Puppy Survival Thread Autumn 2025 - all welcome!

[VanGoSunflowers]

Hello everyone! Won’t tag you all as you know everyone is welcome 😊

I do not feel at all qualified to talk about toilet training, Merry seemed to just naturally know where to go. She only ever had a handful of accidents. It definitely helped that it was the hight of that hot spell in the summer and the back door was permanently open. We spent a lot of time out there anyway as she was a bugger for biting and zoomies and the garden was the safest place to be!
There are some really good tips on the Dog Training and Advise and Support website and Facebook page.

@PetiteBroccoli I fretted so much about alone training, but decided to follow the DTAS advice. They advise you to take as long as you can, allowing the puppy to be with you as much as they want. This builds their confidence. I didn’t have a wee alone for months! It was exhausting and annoying, but I think it payed off in the end; I can leave her alone for a couple of hours now. She just sleeps by the door when I go out, she also takes herself to another room when she chooses to.

Oh @Struckbylightning this is fantastic, I thought I was being too soft because I too let her follow me around and take her everywhere with me, she even sleeps with me 😬 Like I say, I thought I was setting myself up for a fall, but actually according to DTAS this is all fine! Music to my ears, thank you so much for sharing this. I'll be joining the FB group too. I always did think at the back of my mind that they are just tiny 12 week old (in my case) babies, we wouldn't dream of leaving a baby on its own at that age. Thank you so much! And your testimony of being able to leave for two or so hours eventually is so wonderfully reassuring.

So glad you found that helpful. Our pup also sleeps in our bedroom, and she has slept through the night since day one, same with our previous dog. I feel like it helps with bonding, and helps them feel secure. I can’t say that I faithfully follow all of the DTAS stuff, but I found a lot of it very helpful when I felt like I was loosing my mind with the feral pup!

The thing is we’re all different & our puppies are all different. Some of us are happy for them to sleep in the bedroom, others aren’t and that’s just one small area of puppy raising. Listening to advice can drive us mad because a lot of it is conflicting anyway. We all just have to find our own ways that work for us and our dogs.

On many issues I don’t think there’s a right or wrong way and that’s true for where they sleep as long as you & puppy are both comfortable with it. The same goes for crate training. If the puppy takes to it - fine. If they don’t, it no big deal if they prefer not to use it. Letting dogs off lead is a whole other (sometimes controversial) topic, but personally I don’t get a dog to rarely give them any freedom and prefer to focus on teaching excellent recall from a very young age. This is possibly easier with a Labrador as they are so food & treat obsessed.

Hope everyone has a good weekend. We have a puppy class today which is mainly for socialisation but also hope to get some tips on nice lead walking as we seem to have forgotten everything we learnt about that! B gets very excited outside & suddenly darts away as he spots leaves etc blowing in the wind. Not a problem while he’s still only 10kg but growing quickly 😀

@Twiglets1 this is so true, it's so easy to get overwhelmed by advice on the internet, and it’s easy to feel like you’re doing everything wrong if you follow every piece of conflicting advice. Everyone and everypup is different just as you say. Good luck at puppy class today, I'm sure B will get a star of the week ⭐️

We've got a puppy training walk booked next week and some puppy classes booked at beginning of March. Has anyone done the Puppy Hour at their local Pets Corner? We are booked on for next Saturday, this week's one was full, so I guess they must be popular.

@Struckbylightning I think you just have to do what feels the right fit for you both. I love having her sleep close by me, although I'm very lucky as she slept right through from day one too. I agree with the bonding aspect, I do love it this way and of course, she does too!

I've been binging the 'It's Me or the Dog' series on YouTube at the moment, with Victoria Stilwell - I've learnt so any tips. Anyone got any other recommendations along these lines for when I've finished them all?

Hello! This is Ellie, our 8 week old puppy we took home yesterday. She’s doing really well, slow with eating her kibble but seems to be picking up today which is a relief because I was worried she wasn’t eating!

Straight away I took her into the garden to go to the toilet and she’s doing really well. We’ve hardly had any accidents. I was a bit worried reading that I shouldn’t let her out in the garden as she isn’t fully vaccinated yet, there are no other dogs who visited. I’ve not seen foxes, but they may possibly visit at night?!

I don’t know what I should do? I feel I want her to be toilet trained outside, but worried if this is the right thing to do.

@Cherryblossom200 your puppy is adorable.

We took our pup out straight away- we have foxes in the garden so we put a pen up and he went in there to toilet. I didn’t want him to think that it was ok to go to the toilet in the house. The pen kept him away from the foxy part of the garden

Welcome @Cherryblossom200 Ellie is really cute.

We let our 8 week old puppy straight into the garden when he got home. Did the same thing with our previous 2 puppies too.

I feel like you have to be able to facilitate toilet training and the garden is needed for that. When I took B to his first visit to the vet for vaccinations she confirmed that he was ok using our garden to exercise in and for toileting.

Thank you! In general Ellie has been awesome, she settled into her crate last night with her cuddle pup without any protest and slept solidly for over 3 hours and then woke hourly so I kept taking her out in the garden to go to the toilet. I don’t want her to go to the toilet in her crate, not sure if I ignore her and just let her go for the toilet?!

Welcome @Cherryblossom200and Ellie! What breed is she? She's very cute!

It's great that Ellie settled into her crate last night and slept for over 3 hours. However, waking you up every hour is not sustainable for you. I understand it was her first night though so I think she did really well, considering.

When it gets to night 2 and 3 etc, I would let her cry herself back to sleep at least once so she learns you don't necessarily come to her every time she cries. I know that sounds really harsh but our puppies have never taken more than 3 nights to get the hang of sleeping downstairs on their own, in a crate or in the kitchen.

We have a big square of vet bed down in Bs crate that I believe absorbs any wee - you can get it from Pets at Home or the internet.

As for poos, I was amazed that B didn't poo in his crate overnight from day 1. He is the first puppy I've had that has taken to the crate. We just let him into the garden last thing at night before bedtime and for the first week or two, someone was going down in the middle of the night about 2.30/3am to let him into the garden again. Now we don't go down until 5.30/6am and B is clean all night.

He couldn't last that long in the daytime but he's sleeping most of the night so that obviously helps with toileting needs.

@Cherryblossom200 i have a small breed puppy and he was going from 10pm to 6am in his crate at 8 weeks old. I know that’s probably slightly unusual but their bladder capacity is certainly better than an hour. They’re reluctant to mess in their crate

I followed your advice, she went to bed at 9.30 straight to sleep in her crate l, she woke a few times and cried I just spoke to her quietly and she went straight back to sleep until 4.00 when I took her for a wee. Then she slept with me until 6.00 and probably could have slept even longer had my daughter not crawled into bed with us! 🤣

Thanks for your advice! Just feeling blessed she’s happy in her crate. I have a fabric one and keep the top open so she can see me and sleeps right next to my bed which works really well for us x

Glad you had a better night. She’ll soon learn that crying doesn’t get her anything good she’ll hopefully stop that soon enough but very early days yet.

That's very positive @Cherryblossom200

Puppies do need such a lot of sleep. I worry about mine not getting enough sleep during the daytime as he wakes up every time someone leaves or enters the room. So it's good if they at least have a good night's sleep which is as important for them as it is for us 😀

It sounds like Ellie is happy with the sleeping arrangement and that helps her to settle. It's natural that they cry a bit the first 2 or 3 nights but hopefully she will stop that very soon and only whine if she needs to leave the crate to toilet.

Thank you 🙏

As for puppy B my husband and I were just chatting about how he doesn’t do so many wees inside now.

Comically, he started doing one in the living room as we were talking 😂

That told us … still a long way to go … sigh

Aw bless how old is your puppy @Twiglets1?

Ellie is doing most of her wees outside abut still has the odd accident which we expect at 8 weeks! x

Hello, I’ve lurked and read here since becoming a puppy parent in October but finally posting for some advice/ solidarity.

We’ve got a 7 month old smooth collie (not to be confused with a border collie- think lassie without the Pat Sharp mullet). He’s a lovely boy but we are struggling with recall as soon as there are ANY other dogs around. Also, he wants to say hi and play with every dog his ever sees. We worked with a trainer for a few months but she’s fostering a high needs dog at the moment and has no availability and I feel like we are back to square one. Does anyone have any advice. I feel like we’ve been fortunate with house training, sleeping and food so I don’t know where to begin with this.

Also, any recommendations for a harness for a medium-large dog (his breed are on the cusp but he’s already 22kg). We have tried perfect fit in a couple of sizes but can’t get a good fit. Thanks.

Here’s a photo…

@YvieYfronts your pup is gorgeous! And you’re definitely NOT alone on the recall going to pot when there are other dogs around. My ten month old lab is exactly the same. He’s just too friendly and his greetings aren’t calm enough for me to trust him! We are nowhere near where I want him to be as yet but making small steps of progress. His recall is absolutely excellent when there are no dogs around. I’ve been using an extendable lead on part of our walk (strategically, after an off lead run and on a path where I know he just wants to sniff so I don’t get pulled over) when he spots a dog coming towards us, I stop walking, wait for him to ‘check-in’ which he will do because I’ve stopped him going further and then praise heavily for looking at me and he will then choose to come back to me for his reward rather than trying to get to the other dog. I will say though, I haven’t tested him off lead yet as I think it’s too soon so who knows if it’ll work eventually!

He is 3 months old - I think we are expecting a bit too much really because he is starting to "get it" just has quite a few accidents.

Hello @VanGoSunflowers thank you for replying. It makes me feel so much better to know we are not alone. What retractable lead do you use for your pup? The trainer used one but she’s not replied to my message asking which one she recommends. I think this would be a happy medium between the annoying standard long line and total freedom.

@YvieYfronts I use this one

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B00BQFH8B2?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_mob_b_asin_title

A lot of people don’t like extendable leads but I hate using a long line and I think they work well as long as you’re sensible with them! I never use it for road-side pavement walking as it doesn’t give enough control so I always have two leads on me. I also recall him back if people are walking towards us too. He’s much better at ignoring people than dogs - and when he was young pup he couldn’t even do that so we are at least making some small progress! I also cannot walk him to heel yet passed another dog as he gets too excited and pulls towards them but I can get him to stop and ‘wait’ while a dog walks past us and I reward him for remaining calm/neutral

Welcome @YvieYfronts and you definitely aren't alone with recall suffering once puppies reach the adolescent phase.

It's easier with Labs because they are food obsessed so will mainly return as long as you give them a high value treat literally every time they do. Even then, the most challenging part is definitely when there is another dog in the vicinity as they are sociable.

Must be much harder with dogs not so food obsessed though. I will be frowned upon by a lot of the people on MN because I tend to let my puppies greet and play with other dogs as long as they are off lead where mine is and the owners indicate they are friendly. There are a lot of people like me at our 2 local parks though I know not everyone likes their dog to interact so much.

As far as harnesses go, we had an Ezy dog harness for our last Lab and that did actually work really well at stopping him pulling so much. He grew to be over 30kg but we started using it when he was an adolescent and smaller.

Excellent input thank you both.

@VanGoSunflowers I’ve

We’ve got a local enclosed park that has loads of dog walkers and we’ve only just started to let him off there in the same circumstances you talk about. He usually ends up playing with another dog that loves a ball and Murphy just runs with them as they fetch but, he has no interest in the ball just having a mate. I always say to other dog owners that he’s a puppy and very friendly but playful so that they can decide whether he can say hello but I think now he’s getting bigger and more teen like I’m worried people and dogs will be less friendly.

One more question, do your puppies tend to have good days and bad days in terms of behaviour rather than it being more linear. For example, today he is being very cheeky 🥴.