rocky_beagle

Hi Everyone, Rocky is going well he is so funny and getting a little cheeky but in cute puppy way He has met lots of people/family and friends with toddlers etc and he has been really good... still a little anxious about him meeting other dogs. Artimus'mama - With toilet training rocky, we have just tried to keep it consistent. I am not saying the way i did it is the only way, but it's what has worked for us. I am a first time dog owner, so I did lots of reading about different ways and just tailored it to suit rocky. The first week we took him every 1.5hrs even through the night. This was to get him used to going outside, so we never really gave him the chance to go inside. We give him a few minutes and if he doesn't go we take him back in and try again 1/2hr after that. When he does go outside we just praise praise praise him!!! It used to be funny at 4am i would hear hubby out the back saying well done rocky over and over hehe Now at 10 weeks when we are home it's around every 3hrs. We just take him out and say toilet. If he wants to go sooner he just whimpers or comes to us and runs to the back door but that has only happened twice. He sleeps from midnight (we got to bed late!) until 6:30am which is wonderful! he has been doing this the last 3 nights. We have put a little bell hanging near the door, before we go out we show him the bell and shake it and say toilet, hoping that eventually he will just hit the bell if he needs to go... wishful thinking perhaps but everything we have tried has worked so far... fingers crossed! Because he wouldn't go on the indoor loo we tried to make him, and work has become very busy - i can only go home once during the day (lunch) so we have made a few changes. We have now properly secured our large area on the side of the house and made him a big kennel filled with his toys and blankets and bed - as a test we just put him down the side of the house to see what would happen, he LOVES it - running up and down, playing, having a good sniff and he loves his kennel This is only for while we are at work, and not on bad weather days but it means that he does not have to bust him self trying to hold on until i get home... last week he was waiting every 4hrs he is so much happier now. How is bailey going? I know what you mean about the biting! it was getting a bit much on the weekend so for a couple of days we would play but as soon as the biting started we would say a firm NO, give him a chew toy and walk away. He seems to be better with it the last couple of days... but i'm sure it's nowhere near over yet! Hope everyone else is going well, and puppies are all good sorry for the long post I just had lots to blab... nat

Hello, checking in on him every 3 hours, he has been good so far, no accidents. Each time i get home i take him straight out - he does his business and then we play for a bit. Last night only had to get up twice, that was a nice change We wore him out this morning gave him a good 1.5hrs of running around the backyard! I think it has worked. I just left him again and he was sound asleep. Will be home again in a couple of hours, so looking forward to not having to leave him again today. I gave him some new toys this morning and he has taken to them well

ok here are some photos of our little guy he just barked at the kong chew toy!!! he had not barked until then, i think he is a little scared of it. we put his collar on today, he was itching at it for a bit and when we added the leash he kept trying to do backflips and bite at it! with the use of some treats and distractions he got the hang of it within a few minutes. because he has been running off into the garden when we take him out, the last few times we have put the leash on to get him used to it more - this seems to be working well. A couple of these photos are when he was 6 weeks old at the breeders, the rest are at my place and some at my parents place. Nat P.S I am just going to split my lunch break up and pop through home a few times a day to let him out. He ripped the turf loo apart and there is no chance he is going to go on any fake loo inside. Once he is a little older we can enclose an area outside and do the doggy door. Enjoy the pics!

hi everyone, thanks for all the helpful comments Because he is still a puppy, when we go outside he loves to explore. We have a large yard, but he still needs to be supervised at this stage. So for the moment a doggy door would not work during the day, he is inside his play pen which he would not be able to get out of. Once he is around 5 months we will be leaving him outside during the day when we are working, we are lucky to have an area on the side of our house approx 2.5m wide x 15m deep which is fenced off so it will be nice and secure for when he is bigger, but he will still spend nights and time when we are home inside. At the moment it is very cold and i cant leave him outside, when we go to 'toilet' outside he shakes like a leaf! We just read a few other posts and made a cheaper pet loo with fake turf which we rubbed allover the dirt outside to get him sniffing. So we have put it inside his play pen and will see how he goes with that... but this is just very temporary until he can hold long enough for me to get home at lunch to take him out. Still lots to think about. Will keep training him to go outside when we are home, and only put the turf loo in the play pen when we go to work. He is a very good puppy and took really quickly to toilet training so we are very lucky :D will see what happens now. Also on hills science diet, he is really loving it. I didn't bother mixing in his old food for lunch as he keeps pushing it to the side, but he ate all his new food which is a first!

Hi everyone, my husband and I picked up our beagle puppy rocky on saturday. we both took a few days off work so we could get him settled which has worked well so far, he is just adorable - we will post some photos soon. he had his first vet appointment this morning and everything is fine we are in the process of switching him from weetbix & pedigree food (breeder had him on) to hills science diet for puppies - does anyone else use this? he is enjoying it so much more than his old food. The vet said to mix some of the new food with the old food to avoid an upset tummy, but he picked out and ate all the new food and left the old food behind. He has taken to toilet training really really well... not a single accident inside! so we are very proud of him. We had been taking him out every 1.5hrs to get him used to going outside. We have set up a playpen inside the house where he has his food/drinking mat, play area, sleep area and eventual eliminating area for during the day. But he also has a bed/blanket in the lounge for when he is with us. Because we both work full time 4 days per week (I can come home for lunch) we initially planned to have a 'turf' type toilet inside for during the day, then we saw the way he got into the grass outside we thought that he would just make a mess of himself - so we decided to try some puppy mats with the drops instead. Tonight we tried these and he was not at all interested, he knows that when he needs to go - it is outside... and he got quite upset about it. We feel like we did a bad thing by training him to eliminate outside and now because we are asking him to use puppy mats inside, it is going backwards. But on the other hand, he will be mainly an indoor dog so we thought - he needs to know to go outside... So now we are a bit confused (as i am sure he is) and need to figure out what to do.... Anyone here had a similar situation? Thanks Nat