireFelix For some reason human hair makes it sound worse than when it's grass.

When P was about 5 months old we were in the woods, and she came running across and squatted in front of me. At the time, I thought how good it was that she was so bonded with me, she knew to 'ask' for help. The novelty has well and truly worn off now.

@LandSharksAnonymous Got my weeks mixed up. It's good of you to let people visit so often. I'd be there every day if I was close enough.

Oh god I have never had to pull poo out of pupsy's bum! Maybe I am missing out. Or not. This morning we went to some new woods that I'd researched and it was so full of ferns I was half expecting a T-Rex to pop out at any time. Saw precisely zero other dogs and zero other people. Bliss.

And then I lost my car key in the big Sainsbury's and half the county saw me running around like a mad woman, increasingly stressed (not least as my house keys were in the car and I'd had to park my paid-for shopping randomly) looking for it. Luckily I'd taken the key that has an AirTag on it and a kind soul had found it in the carpark and put it on a bollard for me. Extreme cringe. I got home and burst into tears – think it was the adrenaline. Swings and roundabouts, eh?

The first time it happened with my older one she screamed, and then was running around the garden hopping and not having fully witnessed the incident we thought she'd broken her leg!

Cut head open on barbed wire = not a noise
Poo hanging out bottom = death wail

Younger one does as @SpanielsGalore says her pup does and does middle in order for me to help.

Hoping we're coming to the end of prime grazing time and should be relieved of duties until next Spring.

@SpanielsGalore honestly, the visitors are the only thing stopping me going completely bonkers. I don't think I've left the house for longer than 90 minutes for the last eight(ish) weeks, as I was already keeping close to Pen for about a week before she went labor. And, as much as I love my parents, DSis and DDs...actual human company from people who are not my relatives is just lovely.

@brushingboots as much as I miss people, there is nothing better than a walk where you see no people and no other dogs. That sounds like bliss! Although the running around the car park, not so much. Have you ever parked your car and then been unable to find it? I've never lost my keys (famous last words), but I have misplaced my car quite a lot...

Yes, I've lost my car but not my keys (I use a clip on my dog bag as if it isn't attached to me I will lose it) went round and round the woods looking for it.

@brushingboots sounds lush. When I win the lottery I'm going to buy a large woods and call it one way round woods. Everyone would walk in the same direction so no head on surprises.

@LandSharksAnonymous I've never lost my car but there's still time! I would have been completely buggered if I'd lost it today, with my house keys and IKEA bag for shopping inside. A salient lesson in a) doing your handbag up before striding busily across a carpark; b) not leaving your house keys in the car!

@IchLiebeDeutscheSchaferhunde That would be ideal! We met a lovely pair of poodles this evening but I was sad to hear that one could never go off the lead 'because he won't come back'. Felt like I'd stepped into a Mumsnet thread.

My friend lost her car in a car park once. She got to the panicking stage before remembering she'd been dropped off. 😂

What does everyone do about walking their bitches when they are in season?

@SpanielsGalore When pupsy was in heat last year it was March so I took advantage of the shorter evenings and did more lead walks. I carried on virtually as normal with the morning walks because so many of our walks are super rural and often we don't see anyone anyway. I made sure that where we might see people we went at unlikely times and stuck to areas where if randy boy dogs did sniff her then it wouldn't be a danger – ie not where they could bolt from one side of the A1 to another. We went to our deer park a lot too where she had to be on a lead and I long-lined her – and actually she ended up doing a lot more training during those weeks out of necessity which was convenient because she was going through a wilful phase.

I'm sure people will say I was irresponsible but there was no way I wasn't going to walk her offlead for a month. It wouldn't have been fair on either of us. I was scrupulous about where we went and when and only walked with other bitches too – not that we know that many undone boys anyway (present company excepted!)

Evening! I’m just catching up with the thread and finding the posts about trainers interesting. I was going to do an IDMT behaviourist course a year or so ago - but I delayed because I have an on/off bad back and the lady I spoke with said I shouldn’t worry too much about that as theoretically the trainer is training the person to handle the dog, not taking over handling the dog for the owner. I’m not sure whether this is commonplace throughout the industry. I have the most amazing dog walker who in all honesty could blow the socks off most trainers I’ve seen on social media/TV. She handles the energy. She can handle absolutely any dog, in any situation and her ability to read canine body language is almost inate. I’ve told her she’s wasted walking and should become a qualified behaviourist, but she loves the dogs she walks too much to get into the behavioural side of things. Anyway; my point is, she also doesn’t ‘fuss’ dogs she’s just met. Upon meeting a strange dog she doesn’t look straight at it, or pet it - she does all the meeting via smell and energy. It’s incredible to watch. She also does this with traumatised horses. Takes her weeks of letting them smell her, approach at their own speed, before she so much as touches them. So she typically wouldn’t touch a new charge (and God forbid if someone reaches out to touch one of ‘her dogs’ that she’s walking, without asking first-her biggest pet hate). She is so in demand that I’m also starting with another behaviourist to compliment her efforts with me and my ‘pack’ problem, so will update as and when house move allows. I agree with a PP-my two are much better behaved with her than with me. We have established this quite recently. I think I know why - I’ve not been consistent with certain things and she is. She corrects them all the time and doesn’t take her eyes off them. I do. My mind wanders and I have let my Newfoundland have her own way obvs too often when younger, so she’s learned she can ignore me. I also need her to STOP trying to protect Olive Lab if she gets herself into a pickle/lunges with excitement at a dog who will snap back. It HAS got better with age I guess for little Lab.
As far as Brie is concerned, I’d say that it’s vital you have someone who has a good knowledge and understanding of LGDs-such a shame about the trainer who professed they had. They are wired differently in order to patrol their perimeters/protect their livestock, and unless a trainer or behaviourist has that experience, I don’t know how they can be of much help?

@LandSharksAnonymousI’m not sure whether I told you, but I have recently become the proud ‘Grandogma’ of a beautiful Golden Retriever. It’s my son and his partners first family dog. (His partner is quite experienced through her family dogs over the years), but my son isn’t and needs to listen to his DM more/be a little tougher on boundaries as he’s going to be a big boy, SO… I await with bated breath as to how Grandog GR will pan out. (And am already worried that he has lucked out and has a puppy who is WAY calmer than my Lab !)
Here he is, along with a recent one of my two 😍

@SpanielsGalore I don’t walk whichever one is on heat. But we have several big (3-4acre) dog walking fields nearby and live in a fairly decent plot. So they don’t go without. If I only had one, I probably would - but four dogs takes management at the best of times (particularly when one is Twatdog) and honestly Clem, in particular, is very snappy so I wouldn’t want to chance some poor boy dog coming a cropper…

@abracadabra1980 what a cutie! I cannot wait to hear about the mischief puppy gets up to (and whether he drags your two along with it…)! How big do you recon he’ll get?

@LandSharksAnonymous hmm I'm not an expert on the size they'll grow - can I just say, BIG?! (We had a male Golden in the family years ago and he didn't seem much smaller than Mrs Newf (she's on the smaller side for a Newfie-42kg).

Thank you @brushingboots and @LandSharksAnonymous
Back in the day, it seemed to be that people didn't walk their dogs when in season. Nowadays people seem to carry on as normal. I have met two people with off lead in season bitches. They both let their dog interact with mine before checking if they were entire males.

P has finally come into season again. It's been two years since her last one. For her previous two seasons, I didn't walk her at all. We did agilty and retrieves in the garden and I hired a freedom field a few times.
We are on day 8 now. So far I have walked her down by the sea front. There's a big open field there, so I can see if anyone is coming. (Wasn't great when she took off up the beach after the ducks though.) I daren't risk walking in the woods. Too many narrow windy paths where you can't see if anyone is coming the other way. She'd have to stay on a short lead and that wouldn't be fun for either of us.
And I do worry about tormenting entire males in the area. One of mine nearly got run over, following a scent. He didn't stay entire for long after that.
I agree about the multiple dogs making it more difficult @LandSharksAnonymous . I took all three out last night, but N's energy levels are so different to the other two it makes it harder to manage. She's plodding way behind, K is tearing around hunting ducks and P is running backwards and forwards in between.
I'll hire a field for a few days a week, and walk them separately on other days, so they can have undivided attention. Although I doubt we'll be going anywhere today as we're being battered by Storm Floris.