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 😂)

@SpanielsGaloreI’m giving you side eye at the 11.30pm-7.30am! SoupDog still needs out for business before 6am despite a late night wee at 11pm and often thinks that’s it, I’m up for the day!

I was so confused for a while, because that wasn't me. 😂
My puppy didn't sleep through the night until day 2. 😞 And we're more a midnight till 8 a.m. family.
Puppy before that needed to be let out at about 3a.m. and then was up at 6a.m. for months though. It's the luck of the draw.

Ours generally gets 10-7 in the crate and no accidents that we can identify. During the day she has open access to kitchen / diner and hallway and can go in the garden (but has to have a little whimper at the door as the cat can’t go out. We get an occasional wee accident (which is probably more our fault for not spotting the signs) but happily is regular for solids, so they always happen outside…!

Currently teething so she’s a bit of a horror around ankles…

We've been on 10pm to 7am routine since Brie was very young. Another advantage of giant breeds though, big bladder capacity.

She did turn completely nocturnal during her first season though.

We have the same set up. Free access downstairs which is living room and kitchen with door open all the time while it’s been so warm.

It’s worked fine for us. The only thing we’ve realised might be an issue is that she’s really reliable going the toilet outside now but she doesn’t indicate that she needs the toilet as the door is always open. When it gets colder and the door is closed that might be an issue as on the few occasions the door has been closed she’s weed in front of the door.

We’ve started to introduce a bell that she presses and we open the door to cue this behaviour in the hope that solves it.

We get 11pm to about 6am here. To be fair, after his first wee he does usually settle back to sleep on the sofa with me.
When I eventually make it back to bed, which I hope will be some time this decade (😂) I have romantic notions of letting him out for a wee, then bringing him up to bed with me straight after for morning cuddles.

@BarkItOff yes, that crossed my mind too. He has whined at the back door when it was closed the other morning for a number 2. And when we got back the other evening from a little pub beer garden visit, he ran straight for the back door and jumped up at it. So I’m hoping by the time it’s cooler he will know to ‘ask’. That’s a future problem for me anyway 😂
Curious to know how you train a dog to ring a bell though? How have you done that? I might give that a go!

All ours would squeak or do a single woof at the back door to be let out to toilet. Because we use dog gates and leave the internal doors open, it's never been a problem hearing them tell us they have to go.

There’s dog bells on Amazon. There’s 2 types one where you hang the bells off the door handle and they knock the bells with their nose. We didn’t get those as we knew the cats would just ring them all the time and one where they press the bell with their paw.

We started by teaching her paw. And then putting the bell under her, asking for paw and saying yes and rewarding when the paw hit the bell. Once she did that a few times we introduced the command press and moved the bell further and further away.

She will reliably press the bell when told and now the next step is linking the bell to the door. So we’ve put the bell by the door. Each time we take her out we tell her to press the door, go outside and then reward with a treat. From what I’ve read the idea is that they associate the bell with going out and if they need to go out they press the bell but we’re not at that stage yet. But then the door has been rarely closed so we haven’t had much practice time either.

Did you train that?

I think I have a defective puppy because she doesn’t bark. She does a little whimper every now and again if she’s been put to bed and she doesn’t want to but other than that she’s pretty silent.

No. I'm the world's most useless dog trainer! Fortunately they all did it naturally. Current pup squeaks to go out, previous one did a single bark. Before that we were multi dog so they all did different noises.

I completely identify. Our girl doesn't bark either and our neighbours have even commented on it recently. On the adolescent thread I refer to her as The Silent Guard Dog and I've joked about returning her because she's defective...

I did think she might start to bark more, but she's 15 months old now and still very quiet, so I imagine your girl will probably never be much of a barker either.

@BarkItOff I may try that. Perhaps only if I think I need to, though.

Pabs isn’t much of a barker but he will try and pull out his big boy bark to incite play with other dogs. Which is adorable. He also barked at the washing line once. Just the once though, never did it again.

I'm half excited half terrified 😂 She is a Labrador, should darken to fox red as she grows.

I'll be going up for a second visit on Friday to choose, with input from the breeder who is lovely and keen to make a good match as far as that is possible. We have cats so she's looking for a pup that doesn't jump into situations without caution.

Names...oh goodness I have two teenage girls with strong opinions so we still haven't decided! Shortlist is Cassie, Mika (pronounced meeka), Ginny, Stevie.

She'll be gorgeous @scoobiedoozie
Love those name choices too ❤

@scoobiedoozie oooh beautiful! I saw a fox red lab in my local town the other day, she was a month older than mine and she was absolutely stunning. Enough to make me consider whether I might get one when Pablo is older and if I feel up to going through the puppy phase again!

Aw thank you @CoubousAndTourmalet!

@VanGoSunflowers what kind is Pablo? (Sorry bit late to the thread so might otherwise know this). That's a lovely name. How old is he?

@scoobiedoozie he is a black lab. Just over 13 weeks old - I brought him home at 8 weeks. One of the best decisions I ever made 😊

Just jumping in to the free range chat! Bill had a puppy pen downstairs where I had a wooden floor, but slept upstairs with me and still does. The pen got bigger and bigger and eventually just was used to protect the flowers in what passes for my garden. We had a crate downstairs but it never interested him and I took it down in the end. The wooden floor got its rugs back and some new ones too to protect his joints. He’s never chewed books or cords - I think as they were protected when he was tiny - and he’s rarely unsupervised as the little bugger never leaves me alone 😄

@VanGoSunflowers that's so lovely to hear ❤️

P will sit and stare at me to let me know she wants to be let out.
K taught herself to scratch the door to be let out. She'll scratch the door of whichever room I am in (even though they are all open) rather than wait by the back door.

Just wondering how people travel their pups? I have two older dogs who will travel in the car boot or on the seat with a harness with a seat belt fitting added.
Pup is in a crate and we are going out daily to get used to the car, but I can’t remember how and when I moved the others to the harness.

SoupDog was in an RAC crate belted into the back seat but when both kids in the car needed to be in the back went straight onto a harness and seat belt with a blanket to lie on. She may get up at 5.30am but she’s been fab in the car. Just lies down and chills. We’ve had her on travels of up to a few hours there and back. I like being able to see her in the back.

My puppies have always been harnessed and seatbelted in. I now use the type that go round the headrest, as a previous dog used to stand on the seatbelt release button and free himself. They started on the front seat in a box thingy, and moved to the back seat when they got a bit bigger.

We've always been estate car boot with dog guard, but it's really the only option for a giant breed, so probably not that relevant to most here. We have a crate in the boot for the first few weeks, until they reach the size of a small Labrador.

@scoobiedoozie our older dog is a fox red lab. They are gorgeous!

I’ve had Pablo in a harness tethered to the iso-fix thingy with a seat belt attachment. He’s been coming out in the car with me since a few days after I got him home for school runs etc so he knows the drill now and travels really well! May have to move on to a boot/guard set up when he gets bigger though!

I’ve been lucky that he travels well and usually lies down and sleeps in the car.