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 😂)

@Idratherbepaddleboarding
Sorry about your loss.
We lost our previous dog, suddenly and prematurely, so I do empathise.
I hope your new pup will help with the healing process, just as ours has.

Sorry for your loss @Idratherbepaddleboarding . Sending lots of hugs.

@Idratherbepaddleboarding - yes we have a 4 year old lab, and a 2 year old now too.

If I'm remembering rightly, remember to hide those remote controls!

@VanGoSunflowers very confident of him (which is very sweet)! I tend not to see that many people either and I always feel for my puppies as they don’t see that many other dogs (minus mine or families) when they’re young just because of my anti-social walking hours!

I find it very interesting how people judge breeds (and their owners). I’m 100% guilty of it myself. But one of my friends has a Mali, and whenever we walk together no one lets their dog go near hers…but they let them say hi to mine! Makes me smile as her dog is definitely the better mannered and less likely to cause injury (mine are just so big they end up squashing others).

@Idratherbepaddleboarding so sorry for your loss ❤

Hello @Idratherbepaddleboardingand sorry to hear about your loss, I can’t imagine how hard it’s been.

@LandSharksAnonymous I definitely think most people will judge dogs and their owners, you have to try and make a judgement on an unknown somehow don’t you? I think if I see an owner that looks largely engaged with their dog, and wants to chat all things dog and basically talk similarly to how all of you speak on this thread (if that makes sense?!) then it usually puts me at ease that they’ve made a real effort with their dog and therefore it’s less like to end badly? Perhaps that’s not the best way to look at it 🤷‍♀️

Weirdly, I would probably be more wary of some smaller/toy breeds - especially if their owners don’t seem to care all that much. Although it’s virtually impossible to tell in a very short interaction!

Just to add, when I said in my previous post that he spent most of today’s interaction sitting by my side, that was because I was giving him pieces of kibble every 30 seconds or so 😂

This dog is sooo food motivated I worry I am making a rod for my own back! Obeying commands first time when I have food to offer nets us a very high success rate - if I don’t have food, not so much 🤦‍♀️

Thank you everyone, it’s been awful but we keep going. The new pup, Rory, will definitely give us something to focus on and to love just as much as we still love Billy. I’ve been able to eat 3 meals for the first time today since it happened.

Yes, @tizwozliz we still have Billy’s teeth marks in the TV remote and we went through 4 Sky remotes (no longer an issue as we ditched Sky ages ago)!

Vinny is insanely food motivated and I always felt like I was giving him too much when training him, but without really thinking about it I’ve been able to hugely reduce the amount of training treats he gets as time has gone on, just because he has matured and we have solidified his training a bit more. On his shorter on lead walks I don’t even bother taking the treat bag out with me any more and he still does as he’s told without it. So honestly don’t worry! I thought he would never behave without the promise of a treat 😂

@Idratherbepaddleboarding sorry to hear about your loss. My boy is obsessed with the sky remote and it’s covered in teeth marks! I hope your new pup helps bring some joy back into your life ❤️

That’s good to know @YorkshireFelix! I guess if it’s helping us get through the puppy phase, I may as well carry on as I am. It makes me smile because I always keep kibble in my right pocket so as soon as he sees my hand go in there he pays attention 😂

@Idratherbepaddleboarding I have a lab and he’s obsessed with the remote. I keep hiding it on high shelves and then getting huffy with myself because I can never remember where I put it! Glad your appetite is getting there

@Idratherbepaddleboarding gosh I'm so sorry to hear about your boy. That's devastating. I hope the youngster brings light and fun.

@scoobiedoozie thank you I’m feeling all over the place tonight, sad about Billy and excited for Rory. I just want both my boys home 💔🥰. It’s going to be a verrrry long 5 more days!

I'm starting to count down the days here too. Last minute purchases happening...what do you all use for training treats?

With us it was cubes of cheese @scoobiedoozie The appropriately named Brie was never interested in sausage or pate.
She does like the Millies Wolfheart training treats though, they do a great little puppy pack with two packs of treats and a small bag of kibble in a cloth bag. The treats are 90% meat and fish, and they last for ages. I'd highly recommend them.

Edited to add link.

https://www.millieswolfheart.co.uk/starter-packs

@scoobiedoozie roast beef. I buy a huge joint, cook it until it's medium and then portion it up once fully cooled. A 2kg joint lasts about 10 days in my house (less when I'm training a puppy) and costs £30(ish). But that's for for adult dogs who get trained 3-4 times a day and go on 2-3 walks a day, so they get a lot of beef 😁

I’m struggling with two linked issues - toilet training and biting. Pup is so bitey I’m often having to put her back in her pen or crate before she has toileted because she’s leaping up and biting me.Or I confess I sometimes don’t take her out as regularly as I should because it’s so unpleasant. Either way, there is then a cleaning up mission! I’m covered in bites and scratches.

I’ve tried all the chews recommended for her age, (12 weeks) frozen carrots, filled frozen kongs . Seem to be so many options she can’t have yet.
Best results are with a chicken and rice chew (jury seems to be out as to whether they are suitable but I am a desperate woman!) Works best if I hold if for her and the poor little soul bites so hard on it, she clearly is in pain.

She also has toys, and I always take one out with me on toilet trips to distract her, albeit that is not particularly effective when I have arms legs and clothes she can go for!

Any ideas ? Or can anyone give me hope this phase will end soon?!

Doesn't seem to matter if she has just had a sleep or needs one. She is sleeping well at night and sleeps during the day

The biting is normal @Lavenderdog , we all go through it. It escalates when they are overtired or overstimulated and need some quiet time, but it sounds as if you're already factoring this in.

The good news is, that things start to improve pretty quickly once the adult teeth come through. The bad news is, that up until then you really just have to learn ways to cope with it.

With the toileting, really you just have to persevere with taking them outside and waiting until they do something. It's the only way they learn.

@Lavenderdog I'd recommend you switch to ice cubes and frozen towels (soak them in water and then wring them out a bit before you bung them in the freezer). Whilst Kongs and carrots and edible chews are great, they rarely give the pain relief that a puppy really needs when teething - which can easily be done with ice (and is also far cheaper) and also provide far too much stimulation for young puppies, which can wind them up if they're already excessively stimulated.

When you're taking her out to toilet, put her on a house line and lead her around your garden (if it's big enough) so she gets a proper sniff and some exercise. I wouldn't take a toy out on your toilet trip - you're not only distracting her from the pain of teething, but you're also distracting her from toileting.

You have my sympathy though, they're little monsters when they start teething.

P was an absolute nightmare as a puppy. She'd be up at 6 a.m. and then spend two hours attacking me. And then repeat at other times of the day. She ripped lots of my clothes by jumping up and slicing them with her razor sharp teeth. Not ashamed to say, I absolutely hated her at times.
I don't think her biting was linked to being tired or over stimulated. She was bitey all times of day and would start as soon as she woke up.
I can't remember anything helping, to be honest. She wouldn't touch carrots. I did buy her a Yak bar, which I think she liked. But mainly it was a case of waiting for her to grow out of it.
I don't know how much time your puppy is spending in her crate and pen. But if it's a lot, it may be a viscious circle. She gets over excited at being out and bites, so goes back in. Comes out, gets excited, bites, goes back in.
Toilet training is a case of persevering until she gets it. K was 4 months old before she got it. They need taking out every half hour, after every meal, every time they wake up, after play etc.

@LavenderdogHonestly puppies are horrible! The never ending biting was the thing that pushed me over the edge many times…

Not sure if this is feasible for you, but one of the best toilet training things I did with mine was buying a cheap metal pen from Amazon. I would pop him in there when it was toilet time, and it was so boring that eventually he would go (and he was contained inside the pen so couldn’t bite me!). I found otherwise he spent so much time just pissing about in the yard getting distracted, he would do everything else except go to the toilet.

@Lavenderdog when Billy was a puppy he was a nightmare for biting but he stopped around 16 weeks when he lost his baby teeth, so not too long to go!

SoupDog eating our garden bench @LavenderdogShe is still teething at 22 weeks but has got a lot less awful. I bought her an olive wood stick to chew on to try and save our wooden furniture. I’d hoped she’d chew the horrible MDF tv unit but no, went for the oak furniture and us. It will get better.

@Lavenderdog sorry to hear you’re having a bad time with the teething, it will get better! No real advice different to what anyone else has said really!

I have just spoken to another trainer and wow, what a difference! She (happy accident, I didn’t purposely try and find a woman I promise 😂) was so much more down to earth than the other guy. I told her I knew nothing and she said “well neither did I 14 years ago but we’ve all got to start somewhere”

Got a much better gut feel about this one and she seems to know what she is doing. She also does her training much more locally to me so we are going to have our first session on Thursday!

That sounds much more promising @VanGoSunflowers