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 😂)

Don’t worry, I’m sure the advice wasn’t to wait a week when Billy was a puppy. It’s like babies, they keep changing the rules. I didn’t wait a week to take Rory out, he had them on the Wednesday and we picked up up on Sunday and headed straight out! His breeder also agreed it would be fine.

It’s all gone to shit this morning! I got up at 6:20 to make sure I had time to do Rory’s morning routine and get ready to take the car to the garage for 8. I left at 7:20, leaving Rory in the “capable” hands of not-so-DH. I asked him to take Rory for a walk round the path which takes less than 10 mins. He has not taken him out, he hasn’t let him out for a wee and the poor thing was bursting when I got home AND he’s climbed onto the kitchen table and chewed up a flight from one of DS’s darts (thankfully not connected to the actual dart!). Apparently, it’s impossible to work from home and look after a puppy, not sure what I’ve been doing all week then 😡.

He’s now quite happy with a frozen Kong and I can get one with some of that work that it’s impossible to do 🙈.

@Unmute - our most recent puppy, we were told we could take her out the day following her second vaccination. Just avoid water and litter bins. Everyone seems to get told something different.

This is for up to 6 months old on your current food. It's a rough guide. So if puppy looks fat, give a bit less. If they look thin, feed a bit more. And if you change brand, you might need to recalculate amounts.
4kg =115 gms
5kg =130gms
6kgs = 147gms
7kg = 164 gms
8kg = 181 gms
9kg = 198 gms
10kg = 215 gms

I give raw food to puppies. My previous dogs were raw fed, but I have just switched to dry food. They still get raw chicken wings for Sunday dinner.

@Unmute I have put my puppies down on the ground before they were fully vaccinated. Sometimes when I was carrying them on a walk, they'd start whining and squirming, so I put them down to have wees.
With current puppy, the vet said she couldn't even go in the garden until she was fully vaccinated. Sod that. I wasn't having her toilet inside the house for three weeks!

@SpanielsGalore not being allowed in the garden seems a bit extreme! I definitely wouldn't have managed that.

I'm not going to stress about it. Pup needs more stimulation than she's getting inside the house, and it sounds like the risks are fairly low. I'll keep her out of puddles and I won't let her play in the bins.

Meh, we went out the day after B's last jab. It would have been straight away but I realised I'd locked myself out when we got back from the vet so had to faff around waiting for a locksmith!

I'm sure you're not walking down addict's alley or rat run canal and you both need a change of scene for sanity's sake!

@Unmute I don’t blame you. Glad he enjoyed walkies! My pup refused to walk the first few times I attempted it.

Thankfully followed @LandSharksAnonymous advice and went somewhere new and also swapped harness for collar and he’s now scamping about. Will try again with harness at some point.

He’s massive fan of digging on the beach 😂

@Paws4thought25 Rory is the opposite, loves his harness but hates his collar. He looks so pretty in it too 🥺.

He redeemed himself from his earlier misdemeanour (which I blame DH for not him) by being going out for lunch and being an angel 😇. I promise I am working today (sort of it’s my study day) 😂.

Ah same here, I took Rolo out the day after second vaccine (Wednesday). So good your pup was good on the lead, Rolo is walking grand, slight pull now and again, but barking at every human that walks past us. That’s our new challenge, stop bloody barking at everything lol!! Have you seen a difference since walking? Rolo seems exhausted and we have been doing very small walks around the block but it zonks him out the rest of the day. Normal for a pup right?

@SpanielsGalorethanks so much for this!! Definitely keeping it close by 😂

Brilliant 😂 I hope your photos survived! This morning I moved all the books, and she’s now shown no interest in the chair. And I have been telling her to Stop! when she attacks feet and hands and given her a treat, and it seems to be working. Amazed. Lucky for us she is VERY food-oriented, so there might have been some progress here…

@Paws4thought25 brilliant news! ❤Lucky doggy (and you) living so close to such a lovely beach!

@Megsro yes, totally normal! Don’t forget it’s a whole new world of sight, smells, maybe people and dogs! Sniffing wears them out more than walking! Rory is knackered from his trip out to lunch today and he didn’t even really do anything 😂.

@Megsro my small couch hippo is exhausted! She got up and stretched just now and I when I said "do you want to go out?" she instantly curled back up and closed her eyes. Usually she'd be heading for the door. There's so much brain power being used up out on a walk.

@MegsroSoupDog is absolutely exhausted after 20 minutes of sniffy walk. If the house is quiet - ie, it’s just me in, she’ll sleep/chill for 2 hours. Brain work definitely beats running in circles at speed for tiring mine out.

Definitely not complaining that he likes to snooze after his walks lol! He’s a dachshund so those small legs are moving more than they ever have done 😴

Aww we’ve had the loveliest evening at our village hall quiz. I thought we’d just pop in for half an hour for socialisation (he’ll be spending a lot of time at the village hall!) but Rory was so happy we ended up staying til 9pm! Rory helped collect the entrance fee which is £2 per person and one puppy stroke minimum 😂. He enjoyed a play on the field and a nap under my chair. He got lots and lots of compliments on how good and chill he is 🥰. He did bark at a child for misbehaving though 😂. Someone asked if I was training him and I was like well he’s kind of training himself…

The only slight issue is he won’t wee outside of his own garden, as soon as we got into the front garden he did a massive wee so must have been bursting!

@Struckbylightning My pup (14 weeks) turns into devil dog when I take her in the garden in the evening! I recognize your description of that glint in the eye.

She’s a bit bitey all day, although that is improving, and I’ve been trying to get her to have more sleep. However I find it easier to manage her by leaving her harness on, and clipping the lead on the top of the harness and the front.

@Megsro I don’t increase it using any kind of scientific method really 😂 I just look at him to see if I think he’s getting enough or too much, I think I can tell with mine day by day if he needs more or less food if that makes sense?! Like when he had that day where he barely ate, he’d already started to look pretty skinny to me but it only took a day or so to get him back to looking pretty much spot on.

@Unmute I do not blame you one bit for getting your pup out in your circumstances! And I really hope it makes a bid difference with the biting! How has she been since?

@Idratherbepaddleboarding glad you had such a lovely evening! Sounds like he is enjoying the attention!

So we went out for the day with some friends yesterday- 2 hour drive each way and Pablo slept in the car the whole way there and back. Which was perfect because by the time we got to where we were going, which was a very busy and quite famous pub, he was alert but not over tired and so he was very calm! Had to stop him from trying to jump all over a stunning little cocker pup though! We then took him for a swim - my friend is in to wild swimming so she was in the water and carried him out a very short way and he swam back to shore where I was stood. I don’t think he was a huge fan of it in the end, he didn’t want to go back in anyway! But then I thought that’s not necessarily a bad thing as perhaps I can walk him by water - canals and such - and he won’t automatically jump in?! He was an angel all day though ❤️

Only for some of the time. We’re in London most of the week so his walks involve traffic and crazy Deliveroo cyclists in the park. He definitely prefers the coast… but don’t we all!?! 😆

We are not quite two days in. I'm dead tired but she is loving and beautiful. She doesn't like waking up to me not being there, has taken against the car, and the cats are far from sure. So plenty for me to overthink... I really have been worrying terribly about all kinds!

I just have to remember it's early days and we can fix things as we go.

@scoobiedoozie ah she’s so beautiful!

Anything anyone on here could help you with? How is she with the car?

I have a bit of a vague question.
So, at nearly 4 months old, we’ve done a fair bit of training already and sometimes he does what he is asked and sometimes he doesn’t. I figure this is ok because he is still a baby? So what sort of age would you say your dog would obey commands, first time and without getting a treat, most of the time?

It’s only so I can relax a bit about it all, so if someone says for example that by around 2 years old they’ll mainly be reliable on recall and loose lead walking etc - I know I have a long time over which to get these things down if that makes sense? I know this is probably “how long is a piece of string” type question as they’re all different 😂

@VanGoSunflowers I think it's a personal decision. Some people use treats; some don't.
I never stop using treats for recall and self check ins. Although sometimes self check ins are rewarded with lots of over the top fuss rather than food. They all get a treat for getting into the car. (Which only started because P is frightened of it.) But for things like sitting and waiting at the door when we are getting ready to go out, they don't get treats. Their reward for that is going for the walk.
If it's an official training session, so to speak, I would reward everything. So a training retrieve would be rewarded. But a game of fetch in the garden wouldn't be.

She is beautiful! It will get easier @scoobiedoozie hang in there! It’ll all be worth it. My advice… is ask for advice! It’s so good to have other people’s opinions/advice for everything you’re unsure off!