Is there a new puppy survival thread?

[Isadora2007]

I could only see one from Autumn so assumed it was older?
Anyone with a new pup wanting to share the trenches?

@FoxandDuck I have been chatting to a dog trainer on Instagram and she said about the 1 hour awake doing fun stuff, walks, feeding etc and then at least an hour in the crate. As we have two crates, one downstairs and one in our bedroom, she felt it might have been confusing Rosie so today we decided upstairs is her sleeping crate and she slept for 1 hour 40 minutes! With minimal whining or barking. She then did an hour the same. We now need to try and fit a pen in our bedroom so when she gets bigger she can just go in that and not just in her crate. I am hoping once she has nailed this we can then work on her sleeping downstairs again. I would like her to be comfortable sleeping in both spaces, but I might be asking too much.
I really felt I could relax with her asleep upstairs and do things that have needed to be done. After an intense few weeks it was nice to breathe

Does anyone else have those moments when instagram dog life and real life are very different? I’ve seen all these reels where people are putting chopped fruit in a bowl of water as an enrichment activity. DPup has had a v dull day so I thought I’ve give this a go. First attempt, I chopped some blueberries up and put them in a Tupperware tub, the type you’d used for sandwiches in a packed lunch. Well DPup immediately picked the tub up by the edge and spilled everything everywhere! So I got him out of the way whilst I cleared all of that up and put the fruit in a heavy, china bowl instead. He gave it a bit of a sniff, dunked his nose in and then his front paws and basically dug all of the fruit out with water flying everywhere. It took him less than 2 minutes to get it all out and I was left with a wet dog and, for the second time in 10 minutes, a soaking kitchen floor. I’m not sure we’ll bother with that one again!

Sounds like a sensible pup to me. 😁

I always worry about secondary drowning when I see dogs doing things like this. Or constantly retrieving balls from the sea. 🙈

That's exactly the sort of thing my Lab puppy would do.

I tried the thing of giving him water with ice cubes in on a hot day and he just knocked it all over the floor and went crazy trying to catch the ice cubes as they slid everywhere.

I am sure all the Instagram puppies are paid actors in furry suits. My pup would be delighted at the opportunity to throw fruit and water everywhere in a thirty second frenzy, I'm sure.

Any tips for loose stalls , currently on beta puppy . Vet not overly concerned

I don't know ... my puppy gets this sometimes ... advice I've read is that it may be due to overfeeding but some days my pup is fine and other days not so I don't know. I figure nothing to worry about about as long as they seem healthy and happy.

@fajitanighthow old is your puppy? Ours had loose stools for a few days after he first came home, as did his littermates going to their new homes. I think this is fairly normal. We’d all kept the food the same but, for us at least, our puppy had moved from a soft water to hard water area plus we were giving him treats, frozen carrots & other things he might not have had before. It took a few days to settle down and since then he’s generally been fine, even as we changed the food he was on.

Canned pumpkin from the pet food shop (independent not pets at home). We used a few spoonfuls of this in dppups food when we were switching his kibble and he had loose stools and it really helped. You can also feed it directly or on a lick mat or frozen etc. Really helped.

So the effect of the instagram suggestion of putting fruit in water and letting DPup fish it out and him instead flipping the bowl upside down is that he now flips everything upside down. Slightly annoying when it’s dry food, a hassle (but at least easy to clear up) when it’s his water, a nightmare if it’s his wet food, especially if he then walks through it! Any recommendations for really heavy or otherwise unflippable bowls?

@FoxandDuck I have some Mason Cash water bowls which are really heavy and Rosie hasn't managed to tip over.
I gave her some oat milk in a cereal bowl which we use for pet food and she was crashing that all over the place when she finished, I think trying to find any more.
After reading about fruit in water I gave her some frozen blueberries, firstly in her usual water bowl but it was too deep, so I found another one and tried again and she got them out.
Any tips for loose lead walking? I've read this page on the Battersea dogs home website on how to do it so was going to try it

https://www.battersea.org.uk/pet-advice/dog-advice/how-teach-your-dog-walk-lead

Any tips on how to get a 14 week old puppy to sleep past 5am? It's killing me. And she doesn't go to bed until 11/11.30pm so it's not like I can get to bed any earlier. A quick Google suggests me getting her up earlier for a few days and then extending that time by 10 minutes. Please say that isn't so! 🫩
When she does wake me up then I take her out as she does go to the loo and then I put her back in her crate where she will rest for 30-45mins making little sounds but then she is ready for the day. I am hold I'm off feeding her breakfast until as close to 7am as I can make it, and I lie on the sofa ignoring her so she doesn't think it's play time. She then eats and then dozes in her living room bed, which is what she is currently doing.

@longtompot my recommendation for loose lead walking is a 2m lead - ours has rings down the length so you can shorten it to 1.4m or 1m (I do 1m when on a pavement by the road). 2m is a good length for him to walk comfortably with no tension. The usual praise for good walking, stop and ignore if pulling. It is my pup's saving grace that he took to the lead pretty well honestly. We did outdoor puppy classes which helped.

Sleep - what is she doing all evening before 11? I consider 8pm to be bedtime and I will take him out for a wee at 9ish but then it's straight back in the crate til 6.30 (our usual get up time). I think good sleep begets more good sleep so I would be putting her to bed quite a bit earlier even if that sounds counterintuitive. Where does she sleep? My puppy sleeps in my room, and if he does make any noise before 6.30 I ignore it and he goes back to sleep. I had terrible, terrible babies when it came to sleeping so apologise if that advice comes off as deeply unhelpful as I know nothing ever worked for my humans! At 14 weeks, your puppy should be physically capable of holding their bladder longer than 11-5 so I wouldn't take her out for a wee at 5am. She can learn to wait I think?

The Google advice to get her up earlier sounds totally batshit so I definitely wouldn't do that by the way!

How is your puppy not going to bed until 11 or later??

Mine is always very sleepy from about 7.30pm and goes in his crate for the night by about 9.30pm, in addition to lots of naps during the day. We are getting so tired with him waking us up before 6am each day that we are ready to go to bed ourselves at that point! He's nearly 6 months old.

I think there's a lot to unpick here and maybe your puppy doesn't understand about night time being the time for a long sleep.

Neither would I!

@RaptorShark She has a nap after her dinner for about an hour or so, 7 ish until around 9pm ish, and then she goes out to the loo. She chills with me in the living room, I try and keep things calm and quiet, no tug toys, and she chews her chew toys. She then likes to lie on the sofa next to me, has tummy rubs and generally winds down for the evening. She has final her final loo trip around 11/11.30pm and goes in her crate, which is in our bedroom, really well and sleeps but it's the 5am or thereabouts wake ups.
I am keeping her breakfast time as close to 7am as possible, so any time she up before that I lie on the sofa being boring and ignoring any bad behaviour, as long as it isn't dangerous, until then.
She does still need a lot of naps as she gets a bit wild and bitey without them. Through the day I am trying to do an hour up with play, a walk etc then at least an hour in the crate, but I am extending the time between to about 2 hours

So you have a similar setup to me i think (crate in bedroom) - I take pup up after the 9pm wee. Sometimes I go to bed then too as I'm often tired or I'll read in bed for a while. Sometimes I go back down and leave him up there. I think that could be better for you than having her chilling out on the sofa, as lovely as that is - I think it might help to teach her that nighttime is for sleep.

Then honestly, I would just lie still and ignore the 5am noise to see if she settles back down. She's dozing in the living room til 7am so she could sleep longer. All the daytime naps sound great, they still need around 18hrs sleep in every 24 - it's just a case of getting those longer stretches overnight it sounds?

@RaptorShark yes, her crate is in our room. Or rather, was, as I have now moved it to our spare room next door. I thought that having her in another room we might be able to ignore the early morning noises and she can settle back down for a bit, but also hear her when she does really need to go out. That and we shouldn't disturb her as much when we go to bed.
She isn't napping until 7am, she is causing havoc until then and I am pretending to be asleep on the sofa, and only falls asleep around 7am as her tummy is full of breakfast.
Do you think keep letting her have her after dinner nap, toilet then when she gets up and then when starts to do her tired behaviour, toilet & up to bed should be ok?
Thank you so much for your help. I was feeling a little fragile this morning and reading the messages I felt I was just doing it all wrong.

@Twiglets1 She sleeps for much longer at night than in the daytime so I think she does get it, but our room is south facing and despite the blackout curtains and blinds, some sun does come in and it wakes me up around 5am so I sometimes use an eye mask, so this wakes her. The room Iv'e moved her to is north facing, so much darker and as it's at the back of the house, quieter.

Oh no, don't think you're doing anything wrong, we are all just figuring it out!

Do you think keep letting her have her after dinner nap, toilet then when she gets up and then when starts to do her tired behaviour, toilet & up to bed should be ok?

Definitely yes to this - so she's asleep 7ish til 9ish, then out for a wee. I would probably say straight to bed after that 9pm wee (maybe a bit of cuddling/calm chewing for about fifteen mins) and not out to toilet again as going outside can be so stimulating. You might find she can go longer between wees than you think but you don't really know til you try!

Her sleeping in the other room sounds really sensible too - it might even be that you shift into a lighter sleep around 5am and she can tell from your breathing and gets excited that it's time to get up. So moving her might really help. If anything, I would just say worry less about the toilet trips - they definitely can learn to go a much longer stretch overnight.

And sorry I misread the morning behaviour - a puppy full of energy between 5am and 7am sounds extremely testing (and takes me back to the newborn days of babies, shudder). I hope moving her helps with her settling back to sleep. They do get into routines, and it's so annoying if she thinks 5am = playtime, but I'm sure you will be able to shift her onto one that works better for you.

I think you may have worked out the problem - you waking up at 5am in turn wakes her up but she thinks - morning time!!

We were in a holiday house recently and came home knackered because our puppy woke up when we went to the loo early in the morning. The floorboards were very noisy so we were waking him up downstairs, whereas at home they are quiet.

I hope she learns to sleep longer in the darker, quieter room you have moved her to.

Take everything I say with a pinch of salt as I am a first time puppy owner and had two non-sleeping children but might your pup, @longtompot, be waking because she’s hungry? Could you try giving her more food at tea time? Or another portion shortly before she goes to bed?
We have a puppy cam which is aimed at the crate and is helpful for reassuring ourselves what DPup is up to and deciding whether it is time to let him out.

@FoxandDuck Im only on my second ever dog and forgotten pretty much everything from 14 years ago when my first one was a puppy. I did wonder if she needed more food so did actually give her some oat milk last night, but sadly didn't make a difference. I am getting some goat milk so will see if that's any different, but going by how much she can have which is only a couple of tablespoons, I don't think that will work either. Worth a try though. We don't have cam, but we do have a baby monitor so can hear her and gauge if she needs out or can be left a little longer

First night in the separate room and she slept from 10.30pm to 6.30am! I went to bed at 11.30pm and woke a few times in the night wondering if she was about to wake up, but nothing until 6.30. Hope it continues and she is much nicer this morning for a good sleep.

Aw brilliant, that's a lovely update.