Summer 25 pups

[Lavenderdog]

Any other new puppy owners around this summer? Have been looking back at some of the old puppy support threads and can see how helpful it was for those posters to share their experiences.

9 week old mini schnauzer here - so toilet training and avoiding those needle sharp teeth are the current main activities here!

(And being tolerant of her determination to rid my garden of lavender plants. Hence my user name 😂)

You can use anything you want @MrsKJones There are no rules. It's whatever your pup likes. I use a lot of Millies Wolfheart training treats and small chunks of cheese, because I'm vegetarian, so I don't like handling meat.

When we had 1-1 training, Brie actually ignored the cocktail sausages and homed straight in on the cheese. Cue the trainer joking about her being appropriately named.

@Bupster So he’s essentially ringing the bell for some attention? 😂

@MrsKJones I have a good deal of his kibble allowance in my pocket at all times just to mark random good behaviour or if I need to get him to stay while I open the door or whatever. For a high value treat, I do the same as @CoubousAndTourmalet and use tiny cubes of cheese. What a revelation! He absolutely loves it which is another thing we have in common.

Hi fellow puppy owners, I have a 17 week old working cocker called Lulu, I just wanted to ask some quick advice if that’s ok? She is teething at the moment so I wanted to freeze some carrots for her to chew on. Do you cut them up? If so, what sort of size- just worried about her choking. Do you cook them first too? Thanks xx

@VanGoSunflowers we did the bells too which worked SO well until Vinny also figured out he could ring to go outside and piss about just like @Bupster, so we got rid. They are well worth getting though as we got a good few weeks use out of them before he realised this 😄

Why didn't you open the door when he went to it? Wasn't that his cue to being let out?

I just top and tail and wash them. No, you don't cook them. They can be cut into sticks if you feel it's safer.

Thanks @CoubousAndTourmalet I will keep them whole. Here is a pic of my little land shark

Awww, what a cutie @Twinklystar52 . She's gorgeous 😍

Because @SpanielsGalore, to put it bluntly, sometimes I can be a total idiot 🤦‍♀️ he flitted over to it very briefly and then went straight in to the living room.

Honestly, I know it sounds ridiculous but my brain is like mush sometimes these days (we were chatting on the other ‘stupid things your dog did today thread about puppy brain and leaving keys in the front door and the other day, I nearly tried to wash a block of cheese along with my dishes) I think it’s all the hard thinking I have been doing. I feel it’s like spinning plates sometimes, and sometimes I’m thinking so hard about the more complex stuff that I forget the absolute basics.

Anyway, that rogue poo on the carpet was entirely my fault and I was a little proud of him for alerting me to it. So the plan is now - and it’s chucking it down and chilly here so it’s perfect - letting him out every time he wanders over to the door. And perhaps getting a bell.

She really is and I am totally smitten with her which is a good job as she is like Velcro but that’s whole other issue which I am trying to resolve 😂

Gorgeous ❤️

@VanGoSunflowers Ah I see. That makes sense. I think we've all watched them doing something and the penny (or 💩) didn't drop until a few minutes later.
When I read it, I thought you didn't open the door because he didn't bark, and you wanted him to learn to give a signal.
K is the only one of mine who 'asks' to be let out. She scratches on the door of whatever room she is in. All of the doors are always open, so I think she's been quite clever to come up with that on her own. P comes and sits in front of me and stares at me, until I am intimidated into door opening. N has never asked to go out, but joins in with the others.

Spaniels are velcro dogs, she says currently squashed into a corner of a two seater sofa while her three dogs are sprawled across the rest if it.

@SpanielsGalore I would have been dead impressed if he’d ‘asked’ me to go out!
Ah K sounds really clever to have come up with that. And imagining P intimidating you in to it makes me smile!

We were at exH house yesterday morning (Pabs has been there many times now - so he knows which route to take to get outside) and he did wander over to the door to be let out and subsequently did his business in ExH back garden who helpfully told me he would clean it up later 😂

@VanGoSunflowers What a clever boy. Sounds like he has toilet training cracked already.

I have a question on training, actually if anyone can help.

So far, we tend to do roughly two ‘sessions’ a day - usually involving sit, stay, break - for varying amounts of time, distance etc. try and vary it with ‘hiding’ a couple of pieces of kibble for him to find in the room. I do random bursts of stuff in the kitchen while waiting for dinner to cook and of course training while out walking.

I have been reading a lot of stuff on here lately about mentally tiring your dog out and how good it is for them. In my position, would you carry on with what I am already doing but varying difficulty or would you start introducing new stuff? Should I for example start with some basic scent work or should I start working on retrieving? (I don’t really tend to bother throwing balls for him) or is it a personal choice? I don’t want to overwhelm him but I don’t want him to get bored, either.

@VanGoSunflowers In my view you can’t start gundog skills too early, if that’s what you think he’d/you’d enjoy and if it sounds fun. You could start some tiny retrieves with him with balled up socks. That way you can practice lots of skills at once.

It’s up to you though. I started doing retrieves more or less the day pupsy came home but very tiny, very low stress, all fun, nothing serious at all. I started off sitting down on the kitchen floor – better to find somewhere with carpet/a rug really so they don’t slip – and just teaching her that bringing things back to me and having them near me was good. Not taking it off her with any force, just chucking it a metre, encouraging her to pick up, and bring it back and eventually give it to me.

How old is he now? About 15 weeks?

@brushingboots yes, I do definitely still want to look at gun dog training when he is older so this is a very good idea, thank you. Also, my sock drawer needs a good clear out as they nearly all have holes in because of how much walking I do 😂 (does there exist socks that actually last?!)

He will be 15 weeks on Tuesday.

Just got back from a two-night camping trip and pup could not have been more amazing 🧡 he was absolutely fine on the drive, we stopped off at Pets at Home for a stake to keep him secure in the campsite, which he thought was heaven (people admiring him! Treats! The human children choosing him a new toy!), and he was totally fine chilling out on a line attached to the stake. DH enjoyed it too as he got to have the puppy shift in the sunshine yesterday and they both chilled out whilst I took kids to park (no dogs allowed). Meanwhile I got puppy shift in the belting rain this morning 🙈

Does anyone here train "place", any tips? I'm thinking it might be a great tool for us to be able to help pup know when and where to 'switch off'.

We’ve tried “place” or “settle” as suggested by puppy classes. SoupDog never settled in classes. She settles easily at home but we tried our first ever lunch out yesterday. It was noisy, warm and there was lots of dogs. She was so good, only gave one tiny excited bark, but I wouldn’t say she settled down. She was sitting and standing and whined to get out for a wee. She was better under the table than beside it where she could see lots going on. She managed over 2 hours of a lunch. We brought a pigs ear strip for her to chew but she preferred just watching what was going on. We’re complete novices at this, and I try and sit on a bench in the park during every walk to get her to settle and just watch the world go by. I’ve never managed to get her lying in her blanket on command!!

FWIW, I do settle, but in no specific place. She has no crate or bed, but is very good at settling. I started at 8 weeks old with "settle" for daytime but "sleepytime" at night. My pup is a low energy breed which helps though.

I found some peanut butter in my cupboard, all in date. Ingredients list Peanuts, palm oil, cane sugar and sea salt. I note dog pb only contains peanut and palm oil (or at least the one I've seen in pet shop). Can I give dog my pb or is the sugar/salt bad for them?

I know to avoid xylitol

I always took ‘place’ to mean ‘sit there for a little while’ so that you can send them there if you’re, for example, trying to hang the washing out without wrestling it off them 😂

So we kind of do that, but the command is ‘in your bed’ (which is his crate) with the door open and have been building up the time he is in there before giving him a release command. Which I thought what essentially the same thing as ‘place’ but I could be totally wrong!

I haven’t taught him ‘settle’ but if he is choosing to relax I tend to reward him for being calm. I haven’t given a command for it, though. Might add this to the list of training though! Although I have to say, he rarely tears around that much at home. Tends to mooch about instead.

He’s been to a few pub beer gardens with me, I tend to let him have a sniff around (on his lead) or give him an ice cube to keep him entertained and tbf, he usually settles pretty quickly and goes to sleep once he has sussed out what’s going on around him.

It probably won't hurt him too much, but I personally wouldn't, for the salt and sugar - I've got person peanut butter that's only peanuts, and he likes it better than the dog PB.

Is that the Manilife one @Bupster ? We get that for man & dog - it's good. Sadly, I can't eat nuts.