flycow

My 3mths has started putting her paws on me, I am sure this will lead to jumping in future. Thus I took her paws and gently push her away from me. Then made her Sit. I ALWAYS made her sit, no matter what she want from me, cuddle, attention, get outside, food etc. Hopefully that is the good begining. What you can do is keep training him to sit for everything, then when there's guest, crate/confine him first until he calms down. Then put him on lead and go say hello to guests. Made him sit to greet, otherwise confine him again, no attention.

thanks codelia for the links, very informative articles.

keep lots of big icecubes made with very diluted soup stock. My pup pester me for food quite often and I give her that.

Thanks guys, keep them coming, it's interesting to read about the progress of all your fur babies. I learn so much in DOL.

Good morning all, I did a search and couldn't find this topic, if it's been discuss before, please direct me to the thread, much appreciated. So here goes. I know some dogs never go past puppy stage :p . But what defines adulthood? Is it when a puppy stops chewing furniture and can be totally trustworthy when left alone in the house? Or when they are sexually matured to be mommies and daddies? Or when they stop digging the garden? I have a maltese that matured at around 1.5 y.o when he can take a simple NO to request for play. I also had a Japanese spitz that matured around 2 y.o when he can settled beside me whole day long without asking for anything. He is simply contented to be by my side. Now I am adviced that my Labrador will mature at 3yrs :p , it got me thinking what maturity actually means. if she is only going to sit still for five minutes by 3 years, then I'm a dead woman. -------------------------------------- What I wish to know is, 1) How do you define mature for your dog? 2) What breed is it? 3) At what age did your dog start adulthood? 4) Any other info you can share. Thanks!

Are you talking about kitty litter? They are quite costly and usually the pup will not go after using it two to three times, thus you gotta change them. You can actually use newspaper.

Yes I wouldn't too. Then I was thinking she seemed to treasure that chicken frame so much and want to chew in bed, and then she ditch her bed because of the smell.... I don't quite understand but they can be so different (to us) sometimes that make them unique. I probably gotta put on my doggy hat more. I am considering building a kennel for her soon. Now I've just made another bed with fresh bedding for her. I will also give her bones under supervision only and take it away afterwards. It's great that you share with me the overheating experience of your dog because I have two smaller boys previously and they never had this problem. Current girl might really be overheating, now that I think of it, it's really possible. It's really a new dog everyday.

Sorry to hi-jack this thread, my pup has started chasing her tail and chew it, twice-thrice a day as well. Just like to ask besides medication, can I just put something of bad taste (like lemon or chilli) on her tail so she'd taste it? Thought it's safer this way than medication.

Hi guys, I observed something about my 9.5week Lab puppy and don't understand it, perhaps some of you can shed some light if this ever happened to your pup before? My pup sleeps in a Pen, there's a bed in it made out of cardboard box. I'll get a big bed when she's bigger. This is what happened today. I gave her half a chicken frame, she has eaten this before and is fine with it. Anyway this frame was given to her inside the pen. Then she decided to drag it into her bed to hide/eat it and the frame left some stains (and smell) on the bedding material and the cardboard box itself. Tonight I noticed she's been sleeping on the tiled floor outside the bed for a long time. She don't usually do this as it is really cold flooring. What do you think is happening? I don't quite understand her psychological state here. I've taken away the bedding material now and replaced with another clean one. Although the box itself still carries some smell of the chicken. In the begining she attempted to dig a little and then finally fell asleep. Advice? Thanks

For nipping, I am using a squirt bottle at the moment, the puppy school trainer recommended this so I'm trying it out. I do a loud firm "aaaaaaaaaaaaah" to stop nipping or other extremely naughty stuff. Two tries is the max, then I "aaaaaah" and squirt the water onto my pup's face (not eyes though). Sometimes I am two steps away (like outdoors) I set a stronger jet on the bottle. Seems to be working so far. Oh and personally I am not using it unless absolutely necessary, I don't want her to resent me. And lots of praise and play afterwards once she's good. p/s :edited for spelling errors.

Congrats beaglelover. I agree with bikle having two pups might need separate training times. I have never had two at once but I have kept more than one Budgies at once and also single Budgie. Single is definitely easier to train, will this count?

Oh my, I can imagine it too, it'd be a nightmare for me. I suspected the drontal too as just two weeks before collecting her, she just took a drontal prior and did a poop in front of me, it was quite watery. I thought it's due to her still feeding from mum. If some of you guys' puppies experienced that as well it's probably the drontal and change of diet. I have ordered Sentinel from Pricelesspets found in this forum, great service. Today she did a solid poo after three days of strict kibble diet, and lost some puppy fat as well now I can feel her rib, so I am happy . (The vet said she is on the CHUBBY side just that day )

I am using the fence type pen now, one warning though, some cheaper pens are lightweight, puppy can push over, so grab some bricks to hold it down or something. Or get a solid one. You put the bed in the pen . Food and water dish goes in the pen. The rule is puppy eat and sleep and spend quiet alone time in the pen. toilet OUTSIDE the pen. The toilet part you decide if it's outdoors or indoors. If indoors, spread some newspapers near the pen, not too close but can be seen by puppy. Generally timing schedule is sleep-wake-pee, play-pee, eat-poo+pee, play-pee again etc. Every puppy is different so you observe the timing and note it down. Always feed at fix times so you can predict the poo times. Is he toilet trained yet?

Hi Whippy, don't be disheartened. Maybe ask yourself, besides saying no, have you said yes too? Try to say more yes, if puppy chew something, say no and quickly grab something for him to replace what you took away. AND say YES!!! so it's a lot of YES YES YES too! and GOOD DOG! praises works wonders! Those things that you can't let puppy do, for eg. chewing, grab some citronella oil or chilli power, dilute with water and smear on the things you don't want it to chew. Always distract distract distract! By the way, get some books, one of the books I read is Dog Whisperer, it's quite good. You'd need several books.

I agreed with Miranda with the crate. Crate training is very effective and give the puppy his own space to go back to. You can put his bed into the crate, so that crate area is play area plus bed for sleeping. I am in the same situation as you, I have a 9 week puppy now and work from home temporarily. On the first day I put her in a crate, she panicked. Then I sat down with her and calmed her from outside the crate. Once I'm gone from her sight (on purpose), she howled 20+ times, each time 10+ mins. I ignored her totally whenever she did that. She is a large puppy so the noise was 10 fold that of small puppies. I put on ear plugs and apologised to the neighbours. By second day, the length of howling shortened to half, and she tried whining, it's heart wrenching to hear but I ignored. Everytime she stopped for 5 mins, I entered room, no looking, drink water and then go to her for cuddle. Cycle repeats. By third day, she howled only 5 times, each time 5 howls. So there you go, persistence is the key. Once you know their games, it's easy peasy. By the way, today is the 6th day for me and she has understood when is her puppy time and when is my private time. I can go out for 2.5 hours without worrying. Oh one tip for you, do you have two computers? I set up a computer with webcam in her room to watch her 24hours. I work from another room. So sometimes I can see her whine a few times and look at the door to my room, she's trying her luck. When I don't respond, she play with her toys. And also set the radio on to very low volumn, it helps. I tune mine to ABC channel, all talkshows in monotone. LOL! Hope this helps. p.s. pls excuse my grammar.

Hello kitkat and jls, many thanks for your concerns. My puppy is fine today, no more bloody poo and very active, everything back to normal. kitkat - none of her poo was hard, so I think it is unlikely to be constipation. She didn't have vaccination recently, it was more than a week ago. Anyway all is well today so I'm more relaxed now but will still observe closely. jls - yes the bones were raw, but I use lukewarm water to rinse it first. I suspect it's the bones and roo meat (hehe), will observe further and bring to vet if she is not well. Now she is on strict kibble diet. This forum is really great, so many friendly people for support.

Hello all, I need some advice from you guys as I have not had a puppy for many years now and need to learn every thing all over again. Any advice is appreciated. Here goes. I collected my puppy three days ago from a reputable breeder. Pup is on Drontol every two weeks and vaccinated with C4. Day one she was hyperactive, poo is soft to firm within one hour after meals. All went well. Day two she was hyperactive too. I introduced one table spoonful of meat (kangeroo) to her kibbles for breakfast and for the afternoon I gave her the soft bone part of a chicken frame. It was also her worming day. This day her poo was not regular, due only after four or five hours after eating a meal. Day three I gave her strict kibble meals. She had two stools that have a little dull blood at the end of it. She was half as active than day one and two. I brought her to the vet for check up but did not mention the poo as that came later. The vet said she's all healthy and she was really well behaved throughout the day too. I thought this is weired, she has always been a bouncy pup. Do I have to be concern for the moment? She eats ok and slept 30% more than the past two days. Am I just paranoid?

Hello Simbas_mum, I bought my 8-panel play pen from Ebay too. They measure roughly 60wx90h cm per panel, solid steel, delivered to door at $90. Of course it can't compare to KOJAK's. My pen will only confined but if the pup push it with it's body weight, it might topple or shift. Thus if using this type of pen you might want to take the weight into consideration, or train the pup not to jump.

Dear all, some updates. My puppy arrived home this morning and did the usual howling, crying, whining, watching me and destroying paper ON THE FIRST DAY! I was thinking, here we go again. :rolleyes: (she's not my first dog so I kinda know their tricks a little) I am very lucky so far, she knows how to pee outside, seems like she learned it from the breeder and I just need to reinforced it. And she adjusted into a play pen immediately. I am so very amazed at how intelligent Labradors are. ;) As for the neighbours dogs, today they barked twice when she's outside. First time she was curious, second time she got a little scared. I hope puppy school will solved this, she has been socialising only with Labs so far. Now my whole family is praying hard she won't get affected by those surrounding dogs.

ls_l : how old is your pup now? Is she still ignoring the neighbours' dogs?

Thanks guys for your advice. I agree with cavNrott that responding to bad behaviour is a no no. My puppy doesn't bark when she is with the breeder, her mum doesn't bark. In fact most of the breeder's dogs don't bark at strangers, they have excellent temperament which is why I bought her. Now that she is coming to suburbia (the dirty word), and with all the noise around us, I really don't know what to expect. I'm going to put in my best effort to bring her up properly.

Dear all, It's nice to get out of lurking once in a while. My, this forum is so full of humour, I came here for my daily fix, never failed me once! Tomorrow is my big day - new puppy is coming home! My first after many dog-free years since my last dog passed. My only worry now is about neighbouring dogs. I am unfortunately surrounded by suburbian home owners who have little terrors in their backyards. Three neighbours - two behind and one beside have small dominant dogs that are untrained. They are territorial and bark day and night at each other, banging on the fence wanting to fight. I thank the heavens they are little, or they will tear the fences down. It's a nightmare. Then recently I decided to get a female Lab myself and intend to send her to doggie preschool, starting next week. Due to the backyard problems with neighbours' dogs, I will also let her sleep inside away from distractions and only let her play outside under my supervision. My question is, in her crtical puppy period, will she pick up bad barking habits from the neighbours'? We can hear their noise from inside the house. What can I do to correct this if my baby barks back?