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?

@BlueBoy2 I glad you've found us, I was going to suggest it on your other thread. I've had so much great help and advice on here and I am sure you will too

Of course it is.

I know lots of dog families now and one thing we all agree on is all puppies/dogs are different and none are perfect but they all are lovely.

If you expect your Cavachon to be cheeky/naughty at times that's probably a lot more realistic than feeling upset that they aren't a perfect puppy. Not sure they really exist outside of fiction! The early puppy days are hard but you miss the puppy cuddles when they become more independent so my advice for now is to make the most of them when your puppy arrives and enjoy bonding with him/her.

Thanks thats exactly what I've been thinking, I should try and enjoy it rather than wishing the puppy days away.

My puppy is not good at recall when there are any distractions. I'm sure this can't be abnormal or put me in a minority. He's five months with completely selective hearing and if there are other dogs he can play with or someone who looks like they might give him a fuss then he totally ignores the recall command which he responds to like lightning when we're training in an empty field.

He also ignores it when he's in the garden and doesn't feel like coming back inside the house (probably because he knows it's naptime!) We are working on it - recalling from the garden with chicken and releasing him back out so it doesn't always mean the fun is over, but out on a walk he would rather play with other dogs than come back for even the most amazing treat. It's the most rewarding thing ever for him. So I've got fairly adept with the long line out in the open, and on trails where it would get in the way he has to stay on the normal lead.

I would love to have him just trotting nearby as we walk, but he's too excited by other dogs. We praise massively whenever he successfully walks past one or disengages after a polite sniff or two, so we can encourage doing a friendly greeting and moving on but it's extremely hit and miss still.

If you saw mine on a recall training session with no distractions, you'd think his recall was perfect - he knows exactly what to do, the little swine! But as soon as there's a distraction, he can't hear me.

@RaptorShark My girl will do pretty much anything I ask if she knows I have treats, including re-call. If there’s no food, she mostly ignores me
It means that I can never leave her off lead unless I have treats.

I’m finding it so hard when we have visitors. She’s generally good to not jump on us, but unfortunately still gets over excited when visitors call, and jumps up. It means that we have to keep her away from them or on a leash.
I’ve tried all the training tips - telling them to ignore her, etc, but she can’t help herself.
I’ve always hated it when other people’s dogs jumped on me, so it’s really bothering me at the moment (she’s a giant breed).

Everything else is much better, and we’ve really bonded with her. The ten - 12 week old puppy phase feels like a distant memory now.

@RaptorShark I'm sorry if my post implied that it's abnormal for 5 months old puppies to not always be good at recall when there are distractions.

I was more talking about very young puppies when they are first let off the lead - they tend to stick close to their owners. By 5 months they are feeling a bit more confident. My 6 month old also gets that selective deafness when he is enjoying a particularly good game with another dog.

My comment about the long lead was more a throwaway one - that I personally have never seen the point of them for my dogs. But all dogs are different and Labs of course are exceptionally food orientated. Plus I'm clumsy so they would be more of a hindrance than a help to me I feel.

Any suggestions on getting on top of separation anxiety? After the cable chomping incident in the week I have been thinking about the future, and really couldn't see a time we could leave her home alone, in her crate, whilst we go out for the evening for example. My brother and his family are visiting next month. They live in America so they don't come very often, and thinking about getting out for a meal with them is going to be impossible.
She sleeps in her upstairs crate when it's nap time, but when she wakes she starts to cry and whine. I try and leave her for a bit so I'm not going to her straight away.
I had such issues with my previous dog and I really hoped I wouldn't make the same mistakes this time, which it looks like I might have. I am feeling really quite despondent about it all right now :(
She's 4 months old now,17 weeks yesterday.

Can only speak for myself but as soon as our puppy was house trained, we let him have the run of the downstairs.

I think this helps with them being on their own because they have options of whichever room/place they are most comfortable to be in, plus I always give him something like a goats ear to chew on when I go out so he sees that as a positive.

I built up slowly so first left him alone for half an hour when I went to the local supermarket, then an hour etc. We can now leave him for a long time (up to 4 hours) as long as he doesn't miss any meals. He generally seems to jump on the sofa to sleep when he's alone.

Our previous dog also chose the sofa to sleep on and he wasn't even allowed on the sofa when we were there (but we turned a blind eye to the dog hairs appearing any time he was left on his own!).

@Twiglets1 my last dog was in a crate for a few years before I decided to let her sleep with the door open and she chose the sofa, so I've not experienced a puppy having free range. Well I have, but they seem to get into all sorts of trouble.
This afternoon Rosie did go back in her crate all by herself with the door open. I thought she was in the kitchen but nope, there she was, laid down looking all relaxed. After her nap, however, she was in a bitey mood and chewed on the crate. Before we knew it, she had somehow got her jaw stuck on the bars of the hinge. Terrifying noise from her, and I was worried I couldn't get her free, but dh managed to help me. I felt so sick afterwards, and the sound was just too reminiscent of my last dog when she was very ill, screaming in pain early one morning before we took her to the ooh vets.
Anyway, on a quiet evening walk after a busy day, she experienced her first nettle sting on her paws. She looked so confused and was stomping her paws on the ground.

oh that's so awful about her getting her jaw stuck on the bars of the hinge!

How horrible for everyone - I'm glad you and your husband managed to help her.

How is everyone getting on? A wet & miserable day and DPup really doesn’t like the rain. I took him for a short street walk earlier between showers and it made me think I don’t really know when to get him to walk to heel and when to sniff. For most of his walks, we go to places where, after crossing the car park or similar, he is off lead. Other times, it will be short walks down a high street and he is at heel and does quite well with that. Today, though, it was a walk around our neighbourhood but I wanted him to have a good sniff as he wasn’t going to go far so I wasn’t as bothered about him sticking to my left heel. How do I communicate that to him?
Also, what commands are you all teaching your dogs (as opposed to what you see on insta)? He is 4 months now and can do sit, lie, stand, come, wait & is getting better at stay, leave & drop. Down is very much a work in progress!
Finally, how can I stop being his favourite chew toy! I am his main person and, as soon as he comes out of his crate or I get back from going out or something, his greeting involves a lot of chewing or biting. It’s getting very tedious! Redirecting him with a toy doesn’t seem relevant as that doesn’t deal with the fact that he wants to greet me

Wow @foxandduck that all sounds impressive. How did you teach heel? My pup loves the rain, loves getting muddy and never stops sniffing so I can't suggest anything. He also is terrible at leave, drop and down. We basically have sit, paw and come (but recall is not reliable). I know yours is a cockapoo too so feeling very inferior reading how much you've achieved with yours! We are stuck with staying on lead pretty much all the time as otherwise he will run up to other dogs and people and jump at them. I think I will get a one to one trainer to come work with us on that as it needs to be fixed.

We have managed to teach him to only come greet us with a toy in his mouth though, so he always picks something up before he comes to give us a rapturous hello. That's solved the enthusiastic biting as a greeting for us.

@RaptorSharkwe’re in a weird position where DPup prefers to be hand fed so, whilst we do offer him meals four times a day, I don’t hand feed him his breakfast for example until we are on a walk so he is very keen to come back when he is off lead and very good at walking to heel when on lead as I just feed him a constant supply of kibble. So it’s luck rather than skill. Hence why none of the other commands are really sticking! I can’t take credit for “sit” as he did that before he came. He’s brilliant at “leave”
and “drop” in at home training sessions but doesn’t bother when out & he has found something he likes the smell
of.

@FoxandDuck I find if I let mine get close to the property lines on the paths will do a lot of sniffing but if I keep her to the middle she can't get there so it's more a walk iyswim. Last night I took her to a small field up the road and, on her short lead, let her dictate where we went and she did a lot of sniffing. The area has been used by a lot of rally campers recently so there were a lot of smells for her and it did seem to tire her out ready for bed just after we got in.

She is doing ok with her training. She sits naturally anyway, lie down has been a vocal affair but she will do it, eventually. She sits up really nicely too. I'm working on stand.
Yesterday she worked out how to get through the cat flap from the kitchen into the utility, so something to watch as we have another one which goes out into the garden. She's growing by the day so she will be too big to do that soon enough.
She goes into her bed really well for meal times and makes eye contact before we give her the command to go eat. She is starting to get a bit more interested in food prep which she wasn't before so I am trying to keep her shut away with a retractable baby gate. This is also to try and help with making her happy about not being with me as I feel she is going to have quite bad separation anxiety, something I was trying to avoid this time around. We have a new crate coming this week, so as soon as that's here, all her meals will be in there and I will be really working on her being happy to go in there for a time, just so she is safe.

Oh, she's has discovered the stairs! Well, she can go up them, then gets stuck and can't work out how to come back down. My last dog just got it so not sure how to navigate this.

Tomorrow we are taking our first walk into town which is about 20 min walk to meet a groomer and hopefully get her booked info her first pro groom

I took the pup out for a proper off-lead walk today and he did really well. I have to put him back on the lead as other people and dogs approach but he stayed pretty close to me and it was really fun actually to give him the freedom!

G is 19 weeks now (feel like a proper dog mum type counting in weeks rather than months lol) and I’ve still not tried him off lead when we’re out yet. Must do it this week. He is good at sit, down (as in lie down but not get down at all!!!) wait, paw, high five and touch (when I say touch and hold my hand out any position he will touch it with his nose- apparently it can be good to help recall but I’m not convinced he will do it with an outdoor distraction!). DD is trying to teach him to come sit between her legs and get down off the sofa is definitely a work in progress as is leave or drop!! He’s not really even meant to get on the sofa but we have a cuddle chair I stupidly let him get up on with us for sleeping so now he thinks wherever we sit is fair game 🤦🏻‍♀️
Crate is for sleeping only and I need to get in the habit of making frozen kongs so he can start getting in there when we need him to be left for short periods as he doesn’t get left alone… he’s good in the car and has had a wee puppy groomer visit and gets weekly baths as he likes to dig! He doesn’t like getting wet and his toilet training is pretty much 100% at home (wouldn’t trust him other places quite so much).

He loves to sleep so when he wakens up for a pee at 6 ish he is always happy to go back to sleep in his basket near one of the family until it’s time to get up- this morning it was 9.20!!!

It was teeming it down this morning and Miss Rosie did NOT want to go outside to toilet! I don't blame her tbh, but I wasn't having her first wee of the day being inside. She did start to have a poo indoors but dh stopped that and she has finally had one outside, but honestly if she had gone straight away like she usually does she wouldn't have been as wet as she got.
@TappingTed do you or your dd (I don't know if she is old enough) have Instagram as there is an Australian dog trainer on there, every day dog trainer, who shows how to get your dog to go between your legs, or middle as she calls it. She's been really good to watch, and slightly despair when trying to implement things with Rosie who doesn't behave the same way as her dog Echo. But she is really positive so I keep watching and trying

Is mine the only one who loves the rain? He goes on an absolute sniffing frenzy, it must all smell so interesting when the grass is wet. He also adores a muddy puddle.

We've been out off lead again this morning and I'm finding it more useful for recall practice than the training sessions we did previously. He does want to stay near, but he is not recalling through distractions - at all! If something is interesting to him, his ears don't work anymore and he forgets his own name.

We've also gone back on the no sofa rule @tappingted and he knows 'down' and does it but he gets straight back up again! He's like a jack in a box.

I was on the last thread and went quiet as I was in the trenches but now my pup is 10 months old, he’s such a character, never had a dog like him, but he’s really well behaved, he just wants love constantly and is really laid back, only issue we have currently is he’s very much a humper, only his bed and blankets though, no legs luckily.

I’ve lost count of the weeks, but mine is almost 5 months.

Does anyone else’s pee when someone new visits or goes to rub them? Mine still does it every single time.
I think it’s because she’s excited and being friendly, and perhaps a little submissive, but I’m really hoping she outgrows it soon.
She’s not at all anxious, so I’m not worried about that.

Mine used to do this, I had to take him out for a wee prior to anyone visiting. He grew out of it though and hasn’t done it in a while. He is 14 months old now. It was definitely excitement that caused it!

Thank you @VanGoSunflowers

We've been so lucky since we had our pup (black lab) 6 weeks ago, and he's spent lots of time 'helping' DH in the garden. A full day of rain now, and he's getting bored indoors. I bought a 'Tiny Fetch' toy which we set up for him - DH is concerned that it's flimsy and he'll hurt himself on the sharp plastic connection - fair comment.

Any ideas of indoor toy that occupy and keep pups entertained? Just looking for anything that might be fun for him!

Did you come up with a solution, @ajandjjmum? Various enrichment things seem to have any interest for DPup so I struggle too. When we first had him, he could chase an empty plastic bottle for a while and liked a frozen tea towel or a lick mat but now he looks at such things disdainfully!
Any tips for getting them to stay settled when you move away? DD is coming to the end of GCSEs and was revising in the kitchen earlier with DPup lying next to her & seemingly content. Then I left the room and he immediately followed. He‘a just been asleep next to DH and in the garden and properly asleep, sprawled on his back with his legs in the air. I walk away, though, and he immediately follows.