vegemite_toast

Mine pup loves apple, carrots and asparagus. I haven't given her anything else yet. My older dog doesn't really like fruit and veg, but will eat a carrot if he thinks that the pup wants it.

Our puppy loves to dig too. I'm definitely trying the poop in the holes this weekend... and a clamshell pool with sand in it. The chicken wire solution won't work for us as our pup loves to dig in the lawn.

Thanks heaps for these ideas!! I'm definitely giving the toilet roll one a go. Should I just be putting in his usual dry food? He is getting Eagle Pack puppy for giant breeds, should i put a few kibbles of this in the tube or some other sort of treaty biscuit? My 12 year old dog and the 13 week old puppy both love these. They have so much fun ripping them apart, and I have never put any treats inside them. They actually go into the bathroom and steal the used rolls off the window sill because they love them so much. They also love old pizza boxes. I guess the bit of food / oil residue and odours have permeated them, so the dogs find them irresistible. And another vote for the soft drink bottle with some kibble / biscuits in it. My pup went wild with one yesterday, played with it for well over an hour, had a rest and then went back to it for more fun.

I'm glad the pup is ok, despite the idiot owner. But yes, codeine is a medication that is used for dogs. Years ago my dog was prescribed codeine syrup to help ease a cough caused by CHF.

I am so proud of our new puppy. She is now 11.5 weeks and her training is going really well. I know that she is not a super dog and I am sure that there are probably plenty of other pups that have been better trained and are more obedient at this age, but I'm still proud of our accomplishments nonetheless. Maple knows to sit before going outside, or coming inside, without anyone needing to tell her to do so. She sits before she gets her food automatically, and will stay until I tell her she can have it, but if I forget, then she is out of sit and in the bowl so fast your head would spin - lol, so it is something we are still working on. She still needs some guidance for drop (ie won't do it on command only, needs my hand signal at her level to guide her down to the ground, but doesn't need a treat to do so. She is getter better at come, but if there is something else more interesting than me she is deaf to the come command. And she is learning "down" with some success too. I use it when she is up on the lounge suite or chairs etc looking for items to steal. And the best thing of all, when I say "kennel up!" she runs into her daytime Bunnings crate! She isn't the fondest of the crate, and would much rather lay out on her bed in the lounge room, but will go into it happily when I say the magic words. And we haven't had any toileting accidents in the house with me since last weekend! Maple goes and sits at the back door when she needs to go out! Now all I need to do is train Mr VegemiteToast to pay attention to her signals so he can experience the same success! ETA: This is the first puppy or dog I have ever had the privilege to train. Our other dog came from the RSPCA fully trained (and very, very well trained at that!). If you read this, thanks

My pup is now 11.5 weeks old, so I am afraid that I am probably a little late in starting to leash train her, but better now than to leave it even later as I would like to have her trained by the time she has finished her vaccinations and I can take her out for actual walks. I have bought a martingale collar and a light weight leash to start off. Today I have put both on my puppy and allowing her to just walk around the house and outside to get used to them. Yes, I am fully supervising her while she has the gear on. But where to I do from here? Thanks in advance for any and all advice, help, warnings etc.

:D I am so glad that in the nearly 11 years that we have had our boy we have not had to deal with this problem. I had absolutely no idea that it was even a possibility. And OMG - thinking about the consequences of getting some hair stuck is making me :D Thankfully our new puppy is a girl.

Thanks everyone. It is good to know that Maple is not the only dirt grazer. Yes, she does enjoy grass, grass roots, sticks, paper etc too. But she does actually lick, bite and eat the dirt either from the surface or she paws a bit at the spot, then eats. We feed her Pro Plan and add in some fish oil every day, so I certainly hope that she is not seeking out missing minerals from her diet in the dirt.

I'm not a dog psychologist, so I may be totally off track here. But when Oscar goes poop outside, do you praise him heavily? Or did you do it when he was a younger puppy and no longer praise him for pooping outside? Maybe he figures that if you are happy and excited when he has a poop, then it is a very good present to bring into the house to share with you?

Our puppy is now 11 weeks old. Every time she goes outside she wants to eat dirt. She seeks out the bare patches in the lawn and licks, digs, bites, and eats the dirt. Any ideas why she would do this and any good ideas for stopping it? I do try to redirect her and/or stand on top of the area that has her interest, but it only helps in the very short term.

So are you saying that the local councils don't even reliably check their own dog registry databases? Do they just look on the one and/or both of the national registries? We were almost made to re-chip our dog in NSW because when we tried to register him with his current microchip info the stupid council person said that it was not a real mc#. Apparently the mc#s for NSW were quite different to that which was done years previously in SA. Thankfully we were able to get it sorted out to their satisfaction. I guess I have some homework to do to try to track down which, if any, national registry our dogs are on and make sure that contact details are indeed current. Thankfully OH hasn't changed his mobile # in well over 12 years, so at least that would be correct on the contact details even if the other info is out of date.

After reading the thread in the Rescue Forum about the dog that was chipped, but the details were very out of date and the original owners could not be contacted, I started to think about our old dog and his microchip details. We adopted him 10 years ago from the RSPCA in Adelaide and then took him back there to be desexed and microchipped a couple of weeks after adoption. Since he was microchipped we have moved interstate a couple of times. Each time we have moved we have registered the dog and his microchip details with the relevant council. However, we have misplaced his original microchipping paperwork and therefore do not know whom to contact to change details on whatever registry he was originally listed with. But should we be renewing his details with a national microchip registry? When your dog's chip is registered with your local council, can other nearby council's have access to the info so that if your dog is lost and is found in another council area would they be able to track you down, or would your dog languish in a pound until you were able to locate him/her? And if you are on vacation with your dog, and he wanders off, would the council ranger or pound in that locality be able to find your details on any database? And what about recognition between states etc? We live in a border town, so it is not inconceivable that our dog could actually be found in a different state to that in which we live.

I have no idea, but my murray river curly coated retriever pup is also 9.5 weeks, and she has only barked just once. I was so suprised when I heard it. Normally she just whines, whimpers, and a sort of yodeling type howl, most of which is when she is in her crate at a time that she thinks she should be out with us.

Not sure if it is exactly the same thing, but my old dog back in Canada 15-18 years ago was diagnosed with a self-fusing spine after x-rays for a gastro problem. She did definitely have back problems and didn't have much strength to her back legs as it progressed. There was nothing that could be done for it. When she went down any stairs she just used her front legs and held her back end up and used it as a sort of rudder (it didn't drag at all, but was up in the air!). She did have great chest and front leg strength though and managed quite well.

Thanks for all the advice. I didn't have time to read everyone's post before it was time for us to leave. Maple did fairly well. We stopped once about an hour into the trip. Kids and OH went into a restaurant for a quick dinner. I stayed with Maple. She didn't want to get out of her crate, but I coaxed her to the front of it with food and was able to get her collar and lead on. It had been raining, so pavement was wet, but the spot beside our car was vacant with a big dry patch where a car had been sitting. I spread newspaper out on the dry spot and lifted Maple out onto it. She just stood and shivered and didn't do anything. So into the car for some cuddles, then back into the crate. This time she settled right away in the crate. About 45 minutes from home I could smell "dog" in the car, and sure enough, she had peed in the crate. When we got home she took a little bit of time to come out of the crate, and was timid. We took her outside, and she pooped on the grass! She seems to know naturally to be subordinate to our old dog, a 12 year old kelpie X shepherd. So far no major problems, other than Gromit wants to claim all the new toys as his, but we are supervising very carefully. Maple is a Murray River Curly Coated Retriever. Here she is with my daughter and Gromit

Today we get our new puppy. She is just a hair over 8 weeks old. We have just over a 3 hour drive home with her. She has had her first set of vaccinations. I know that until puppies finish all their vaccinations, they shouldn't be out and about, but is it ok to let our new pup out of her cage for a toilet break chance every 30-60 minutes on the trip home? We would stop at petrol stations, service centres, etc for this purpose, so she would be out on pavement, not dirt and grass. Or should I just pack the crate with papers and leave her in there for the whole trip home?

Thanks stitch and ellz We've set the day pen up in the area between the kitchen and family room (it is open plan). Maple will be visible from kitchen, dining room, and family room, so it should work out well, but if not then we have a couple of other spots in mind that we can try that are where Maple can see and be seen. They would mean rearranging some very large, heavy pieces of furniture though, and oh would prefer to avoid that if possible.

We are getting the house ready this weekend for our new pup, which we will pick up on Thursday. We have a pp40 crate for nighttime in our bedroom, and (thanks to suggestions from dol!) a Bunnings compost pen for a daytime puppy pen. But we are unsure of the best location for it. Should it be somewhere off to the side in a quiet area, or closer to a main living area? Our two choice locations for it at the moment are a corner of the dining room, or out in the family room near tv, and lounge? Both areas are ceramic tiled, but we will be getting a lino offcut to put under it to help protect the floor and to make it easy to give a it a good clean outside when needed.

As stated in previous threads, I've never had the pleasure to own (adopt) a puppy. All my previous dogs (including the current one) have been older rescue dogs. My pup's breeder has had the pups vaccinated this week (they are currently 6 weeks old). We will get Maple when she is 8 weeks old. At what age should she have her 2nd vaccination? Will she need a 3rd set of vaccinations before she can go out in public, and if so, when should they be done? Am I wrong in thinking that she would be ok to go out for walks etc 10 days after her last vaccination. I'm trying to work out some social plans so I was hoping to sort of figure out some dates that would be safe to take Maple out and about. I tried to google the info, but I couldn't find what I was looking for, probably because I wasn't typing in the right search parameters or something TIA!

Thank you OP for starting this topic! I have gotten so many good ideas. We don't get to pick up our puppy for another 5 or 6 weeks, but I am slowly buying all the supplies etc as I see them on sale as I can spread out the initial cost a bit. Dh and I went to Bunnings yesterday and had a look at the compost/dog crates. We will be buying 2 of them and making a proper crate for our new pup (so it will have a panel each for roof and floor). I also have some old cotton toweling bathmats, so thanks to whomever suggested cutting them up and making chew toys with them. I thought I would sew a long piece of towel bathmat into a good tube shape, then use 3 different colours and plait them together to make a good, sturdy, and cheap chew toy. I thought I would add another cheap option into the mix that I don't think has been mentioned yet. Children's flip-out sofas make great dog beds. My kids are older now, but we still have one in the family room as our old dog has declared it to be his bed. While they are not cheap to buy brand new, sometimes you can find them cheap at op-shops, or on freecycle.