Maxarch

We've got 2 puppies, 1 month difference in age and have had the first one for 2 months now and the second one for a month now... when we brought them home both of them just slept, alot, and didn't play too much, they never slept in the bed, but I'm from Darwin and it is always really hot here so I didn't think too much of it. Both of ours cried and whinned alot too, but it really is just normal, they had littermates before us, they had different familiar sights and sounds and then they came to us and of course they didn't know anything... I can tell you now though, one month and two month on from having them, these puppies follow us around, play ALL the time sleep in their beds and do all the normal puppy things... Just give your puppy a chance, as others have mentioned, have patience, I remember feeling the same about our pups, thinking they weren't interested in me etc but its just an adjustment for them, before you know it you'll come home from work and your pup will be sooo happy to see you and will just want to be around you, playing etc

Hi... Your puppies are adorable, sorry I had to jump on here and say that... I am of no real help for you though with the barking thing, all I can say is our 2 pups do the same thing, its settled down alot now (its been 5 weeks) but they are still noisy at certain times during the day (or night) when they are playing. Goodluck

Yes I suppose he could have been bitten by something, but I am unsure what. It doesn't look like ant bites or mozzies and its not one bite there are a few of them so I'm thinking it might not be a spider.... I don't have any antihistamines here and I would know how much to give him

Hi, Just wondering if anyone can help me, my 12wk cocker spaniel has white bumps on his legs and lower belly. He also has a few scabs on him, maybe from where he's been biting or scratching himself but since I've been home I haven't seen him scratch at all but he is definitely restless tonight, he is really whiny and can't keep still almost like he can't get comfortable, its really unusaul as he would normally be asleep most of the night. I gave him a bath with aloe and oatmeal wash to try and give him a bit of relief if its the bumps bothering him but it hasn't seemed to of done anything. Would anyone know what it could be? We haven't changed his diet and he hasn't gone anywhere different. He plays outside but has done for over a month now so I'm thinking he would of broken out sooner if he was allergic to something in the garden? I really don't know what to do, should I go to the vet in the morning? Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks in advance!

If you do decide you want a puppy pen, the wire compost bins from Bunnings work great and they are heaps cheaper than buying a "puppy pen". We bought 2 of them to make a bigger pen and both our puppies were in them for a while. When we put them outside, I was worried at first with the heat/sun/wind etc (our patio is undercover still) so we opened up our patio door a fraction, put a cut down bit off wood in the door jam to stop any intruders from coming inside and the puppies from opening it wider and partitioned off an inside area so they could come inside if they didn't want to be outside... it worked a treat! Good luck with it all! Ps. I remember worrying about everything to do with the puppy but it does pass and you both get into a routine etc and your puppy will settle down soon enough once he's used to your house and his surroundings

Hello everyone! I have a cocker spaniel puppy and I am looking into dog groomers up here in Darwin for the near future to get him trimmed. Can anyone recommend somewhere up here? I have been reading on the internet that you have to be careful you get someone who knows how to groom a cocker properly or they could come out looking a bit of a mess Thanks in advance

Thanks, I will give that a try. ;)

I've just been reading through this post as we are now having this same problem, only our puppies start making noise at 5:30am. I get up and check on them and sometimes its just them playing, very loudly, which I leave them to it but lately its our cocker wanting to come inside or making noise because he's hungry. I too have no idea how to stop this. If I feed him then its like rewarding him and if I let them inside like others have suggested, they are too playful and tear the place apart. I couldn't just give them a kong to quiet them down because that doesn't work and if I let them in the bedroom and they go to sleep like sometimes they have, isn't that just rewarding them for barking at the door but letting them inside? They both sleep outside in an undercover area and they are perfectly happy with that, we don't crate our pups, but this morning thing can be tiresome... I'm just hoping its a passing thing and he will settle down soon. He also carries on if he sees someone inside and he's outside but we are just ignoring him until he is quiet, then we go out to him... we're only in the early days of this, so hopefully he will understand crying at the door won't get him attention soon ;)

We have 2 puppies, 3 weeks difference between them, and although they are pretty good pups they are very time consuming. We don't have kids so I suppose for us these are like our kids. One thing we have noticed is Max, who is the older one, is pretty smart and was training really well before we got Archie and then when Archie came along we couldn't get Max to listen to anything and toilet training went out the window for a while there. I'm not saying not to get another puppy because ours have become good friends and it is really great having them around, but you have to be able to dedicate alot of time to them for quite awhile... having 2 weeks off will definitely help you though, just remember that when another puppy comes along it is double the work and sometimes you might go back to square one with your first pup. We also spend alot of time separately with our pups so they won't grow too attached to each other and stop listening to us, I highly recommend doing that, oh and our pups can be little terrors sometimes too, if one is up to something in the backyard, you can almost guarantee the other one is there egging it on... lol Goodluck with whatever you decide ;)

Thanks julesm, I'm happy to say the "timeout" room has worked brilliantly on both puppies, they have settled down so much now. The only thing I can't seem to stop or don't really know how to except ignore it, is Archie whining at the backdoor everytime he sees us or when he wants to come inside, but I'm sure that will come with time. We have noticed is the last few days the puppies sleep right next to each other now, they are quickly becoming best friends.

Hi julesm, thanks for your post. What a coincidence that we are both "crazy" people with 2 puppies 3 weeks apart in age and one is a cocker spaniel ;) lol It's great to hear though that you had a similar problem with the playing. We had spoken with our someone who is a dog handler and he suggested the same thing of giving them a time out and we have started doing this now the last few days and we can already see a difference. We still have Archie crying alot if we pop him in the bathroom for a few minutes for timeout but I find with him, if Max is put in the bathroom and Archie left outside he calms down straight away because I think for him he hates to be left outside when he knows people are inside, so it seems to do the same thing as the bathroom does for Max, fingers crossed in a few weeks time things will have improved. I've got a query for you though, we had Max for 3 weeks prior to Archie coming along and Max was practically toilet trained and would very rarely make a mess inside and never on the concrete outside but now that we have Archie, and we are in the process of trying to toilet train him so he has accidents sometimes inside or on the concrete outside (especially if its raining, which seems to be alot at the moment) we have noticed that Max now seems to be following in Archies footsteps and weeing inside or on the concrete when he normally didn't do that... Did you have a similar problem when you got your cocker with your GR?? We also found that Max seems to deliberately bully Archie or push him out of the way if we go to pat him, did you have this too? How are your puppies now, we've only had Archie for nearly 2 weeks now so its early days for us still.

Thanks so much for your reply flux. It seems to be escalating alot now, what once was happy playing now seems to end in very loud and very rough play so now we separate them when it gets really bad, Max our lab calms down straight away he's really good at understanding but Archie the cocker spaniel just seems to keep on going and won't leave Max alone sometimes, if its not one that won't leave it alone its the other. I've tried putting Archie in the spare bathroom by himself for a few minutes to calm down, I've heard you shouldn't let them out until they are quiet but all he did was whine and work himself up so much that after half an hour I went in there to try and calm him, then he sulked and wouldn't come near me for an hour or so... I'm not sure that was a good thing to of done. I think we're going to need to get someone in to help us because I am worried that one of them will get hurt especially as it seems to be getting rougher and rougher (and louder and louder) and they are biting, with no agression (yet), its ok when we are home to break it up and calm them down but I don't know how bad it gets while we're at work. We give them alot of play exercise, and Max goes to puppy preschool at the moment he's pretty well socialised, I'm trying to get Archie into one starting soon, but we can't walk them yet because they aren't fully vacc for another month but heres hoping once we can walk them in a park etc they will be alot more worn out and hopefully things will get better

Thank you for your reply, giving them a time out seems the best option and I didn't realise that by leaving the Lab (Max) in the yard he wasn't learning anything, but now I will do it differently. We don't do the crate training, mainly because I am not too sure how to do this, but I will give the small room a try as you suggested, Max is a quick learner so I don't think it will take too long and at least then Archie (cocker spaniel) will have a break from all the rough housing. Thanks

Haha yes a few people has said that about having 2 puppies but they aren't so bad. Yes, sorry I didn't put their names on my first post, our Labs name is Max and the little cocker spaniel is Archie. We don't crate our pups, I'm not too sure of thr process etc, but both puppies stayed inside in a little doggy pen for 2 nights, they both cried/whined none stop the whole night and then by the 3rd night we put them outside and have never heard a peep from them since, obviously Max we've had longer and is always really happy to be outside rather than inside while Archie is happy either way, just not at night being put in a pen But I will give the laundry a try if the play/fighting gets too much again and see how that goes. I am really worried Archie will become a bit agressive when he's older so I will keep on it and not be blase about it They both spend all day outside, I'm not too sure how they play/fight while we're at work but they seem fine and very happy to see us when we get home. They just seem to fight more when we outside with them or if Archie has been inside for a little while and Max has been left outside, its like he is bullying him abit and def doesn't know when to stop. All in all though, they are good pups but yes you are right, we are very aware that they could bond more with each other so we are very conscious of having alot of individual time with them so this doesn't happen. Thanks for your help

Hi everyone, This is my first post here, but I have been reading alot of other posts to try and get some advice and if you could give me any it would be much apprecitated. We have 2 little puppies, a 14week old male Laborador which we have had since he was 8 weeks old, he is very very playful and demands alot of attention. We also now have, a 9 week old male cocker spaniel, which we only got 4 days ago. The cocker spaniel is a merry little thing and not afraid of anything, he really seems to have no fear. We got 2 puppies close in age because we wanted them to grow up together and be company for each other during the day. We give them alot of attention, training, exercise etc either together or one on one time. My problem is, is that these 2 pups play all the time together and mostly get along but in the last 2 days the play fighting seems to have been taken up a notch and not only is it getting very vocal (from the cocker spaniel) but it looks like the Lab doesn't know when to stop. They stay outside together during the day and they have never cried to come inside and at night or during the day when I come home to check on them they are normally alway sleeping near each other. What I have noticed is it looks like the Lab is abit jealous now that there is another puppy here. We give them both equal amounts of attention and the Lab also goes to puppy school once a week, which he is like the model student, doesn't misbehave or play too roughly with other puppies there. He can already sit, drop and stay and is now learning to come, although he has stopped listen a little now there is a new puppy around but we just need to keep up with his training. The Lab only yelp/barks when he is trying to get the attention of the cocker spaniel, otherwise you would hear a peep out of him, but he pounces and jumps on the cocker alot, he also pins him to the ground or just plain sits on him most of the time. I can see the cocker is fine with it most times, and is happy to play, even though he sounds like he is being hurt, his tail is wagging and if I break them up because I thought he got hurt, once I let him go the cocker just chases after the Lab to play and it starts all over again, but there are times, like this morning when they were outside playing for 15-20mins then all of a sudden the Lab had hold of the cockers ear, like it was a toy and way playing tug-of-war with his ear, the cocker yelped, alot, but the Lab didn't or wouldn't let go now matter how much the cocker yelped until I yelled at him and separated them by putting the cocker inside and left the Lab outside. The cocker was fine and just sat in his basket and the Lab i think knew he had done something wrong because he mellowed out really quickly and after 15mins of separation i put the cocker back outside and everything was fine, that sat together with the Lab licking the cocker. I suppose I just don't know if I'm worrying over nothing or if I should try to break them up or separate them more often... I'm worried that with this behavior now will it progress further and will these puppies turn into agressive dogs or is it just puppies being puppies and play/fighting together?