Dju

Oh good

My pup shows little to no interest in his Kong! And the more expensive the toy is, it seems, the less interested he is. Empty plastic water bottles filled with kibble, and toilet rolls? Worth their weight in gold around here.

I'd like to try and help if I can As much as a 19-year-old can anyways

Well that's a relief

I dunno if you'll like this one

I post stalked you to find the picture and some more info because I'm a bastard.

Haha, mine does this as well! His favorite toy at the moment is a big bunch of celery. So he'll grasp the celery in his mouth by the leaves and back up as he drags it along the ground and sort of reverse right into my lap. Then he chews it all up and my legs will be covered in celery juice.

In Urban Dog Training, I have been told that there are at least two to three trainers to about 15 dogs, and whenever fights break out, the two pups are separated before being allowed to play with the others again. And of course, there are probably new puppy owners following their dogs around like stink on a warthog who ensure that nothing bad happens to their pooch. I think it sounds like a great opportunity for socialization.

I can't get over it either He sulks a lot when we're a) ignoring something naughty that he did, b) clipping his nails, and c) brushing him, as he can't eat the brush.I thought that allowing a puppy to run and bounce around on brick pavers/concrete isn't good for his bone structure or something because it's so hard for their joints? We have a tiny tiny little pavement strip leading up to our washing line, and he much rather prefers to roll around in the dirt.

Hugo is a big play biter as well, ow my hands! It's nice to see that you posted up something that worked, if Hugo persists with this, we might have to resort to using a spray bottle. One question though, you said to make sure he didn't see where the water came from. How do you conceal the spray bottle? Or do you spray him from the back of the head or something like that? It's more often than not that Hugo will be biting my hands, so hiding the bottle might prove a little hard if I need my hand to operate it :D

How do you know if you live in a heartworm area? I heard the same thing being said about the tick prevention "if you don't live in a tick area there's no need for it", but how can one tell, are there statistics on the internet or something like that? :D

For puppies and worming, my breeder told me once every two weeks, I believe? Drontal puppy is good, yes, the tablets are too big for puppies. The benefits of Drontal is also that there's a paper inside that tells you how often to administer the treatment, that was pretty useful for me :D I'm not sure myself about flea/tick treatments for puppies though.

Hugo had a big week so far. He's become pretty drivey and bitey throughout the week, so we've been asking lots of people for advice on how to handle that. Would still like some advice on the matter, as we've gotten looots of differing opinions. Cassie thinks that we should say "No" firmly, roll him onto his back, growl at him, and then walk away. Others have told me to just walk away, others still tell me about "time out" in the crate, etc etc. His favorite thing to chew on is of course me. Mmm, delicious mortal. To avoid all this behavior, we've also been advised to stop letting him play tug with us--mostly because he always wins, and because it's not so good for his teeth either. I don't know how all these sources can say "make sure you win and not your dog" all the time, because hell, when Hugo plays tug, it's like the thing is superglued to his teeth, it is by no measure an easy feat to get something from him without prying his jaws open! He played with the next-door-neighbors yesterday. They have two young kids there and they were having fun cuddling and petting him (and so was their mother), but from all the attention being on him, Hugo soon turned into a little nutcase, haha. Getting much too bitey with the kids, there was no way I could allow that so I had to postphone play time for him. Also, that night, we had noticed that his nails were a getting little long, so it was time to clip them. We grabbed some human toenail clippers, advice from our breeder, and then I let him stretch out on the floor while I did his back feet. Now. The back feet were okay to do, while he was playing and still had use of his paws, he'd jump a little from fright from the loud clipping noise, but other than that, he was okay. I thought that the experience would be the same for the front paws too. How wrong I was. Thrashing, screaming, crying, carrying on, sulking, but mostly thrashing. Lots and lots of thrashing. It was like I was some murderer out to eat him or something that way he was behaving. I had to do a very slow process of clipping one nail, letting him carry on, then waiting until he was quiet until I clipped the next one and so on. By God, my legs are covered in scratches from his freshly clipped back paws. We didn't hit any quicks, which was good, but it makes me wonder whether I was cutting enough. I think I clipped about two millimeters off all his little claws, I guess I can gradually increase as he grows, I hear that the quick recedes pretty fast. He sulked for a while after I cut them though, I don't think he enjoyed the experience very much! You're a terrible owner and I'm telling Cassie. I had been feeling sick the past few days and Hugo hadn't been feeling very well either, he had this weird sort of diarrhea where there'd be this normal diarrhea right? And then afterward he'd poop out something that resembled a gob of spit. I will spare you the photos, even though I bet you're simply dying of curiosity! Anyways, the both of us were having similar symptoms and we called up Cassie. May I just say that I love the benefits of buying a pup from a breeder? She tells me that any time I need her, I can call her :D. What isn't to like about that, seriously, it's like a 24 hour puppy hotline! Anyways, as I was saying, she thinks that he has worms. (She thinks we all may have worms because of his worms and my symptoms, so that was some more happy news, as I had no idea what the heck was going on with me!) I am honestly not surprised he has worms, chickens scratch around in the dirt all day, and then poop around the yard, and Hugo has become a regular little feces muncher. My mother says he must be missing some nutrients--with the way he ignores his kibble, I must say I'm honestly not surprised! On that note, my mother has been very naughty and trying to bribe Hugo into eating things. He doesn't want this, she brings him that, he doesn't want that, she brings him something else. Not very good for training I gotta say, I'm going to end up with a really spoiled dog if she keeps that up! She's just sooo worried about him "He's skin and bones", "He arrived here nice and plump but he's wasting away to nothing now"... She says this about me too. Daily. I think it's just the sort of mothering style she has, to assume that everyone is hungry all the time and to make an abundance of sandwiches to keep on hand if that situation ever arises. "Hey, are you hungry? It's okay, I'll go make you a sandwich." We took Hugo to the produce store for some Drontal Puppy Wormer, and he had quite the time there. We couldn't put him down on the ground of course, but there were a lot of people touching him nonetheless! We found a woman in a wheelchair, and as mean as it sounds, I rushed straight over to her carrying Hugo because one of the people on the socialization checklist I have is a disabled person and you don't come by them very often. He's not even ten weeks old yet and he's met a lot of people! He's still a little bit shy though, he usually shrinks away from people touching him but after a little bit he starts to warm up. They're all guessing Husky or German Shepherd as the breed, which is funny, because those are the only guesses they can come up with! Nobody has ever heard of a Swedish Vallhund before, of course. We bought the wormer, which I must say is quite expensive for 30 ml of liquid! It's a strange pinky orange color, and from what I could see and smell, it didn't appear all that appetizing. Remembering the toenail clipping incident just a few days prior, I made sure to caaaalm him down as much as possible. We weighed him, and he's about 4 kilos. I'm not sure if that's a good weight or not to be honest, never having a Vallhund before. I might ask Cassie about it later. So for four kilos I needed 4ml of the formula. It came with a syringe-type device, which I must say I'm pretty grateful for as it didn't look like it was going to be so easy to worm him. I held him gently in my arms, gently pried open his mouth, everything was going good up until this point when... I stuck the syringe sort of deep into his mouth and squirted some of the stuff in. He absolutely freaked out. Screaming yowling thrashing, frantically licking his lips, yep, it's safe to say he did not enjoy the stuff very much. Luckily though, he didn't spill any of it, I guess I put it a little too deep in his mouth for him to have that opportunity. The next time, I dragged him into my lap and he was already onto me--I just needed the last one and a half milliliters in his mouth, but he wasn't making it easy for me. This time he bit me quite a few times but I got it in and closed his jaw shut! A few seconds later, I released the thrashing Hugo and immediately gave him some water to drink. He was very much so grateful for that, but still giving me what I perceived as death glares as I petted his head. Those Vikings! As a treat though, I got him a nice denta-stick thingy, and he seemed to warm up the more he chewed. Yum yum, artificial flavors! I'm so glad I will only have to worm him once every three months when he's an adult, haha!

Vallhunds are the most perfect breed ever for me I love the ears too! He'll eventually grow into them :D

He's such a beautiful boy!

I'd really enjoy something like that, personally. Don't forget the areas for doggy playtime with other gym members, that would be the most important part for me! :D I'd pay maybe $200 or so, but mind you, I don't know what the norm usually is for services like that.

My favorite picture of my little boy, Hugo!

Tabasco sauce? That usually works quite well, I just hope your old girl doesn't like licking herself there

He is gorgeous! We're still working on the "perfect Vallhund smile", but this was his best attempt today: What a little cutie, he's so happy. We spent virtually all day playing outside, it still amazes me how incredibly intelligent he is! He has sit down pat completely, we're starting to learn 'down' (from the 'sit' position), but he's being a bit problematic as he seems to think that me moving the treat down means "Oh boy, let's stand up and lean my head down to get it!". But what we were having the most fun with today was teaching him to retrieve. We got a free frisbee from a shopping centre, it's a little bit too big for him, but he loves chasing after it! He would run run run after it with those little wombat legs, try and maneuver it into his mouth (while doing all these cute silly things like standing on it or rolling around to try and pick it up), and finally we'd yell "Bring it back to mommy!!" and he'd waddle right over to us with the frisbee in his mouth. Letting go is another matter, he has retrieving down pat, we just have to teach him to let go. All in all it was a fun day, we spent all day outside and I got this maaassive sunburn across my back, and a million scratches from his sharp nails all over my legs from him wanting to climb into my lap as he possessively chewed and growled at the frisbee. Listening to him play today, I think we heard the first "proper" growl he's ever done. He was playing with the dishrag and shaking it around like crazy and he was roaring at the poor thing! He's become a little possessive with his stuff, he will bite if you try to pinch something off him, so we'll have to teach him to not do that, because his bites are.. worryingly enough.. getting stronger.

Lessons learned during the week: Hugo is smarter than the average bear dog. Toilet rolls and empty water bottles are worth their weight in gold. No, double their weight in gold! It hurts to get whacked over the head with a newspaper every time your dog potties on the floor. Today I had to go to work.. sob sob. I left Hugo alone for three hours. My crafty plan to play with him like mad before leaving to get him to drop fast asleep in his crate while I was leaving had utterly failed. In fact, it just made him terribly hyper and I could hear the yeowls as I guiltily locked the door behind me and left for the bus stop. OH MY GOD THE GUILT. Memo to self, put a camera in my room to keep an eye on Hugo when you're at work, utterly distracting yourself enough to get fired and not need the camera anymore. Wait, that won't work, dogs cost money. Second memo to self, teach Hugo-wugo to play with himself while you're gone. He's getting the hang of playing with himself, he really is, he just much prefers to have someone sitting there watching him. I have no idea why but when I'm on the computer he sits there and stares at me, but when I sit down next to him, he picks up his bottle and starts chewing. That sneaky bastard, he probably knows that the Vallhund puppy eyes are irresistable and I just can't leave him there when those baby browns are focused on me and that cute little brow furrowed. In my imagination, he has a Greek accent (like that father dude from My Big Fat Greek Wedding) and tells me with that look: "Why you want to LEAVE ME?" I'll have to devise a way to study for Friday's exam while he's sitting on me. That's his favorite place to chew toys now, even though it's a bit hard for him to climb up (those wombat legs sure do try though!). Nooo.. slipping.. come back ball.. Aha! I have you now you villainous scoundrel! What a cutie. Even when he can't climb on top because of ze bony legs I possess and the difficulty with staying on them when you're trying to wrestle with a dastardly naughty ball, he will always have a paw on me, or his butt on me, or he'll be folded over my legs with his body hanging over either side as he chews on the ball. Hugo, you're becoming a little limpet! On another note, I think I have taught Hugo epic recall skills. I don't know why, I don't know how, but every time I call him in a certain way, no matter what he's doing, he'll drop it and come sprinting over to me. What I do is, I firstly attempt calling him over by various other methods that he ignores, and then, when I think all hope is lost, I crouch down on my knees, spread my arms and reach out towards him, with that tragic hero look on my face and go "Hugo, please come back!". I don't know if I'm appealing to the viking side of Hugo that says "I shall take pity on the poor begging mortal and grace her with my presence", or whether there's something about that pose, but I gotta tell you, it always works. Always. Something that doesn't always work though, is trying to feed him his kibble. We had a lengthy chat with my breeder tonight (and I passed the phone to my mother because she was being a pest--"Are you SURE Cassie fed them what she told you she fed them?" "Hugo obviously doesn't like his food, ask Cassie what she fed him." ) about Hugo's eating schedule and what exactly she was feeding him, and yes, she was indeed feeding him what she told us she had been feeding him (no surprises there lol), but she also told us to feed him some table scraps and mince as well. Now, I love my breeder and I cannot thank her enough for giving us this bundle of wonderfulness, but mince? Table scraps? Soaked kibble? I gotta wonder how good all this mushy stuff is for his teeth. I don't want him to forget what it feels like crunching on a chicken neck and not touch bones when he's older! There's a pattern going on here, I'm worried he'll do all his absorbing while I'm doing all the wrong things and then I'll never be able to teach him right when he gets to the age when stuff is "allowed"--e.g. puppy preschool, eating bones, etc etc. He's been getting mighty skinny though so any advice is good advice! We had rice and vegetables for supper, so we added that into his bowl and mixed it with some kibble. Ho-lee cow, my eyes nearly fell out of my head, from having to keep pushing Hugo back to his kibble the previous times we fed him until he was all done... he licked the bowl. HE LICKED THE BOWL! And continued licking for like five minutes, we actually had to put some more in so he could eat as much as possible. Look at that happy boy. I think he was staring at the dog food adverts in the magazine, but mother genuinely reckons he enjoyed the rice and vegetables. Hugo is nice and full now, and sleeping safe and sound in bed!

No photo updates for today. Hugo toileted in his bed TWICE for the first times since he's arrived here though! That's a bit worrying. We made his crate a little bit smaller though, hopefully that will curb that habit.

Having a Swedish Vallhund puppy with me has striked up a lot of conversations about his breed! Some people are like "OMG he looks like a possum!", but most of them guess he's a German Shepherd/cross. It's become a bit laborious to keep telling them he's a SV, so I just call him a Viking Dog now

Hugo will grow up to be an absolute stunner too, I'm sure of it! Today was the first time that he woke up at a semi-decent hour--7 am! Three cheers for the little sleep-in! Of course by that time, it was waaaaaaaaaaaaay too late in the morning to go back to bed, Hugo knew it was sunny outside and he wouldn't let me get back in bed. Naturally I was half asleep for the whole day and napping in bed a lot with Hugo, haha. He pottied on command, which was EXCELLENT, and he only had one accident inside during the day. He's been doing this sneaky thing where I'll wait for him to show signs of potty and if he doesn't show them, I'll go off for maybe 10 seconds to wash my hands or turn my back or something and by the time I look at him again, he's proudly sitting besides some pee. No, Hugo, that behavior will NOT be praised, haha. We got him a new 'toy' today. I had finished all the tissues up relatively quickly with wiping up all his piddle, and I thought "well, he likes the toilet roll, maybe a bit TOO much, so hopefully this will keep him entertained for a while". Just dropped the empty box right in front of him. This was his response: Holy mother of Bologna, what the heck is this frightening beast??? He was having immense difficulty grabbing a hold of it, so I opened up the side and he enjoyed it much more that way. Play time at last! Strangely enough, it got destroyed faster than the toilet roll. On another related note, I think today was the first day that Hugo finally accepted his position in our family. Before he would be distancing himself a little from me, never really willingly came over to be cuddled close or anything of the sort, but he grabbed his favorite toy today and waddled over to climb into my lap. Trust me, my legs are pretty large in comparison to his, and he had quite the difficulty maneuvering himself into my lap while grabbing onto his oversized rope toy, but he finally managed and collapsed in my lap for a well-deserved rest and a nice long chew. Hugo was doing that all day today, dragging toys over to me and snuggling on my legs, we were inseparable! There was zoomies going on all day outside. We're worried he might hurt himself somehow, because when he does zoomies, his limbs are usually flailing everywhere and he trips over them quite a lot and ends up nose-first in the dirt! He's such a little clown. Mother mowed the lawn today and it was a MUCH nicer surface to run on, though. We weren't worried about the long grass containing snakes in it anymore, because everything is mowed to pristine condition. Something gave me a bit of a fright today and that was Hugo carrying a leaf from our oleander tree in his mouth. Eep! Quickly got that off him--we're not sure what to do with the oleander trees to be honest. My mother is adamant that they cannot be removed because they provide shade for the garage and stop it from looking ugly and corrugated iron...y. Irony, ha, get it? Moving on.. We might have to fence the oleander trees and attempt raking any leafs that fly over, Hugo is in the "put everything in your mouth" stage. He proved this as he happily dragged a moldy lemon over into my lap. Gosh, there are some things that mummy doesn't want you to bring over to her, Hugo! Normally he'd be scared of the lemons but this one was turning a weird color, so I guess he couldn't really tell what it was. Once we were done outside, we went inside for a bit of a midday nap. YAY NAP! The both of us had a rest, we were very tired.

Hugo doing his "I'm chasing a rabbit" routine while still fast asleep.

That's weird because Hugo reeks.