Beyond Adolescence and General Chit Chat - part 3

[SpanielsGalore]

Not tagging anyone. I'm sure you'll all find your way here if you want to join in. 😁

Still shocked the dog bed is used!! Which girl goes in it? I thought they were all sofa/human bed type dogs.

And I hope you’ll be providing us with a photo of the sea view from the window at some point 😍

I’m starting to wonder if DWS is in fact more brainless than Twatdog (which would explain so much). She’s just spent several minutes licking the TV because we’re watching a cookery programme and there was a steak being cooked…and she got more and more irate every lick as though she couldn’t quite understand why she couldn’t taste anything

@TheHungryHungryLandsharks That's so funny! 😂😂😂 Who needs brains when you have beauty? 💖

Evidence of dog bed use. I'll take a photo of the view tomorrow. You'll be able to see my fresh snow fall too.

@TheHungryHungryLandsharks That made me proper giggle.

Interesting article about pmd. I’ve just googled pictures of them to look at the differences.

GSD shape have changed alot over years as well. Their back legs aren’t as strong as they once were, and their backs slope more. You can still get a strong Alsatian but a lot are poorer specimens.

The kitchen is lovely. Love the blue colour.

And thank you for the shiney new thread.

Hello.
Thanks for the new thread 🙂

Your kitchen looks wonderful @SpanielsGalore ! Really fresh. I wouldn't have recognised it as the same kitchen.

A PMD can walk all day in cool weather @TheHungryHungryLandsharks . I know I joke about Brie being slow and lazy but she did a 5 mile reservoir/woodland walk on Sunday morning. We used to do easily double that with the others, but we're still building up to it with Brie. It's true that they're low energy in that they don't demand walks and they never mind a rest day, but they'll go the distance if you want them to. They're also quicker and more agile than people imagine. Am I selling it? 😉It's not a dog for everyone, I know. I don't like them looking too "floofy" or teddy bear cute though, they are a proper working dog but a lot of people don't see it, unfortunately.

It is a shame when working breeds change for the worse @Silverbirchleaf
Fortunately the PMD is not in such bad shape as some. You mention GSD and the St Bernard is another breed that is almost unrecognisable from its original form.

We just did a field walk again but my god it was treacherous in places on the walk down there, even in walking boots. Not many dogs out today, just the usual two black Labs chasing a ball and that was pretty much it.

This is too cute 🥹

Good morning. -3 here with fresh snow.
Thank you for the nice comments about my kitchen. Glad you like the parrot flight blue. It was the 7th tester I tried. Not at all what I had in mind when I started doing the kitchen, but it was 'the one' as soon as I saw it.
A Room With A View.

@SpanielsGalore I am not convinced she has beauty tbh - or if she does it's only skin deep given what a nefarious little oddball she's turning into!

Okay...I believe you that the dog bed is used, but the fish and chip shop being shut still sounds like an excuse 😂Although I will admit they look very very cute.

@Silverbirchleaf glad it made you laugh! I'm not sure if it's specifically a Golden Retriever thing, or Retrievers in general, but they do seem to be remarkably skilled at being incredibly intelligent and trainable and yet completely thick.

There's a few GSDs near me where their hips are so bad that even as puppies it's obvious they'll never be able to walk properly or live full lives. I don't know who I despair of more tbh, the breeders or the buyers - it's one thing to make a mistake in buying a dog (i.e. using a puppy farm), but when the dog is clearly deformed...I just don't understand.

@CoubousAndTourmaIet you're doing quite a good job of selling them...but I think Goldies probably will always have my heart! Hope you're walk this morning/lunch isn't as treacherous as yesterday PMs. Some of the photos I've seen online from Yorkshire onwards are beautiful - but I can imagine underfoot it's awful.

@SpanielsGalore absolutely beautiful view. I'd never leave the kitchen if I were you!

I feel a bit guilty for being mean to DWS as she did actually abandon DD1 last night and come into our bedroom. She slept between DH and I all night and then got up this morning and trotted back into DD1s room like she'd never left. It's almost certainly because DD1s room is like a furnace and I (and DH by force as he gets no choice) sleep with the fan on and windows open even in summer...but still, I'm going to take the win. Four dogs in a bed is a squeeze though with DH back...and obviously he'll be the first to go if push comes to shove 😂

@TheHungryHungryLandsharks The view certainly makes the washing up a more bearable task. It was one of the main reasons for buying the house. You can hear the waves from the garden. And sometimes the seals too.

I will admit the chip shop being closed is an excuse. Really I'm just a sad cow and like the beds to match the decor. And it was down to £16 from £46, so was a bargain.

The two brown beds are at least 15 years old, as they were bought for my first dogs.

That's sweet of DWS. We'll pretend it was because she loves you and not for the cool air.

How on earth can you have a fan on and a window open in minus degrees?! I've left my heating on overnight for the last few days. Although I do turn my bedroom radiator off over night.

@SpanielsGalore Wow, what a view, and when’s the kitchen-warming party? I’m sure we’d all like a lovely walk along the beach, and then back to yours for hot chocolate and Dundee cake.

Had a horrible walk this morning. Went into woods again thinking it would be less slippery. Wrong! Melted water on ice. Lethal. Thought it would get better further in (it was yesterday) but no so got out as soon as possible, and then came back to find that young adult dc had eaten the last two chocolate croissants! Trying to reframe this as it would mean j’ve consumed fewer calories today, so a little win.

@SpanielsGalore that sounds like the dream. You're making me want to move in with you 😀

To be fair, I'm not sure I could have said 'no' to £30 off and mine don't even use dog beds 😂But unlike my parents I have not yet started buying them of the dogs deciding to use them.

I definitely should have said 'fan on and window open in winter' not summer. But at least you knew what I meant! Honestly, it gets like a furnace in the bedroom with the dogs as they seem to give off so much heat. It's only 3 here at the moment but I have the patio doors open but am still toasty warm as Pen is sleeping across my lap (laptop is resting on the arm of the sofa as I am a diligently WFH).

@Silverbirchleaf gah that sounds horrible! It's really treacherous at the moment. Glad you're okay.

I think your adult DC should go out at lunch to replenish your chocolate croissant supplies...

Horribly envious having seen that view @SpanielsGalore , we look out at big ugly houses 😔

You probably are better sticking with what you know @TheHungryHungryLandsharks A PMD is probably too sedate for most of you here.

Am I weird? I seem to be at odds with everyone on the puppy blues subject and being told I'm wrong. Because I said it gets worse before it gets better I love puppies when they're little but I hate early adolescence. Apparently puppies are horrible but after toileting and teething it's easy. Even with a large and boisterous breed like a Lab...🤔Which begs the question, where do I go wrong with mine at 6 months...?

Still, she's lovely again now 🤗

Our hill is treacherous. I had to walk down to the village earlier (no dog) and it was horrid. Brie isn't being walked until 3.

@Silverbirchleaf I have a velvetiser, so can make a good hot chocolate. Not sure about the Dundee cake though. We banned cakes with nuts in BA part 1.

@TheHungryHungryLandsharks Yes I knew what you meant. I sent DD a photo yesterday of the dogs sprawled on and around me captioned "Who needs central heating?" 😂

@CoubousAndTourmaIet Have you felt like that with all of your dogs? Or is it only Brie who has been a difficult adolescent?
My first puppies were litter mates, so were easier in that they had each other to bite and wrestle with.
My third was an adolescent when I got him and boy was he hard work!
P was a horrible puppy. Reduced me to tears on several occasions. But once the manic biting phase was over, she grew into a lovely adolescent and adult dog.
K has been an easy dog throughout. I can only recall two time outs for biting and her recall slipped a little when she hit adolescence. But not enough to warrant having to go on a long line or back on lead.

I don't think you were told you were wrong. (Unless someone else has posted since I last read that thread.) You obviously aren't wrong, because you were sharing your experiences and feelings. Other people were just saying their experiences were different.

It's varied @SpanielsGalore .
I can't count the first two because my dad did much of the exercise with them. Of my 6 that I've had here in Lancs, Merlin, Sylvie & Finn were all easy pups, easy adolescents, very calm quiet adults. Rosie was hard work from her first day until her last and we never mastered loose lead walking with her at all. She pulled like a train of huskies, was easily bored and very destructive, she needed long frequent walks. We loved her to bits, she was our Mensa child, but god was she hard work.

Brie is more like Algy was - very easy pup, difficult in adolescence, but calm after that. Both were lead biters, both prone to jumping up, both very boisterous, cheeky, playful. That phase of 7,8,9 months was horrible.

Oh I know, I'm being touchy today so I'll log out and stop posting for a while.

@CoubousAndTourmaIet Oh I have just been back and read the more recent posts. Am PMSL at your latest post. 😂😂 If only life was that simple, eh?!

@SpanielsGalore Wow that is a gorgeous view. Living my dream!!

@CoubousAndTourmaIet I’ve not seen the thread so not sure what’s been said but I would much rather have a puppy than a teenage dog. I did find the puppy stage very hard but it was a breeze compared to adolescence with V. I’m not sure I’d ever add a second dog but I’d be interested to know if the experience would be any different! Possibly because I know what to expect now and have learnt from my mistakes the first time around 😄

All the ice has melted here thankfully. We do have a weather warning for snow this evening but I have everything crossed that it doesn’t amount to anything!!

@CoubousAndTourmaIet I have to say that, personally, I find puppies very easy - but that's likely having grown up with Golden Retrievers and litters, so knowing them inside out. I'm not entirely sure what I would do with a puppy that wasn't easily housetrained, for example. In all honesty, I am not sure I could cope. The idea of cleaning up indoor accidents multiple times a day after the litter leaves makes me want to cry.

9-24 months with Golden Retrievers is when it gets hard because they still mouth, only now they have power behind their mouthing and often they bite much harder than meaning to. They also often relapse in their training and have far too much strength. It's a terrible combination. I've never had a buyer contact me to express concern other than in that time period, although admittedly other than pupdates and general conversation I've only ever been contacted three times.

Honestly, I sometimes think it was a blessing the family due to take Twatdog couldn't in the end because he was an arsehole and I struggled so much with him that I did very briefly consider re-homing him. I think in most other settings he probably would have been re-homed and the only reason I didn't was because I knew he would grow out of it. And now he's my darling.

Loving the sass on that thread. I said my peace though and I won't comment again 😀That's mostly because I'm having too much fun on the breeders thread.

I swear I do work when I WFH....

Also, two day out of date smoked salmon? Would we (the collective Doghouse we) eat it? My only other choice for lunch is pigs in blankets with cheese and crackers.

Best before = yes. Use by = no.

That's because it's fish. I have an out of date chocolate pudding in the cupboard, which I will be eating tonight.

@SpanielsGalore That window and that view! How dreamy. I love the colour too. What a transformation from when you bought it!

@CoubousAndTourmaIet You’re not weird – we just all have different experiences and what we can all manage physically and mentally is different. I couldn’t physically manage a PMD but you can. Equally I hated pupsy as a small puppy and wished her life away so she’d grow up and stop being horrible to live with. She nipped me constantly. I’ve said this again and again on here. I never thought of sending her back to her breeder but it was appalling in the early weeks. And then I got a grip and it was fine and I realised it was more about me than her – hence my approach to her development as she’s got older.

You didn’t go wrong with Brie – she’s just a different kind of dog to many, and as you’ve said quite different to your previous PMDs. She loafs and lounges and loves being outside in the snow. Pupsy runs about madly and has never loafed anywhere! We know that bigger dogs mature later – presumably that’s got a lot to do with it. Are PMDs bitey as pups, I don’t know? But cockers are. It was awful. @TheHungryHungryLandsharks’ own username here is testament to how nippy goldies are too.

@SpanielsGalore I’ve read on down and yeah, you know what, life isn’t easy but that’s how I cope with things – if, as I suspect, you’re referring to me. My life is bloody hard, as plenty of us can say, and my way of coping with a lot of things is to power on through and pretend that whatever the thing is that’s affecting me doesn’t exist. That’s how I’m still alive quite frankly. No need to be snide about other people’s ways of coping.

(edited for grammar)

@brushingboots I have commented on the other thread, but I will repeat on here.
To me, your first comment came across as saying ' just ignore it and it won't happen'. Which I took to be a fairly flippant comment.
Your second post explained your thinking more and I realised that wasn't what you meant at all.
And I am a pretend everything is alright type of person. Many a time when life was shit I drove to work in tears, painted a smile on at the gates and played a role for the day. So I didn't intend to mock your way of coping.
Apologies for misinterpreting your original post.

@SpanielsGalore I replied to you over there thinking it was on here! Nevermind. I wasn’t being flip at all – nothing in my life or brain feels flippant, ever.

No bother. You have inspired me to email a decorator for a quote to paint my kitchen. I can power through many things but painting is not one.

In all honesty, I am not sure I could cope. The idea of cleaning up indoor accidents multiple times a day after the litter leaves makes me want to cry.

Remember the other half lamenting that second pup was never going to be house trained as it took at least 2 weeks 😂 and even in that time she only had a handful of accidents.

I don't often comment about toilet training as both ours were ridiculously easy in the grand scheme of things and we did a lot of things that I now know are 'wrong' ,i.e. free access to the garden

I think one thing that isn't often discussed when reading about puppy training is that some puppies/dogs are genuinely harder work than others even if they're the same breed. If we'd have had second pup first, we'd have congratulated ourselves on what excellent owners we were and wondered what all the fuss was about. As she wasn't our first, we didn't take credit as most of it was down to entirely different temperaments. Even as a 4 year old, the older one is harder work in a lot of respects than the 2 year old. Having our gundog trainer describe big pup as a difficult dog was actually tremendously helpful to me as it acknowledged that it wasn't me just getting things massively wrong.

I remember being astonished one day when little pup went from the lounge to the kitchen to fetch some sort of chew thing and then sat and chewed it. At the same age our older one would have been chewing the cushions, we'd have removed all the cushions and tried to get her to chew one of her own things, so she'd chew the chair legs, remove and repeat.

It's the thing that drove me mad about the puppy book we had. It would describe how to say teach a drop, and it sounded very simple and then say in 90% of cases pup will then drop the item. No detail about what you do if you're in the 10%

I think with the older one even in the past year we've probably just idly wondered amongst ourselves if it's too late to send her back 😂

Anyway, back to less contentious weather talk. I've just poo picked in the garden in case the much talked about snow bomb arrives later. I suspect it's going to be a disappointment if like me you're looking forward to some proper white stuff.

@tizwozliz No. I am looking forward to the white stuff going. 😫

Totally agree about different personalities within breeds. P and K are related on both sides and are still very different.
P was a horrible bitey puppy, quick to toilet train in the day but not at night, and has always been good at entertaining herself.
K wasn't bitey, took months to toilet train during the day but went through the night from 8 weeks old, and is usually up to mischief. She's easier to train than P though. Seems more keen to learn. Her sister is trialling this year, so it will be interesting to see what K could have been capable of in better hands.

Same with human babies really. My third slept through the night at 3.5 weeks, so I thought I had it cracked and knew what I was doing. My fourth didn't sleep through until he was 5 years old.

@brushingboots Having battled with wibbly wobbly lines between the top of the wall and the ceiling, I wish I could pay someone to do mine.

I fancy doing the hallway next, when I have summoned up the energy to start again. I'm going to go old fashioned and have a dado rail. 😁

It concerns me that your house is so cold all the time. Is it your windows? Or do you have rooms with high ceilings that take ages to heat?

Q - What is worse than a 💩 eating puppy?

A - A puppy that brings a 💩 inside and drops it on your new carpet to eat.

Some disgusting individual had done a 💩 right at the entrance to the woods and both mine got a lick in before I spotted what they were up to 🤢