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 have as much knowledge as me on Lab sizes 😊
I do think he will end up on the bigger side, personally. Although only time will tell on that regard. I think he has quite long legs. I used to think his paws looked big for his size but not they seem in proportion to me now.
On the odd occasion when he jumps up at DS (he’s slowly learning not to!) he places his paws on him and they almost reach his shoulders! Although in fairness DS isn’t tall for his age.

Did you say that you don’t think Brie has stopped growing yet or have I imagined that?

I’m definitely not an expert on doggy genetics 😂
Pablo’s mum is black but his dad is yellow but the breeder said the mum can only have black pups and both litters were all black.

Im sure you must miss him terribly ❤️ it does seem as though things are going well for you with Rory!

The breeder has just sent a pic of Pablo’s mum next to a girl from the same litter as him that she kept and she’s not far off the same size as her mum already!

You only have to look at variations in sizes amongst the same litter to know it's not an exact science. My older pup's litter was all very even in size at 8 weeks (within 100g of each other) but we've met 2 of the other girls and there's 5kg difference between them as adults (with mine somewhere in between).

@VanGoSunflowers - coat colour involves two genes, but if they know Mum has a certain genotype (and I think this is something they can test for) they'll know all pups can only be black.

I do actually know the answer to this! His mum must have 2 black genes so all her pups will be black as that’s the dominant gene. Rory’s dad is black (Drakeshead Flycatcher no less, he’s a fancy pup!) but he has one black gene and one yellow gene. Surprisingly though, all of Rory’s litter are yellow (fox red but that’s not an “official” colour for labs).

I certainly do miss Billy so much, I still can’t believe it happened TBH. I can go a little longer without thinking about him now but then when I do it hits harder IYSWIM. I wouldn’t change Rory for the world but I just want them both together. Billy loved other dogs, especially other labs and he’d have loved his little brother so much 💔.

Ah that’s interesting. Lot of variation there. I suppose there are so many variables too so that makes sense!

And thanks for the explanation on the coat colour. I feel like today has been a learning day 😎

Really, no two pups follow the same pattern of growth @VanGoSunflowers and smaller pups can catch up with the ones that started out larger.

Both of Brie's parents are big, and right now, at 16 months, she's tall and long like our boys were at this age. She's significantly bigger than our previous three girls were. Obviously she needs to fill out a bit and muscle up, I could say height wise we're probably there now, but she'll mature over the next year and she hasn't got the full adult coat yet so no, not fully grown.

Poor girl was referred to as "he" yet again yesterday 😂because, apparently, all massive dogs are male 🙄

@Idstillratherbepaddleboarding - my older one has quite a few Drakeshead dogs on her mum's side. Endacott too. Truthfully, knowing what I know now, she has far too much red in her pedigree for me. :-)

@tizwozliz are you saying that you don’t think her ancestors are actually the ones on her pedigree??

I grabbed Rory a little paddling pool from Aldi 🥰. I don’t think he’ll care that it’s pink, he’s a modern pup 😂. I thought he’d have more room in it though!

@Idstillratherbepaddleboarding - no, red means Ft Ch so lots of drive. A pup without quite so many field trial champions in their pedigree would probably have been an easier first dog 😁

Yes, this makes sense. I quite like to imagine what he will look like when he’s older - obviously not wishing his life away or anything but it’s like when I look at DS and wonder things like will his hair go darker and will his eyes be slightly different colours (he has one blue eye and one green eye) and I think the same things about Pabs (obviously I know his fur won’t change colour 😂)

Brie looks like a feminine dog to me on the pics I’ve seen. Although I must admit I try and guess what sex a dog is when I chat to their owners and sometimes get it wrong 🤦‍♀️

@tizwozliz & @Idstillratherbepaddleboarding I assume those are the kennel prefixes? As in, the breeders they came from? I must admit I am a bit clueless about that side of things still. If I ever decide to get another pup I shall educate myself better the second time around!

I don’t regret getting Pablo, but I regret going with the breeder I went with if you see what I mean. It’s a weird contradiction because I adore my pup! Not so keen on the breeder… but that’s my own mistake and I shall own it and do better in future. For now, let’s see if I survive the rest of the puppy and then adolescent years 😂

Ohhhh I thought you meant red as in red fur 😂. I think Rory’s field champion ancestors would be shaking their heads as his inability to retrieve a ball!

Yes, Drakeshead is a famous, fancy pants breeder. They have a very distinct look and people who know about these things get very excited when they see one 😂. I only know this because people would stop us in the street to ask if Billy was a Drakeshead so I looked it up. He didn’t have any in his pedigree but he certainly had the looks so I bet there’s some going back further. It’s just a coincidence that Rory is one but it’s quite interesting. There’s even a Drakeshead Facebook page 😂.

At the end of the day, they’re all Labradors so they’re all perfect 🥰.

Hi everyone. Haven’t posted in a while, but have been reading all the posts. It’s lovely to see/ hear all the updates! I have a question if that’s ok. Merry is doing really well, she (almost always) goes outside to toilet, she sleeps really well at night (thank F), is getting to grips with ‘sit’ ‘lie down’, ‘wait’ and comes when called, mostly. The shark attacks are dying down; I tell her to sit and then reward. (Except with my son- she still sees him as a very large chew-toy.)

But she is Velcro pup. On me. Even when she’s napping, if I get up even to go for a wee, she wakes up and follows me. It’s like having a breastfeeding baby again! Exhausting! How can I unpeel her? I’m getting a bit worried about when I try to get back to my ‘normal life’ in September? Is it just a matter of time?

She’s a border collie, and only 12 weeks, so still very little I guess…
Photo for attention…

@Struckbylightning in my experience you can’t 😂🙈. You’re her person and therefore she must be attached at all times! I found it got worse with age not better sorry!

Hi @Struckbylightning no advice but sending solidarity! Pablo is 4 months and still won’t stay asleep if I get up and move. He will sleep on the sofa if I am working at my desk (which is literally right next to the sofa) but if I leave the room, even if I think I am doing it quietly, he will follow me.
The evenings are the same, he will curl up on the sofa next to me and sleep and I think he’s in a deep sleep and I can pop into the kitchen to get a glass of water or evening snack and boom, wakes up and follows me. But he will always follow me back and go back to sleep after.

She is absolutely beautiful though and sounds like a very clever pup ❤️

Merry is looking gorgeous, @Struckbylightning! I have the same velcro problem, although funny how brave he can be away from me when he's sneaked out to find naughty things to dig or chew in the garden or darting across a field to meet another dog / bunch of kids with a ball!

I've bought a book today thats on kindle special at the moment so 79p, it's called Be Right Back, how to overcome your dogs separation anxiety by Julie Naismith. I'll let you know how I get on!

@VanGoSunflowers That's interesting! I'll keep my fingers crossed he stays on the smaller side - labs, like Goldies, can be super powerful! I'm expecting this litter to grow up and be huge tbh - Pen is hardly small, and the sire was rather large. Her last litter were all over 35KG as adults, which tied up to roughly her weight and the sires weight. I tend to find parents can be a good indicator of a pups final size, but not necessarily the size they will be as puppies (if that makes sense)! Can I ask why you regret going with the breeder you did? Sorry, I know that's a personal question!

@Idstillratherbepaddleboarding Love that statement: At the end of the day, they’re all Labradors so they’re all perfect 🥰. It's 100% how I feel about Goldies.

@Struckbylightning - Probably not what you want to hear, but I found with mine it takes 12-18 months for them to be happy sleeping independently. Certainly no sooner than 6 months. Anecdotally I've heard that BCs are incredibly clingy - they've been bred to 'please' just like retrievers and spaniels - but unlikely retrievers or spaniels, they tend to cling to one person! It looks like she's chosen you to be that person 😍She is stunning!

Mine are 10, 4 and 10.5 months and all follow me from room to room. They will be sound asleep, but as soon as I twitch a foot they spring into action. I think K was at least 4 months old before I could go to the loo without her sitting on my lap.

OMG none of you are helping 😂 I was really hoping that someone would have some magic trick of some sort! Yes I am definitely her person, which is lovely, but a bit relentless.

I had my first teary breakdown last night, she just didn’t seem able to calm down, she got all bitey, even lunging at my face and kept gnawing on the blanket box in the sitting room. It was way past my bedtime and I was so stressed. That’ll teach me to get all smug and start feeling I had cracked it!

@Struckbylightning Do you have stair gates in place? When my puppy got like that, I'd put her the other side of the stair gate for 30 seconds and it calmed her down.

@Struckbylightning they're little horrors! They progress and then regress in equal measures. Agree with @SpanielsGalore about stairgates - you can also get very cheap gates from amazon that you can put across a room to separate you from them. Can she go for walks yet? If so, perhaps an evening walk a bit later to try and tire her out and some training? It's how I get mine to settle in the evening - try and tire them out long before witching hour (6-8) arrives so they sleep right though!

@SpanielsGalore I'll probably sound a total lunatic, but I loved it when Twatdog used to lay outside the shower when he was younger. When he stopped doing it (and instead he now lays outside the bathroom door) I was really sad - it sort of hit home that he was growing up.

@LandSharksAnonymous K used to join me in the bathroom whilst I had a soak. She used to remind me of Sweep, as she'd stand on her hind legs and only her little head and front paws would show over the edge of the bath. Then she got bigger, jumped in the bath with me, got the shock of her life and never came in with me again. Sad times. 😞

@LandSharksAnonymous I think there are pros and cons to bigger and smaller (for me anyway) so if he’s on the smaller side, he’ll be easier to control but if he’s on the larger side there’s more of him to snuggle up to 🥰 so in that case, I don’t have much of a preference! Just interesting to try and guess what he will look like when he’s all grown up!

I don’t mind answering the question about the breeder at all - it may help anyone who is lurking and thinking of getting a puppy! But basically, after learning a lot from your posts on what makes a good breeder, I realise now there were a lot of red flags with the one I went with. Firstly, she didn’t ask me many questions at all about my set up. I only filled in a fairly straightforward application form and was surprised when she didn’t probe further and just added me on to her list immediately.

Secondly, the advice she has given so far hasn’t been great and lastly and probably the worst is that I fell down the rabbit hole of finding Pablo’s KC registration which led me on to looking in to her kennel prefix and looking at all the litters she has registered. All the health checks were there and complete with good elbow and hip scores (this is one thing I did check with her before the litter arrived) but what I didn’t realise is that she also breeds border terriers and, in the past, Goldies. So the 2 - 3 litters per year red flag was there plus the fact that she had a litter of border terriers arrive while Pablo was still only 6 weeks old. I was pretty pissed off when I found out as I feel she deliberately concealed this fact? I don’t know if it’s reasonable of me to feel that way.

I firmly place this upon myself as I should have done better research and if I ever decide to get another dog, I won’t make the same mistake again. But it’s a weird juxtaposition to feeling so pleased with Pablo because I’ve obviously fallen in love with him!

So yes, hands up moment for me that I should have done much better research.

We do have a stair gate that someone gave me, but either I’m not doing it right, or it’s just not very good. She just leaps at it and it pings undone so I put it away. Maybe I’ll try again with it.

As for going out, she had her second jabs yesterday; I think we’re supposed to wait a week? Although I think I read someone down-thread who said they didn’t wait that long. Is it worth the small risk? My husband suggested taking her somewhere non-doggy this evening and I am very tempted.

Ah I don’t think you were smug at all! Just celebrating your wins which I personally think is a good thing to do!
Im sorry you had a tough night with her ❤️

I will put a third vote in for stair gates! They were recommended to me on the adolescent thread I think and definitely a game changer. I’d put Pablo in the other room just for a short while. It always worked - I don’t know if it calmed him down or he associated biting me with losing his access to me for a minute or so and seemed to get the message.
Also will add another vote in for walks making it easier too! I probably only get a bitey episode once every few days now and it’s doesn’t last for long when he does do it. Regular walks have calmed him right down (as evidenced yesterday when it was too hot to take him for as long as I usually would - even at 7.30pm - so we an episode yesterday!)

To add to the above, short training sessions tire Pablo out too and usually help with the biting and zoomies. Even more useful when it’s too hot for some physical exercise - I’ll spend 15 mins or so getting him to sit and stay while I place treats or kibble in places around the room, give him the release command and then get him to use his nose to sniff the treats out. It combines several commands - ‘in your bed’ to start with as he has to wait there, then a sit/stay, then a break, then a find it PLUS he is using his nose. So he’s not physically tiring himself out and overheating but is mentally tiring himself out.

As always - I am happy for anyone to tell me I am talking rubbish 😂