Puppybella

Thanks for your responses, I'll keep them in mind and have a look on youtube. I do offer her treats on the walk. She only really accepts them if i get her really excited and we go for a little race, then I'll give her a treat. I try luring her in order to get her to walk, but she just turns up her nose and find more interesting things to sniff at. I suppose it's just perseverence!

Hey Everyone! Before I start asking advice on the difficult things, I have to share how proud I am of my sometimes quite stubborn little dachshund baby Bella...she's had "sit" fairly down pat for a while now, and early yesterday morning when it was freezing cold and all I wanted to do was go back to bed I thought I'd try "drop/lie down" again, and she did it!!! Wheeee! I was so excited - the day started off with an outside poop AND a new command - made my day! Just when you think what have I got into, she'll never learn anything properly, they turn around and surprise you. It's comforting and keeps the hope up Anyway, on to my questions. Firstly, Bella is nearly 4 months and she gets 3 meals a day. Should I be able to predict when she needs to poop? Some days she'll do one in 24hrs, other days will be 3 in one day. She's really erratic which has me on edge because if she hasn't done anything and I'm expecting one, I can't relax when she's inside. Or even worse when I think she's done her quota for the day and then another turns up in the corner because I relaxed and didn't have my eyes on her every single second. It doesn't appear that she's unwell at all, but I just don't understand why it's so irregular since the meals are given at fairly much the same time and quantity every day. Secondly, For the last few weeks since her second injection I've been taking her out on short walks. Understandably, everything out there is new and interesting/scary, and the first few times were more 'sits' than walks. We move at what feels like about .5km/h because she's busy smelling everything, and she barks at other people and dogs. She's met a lot of people not on walks, and I'm trying to socialise her with friends' dogs but we don't often get the chance. If we do a there and back walk, there takes forever but back home takes only a few seconds, there's almost no sniffing. If we do a loop, the first half is agony but then she seems to get the hang of it and with a little prompting tends to walk fairly constantly. I presume this is normal, please tell me she'll grow out of it and learn to walk well?! I want to actually go for a walk with her, not spend most of the time within 200m of home coaxing her to move a few inches! And now for my final trick: combining the two. Since we got her 4 weeks ago, she's only ever gone to the toilet in our backyard, which she's fairly good at. I don't think she realises that it's ok to go to the toilet whilst on a walk. This morning I tried to go for a walk (I wasn't expecting a poop since she did one earlier) and it was worse than usual. She plonked herself down and no amount of prodding or treats would move her. She started whining just sitting there in the sun so I gave up and took her home, where she ran to the jungle for a poop. Presumably that's what her problem on the walk was, any tips how to get her to realise she can do it out there too? Oops, sorry, turned into a rather long post. I'd be grateful for any tips! Cheers.

Make sure you take loads and loads of photos during the first few weeks. In a few months when everything settles down you can look back and marvel at how tiny she was:) As for picking things up, the first cue my puppy learnt was 'drop it'. He was always picking up socks and other stuff he found on the floor, so I kept treats on me at all times and any time he picked something up I would hold a treat in front of his nose and say 'drop it' and now he drops anything (including dead animals and bones outside) without me offering the treat. It's important that you always trade objects, don't just take them off her. You'll have a resource guarder in no time if you just take stuff off her. Practice it a lot with toys and bones etc, give her a treat, then give the object back. That way she learns that it's fun when you take stuff from her, most of the time she will get a treat and/or get it back after a few seconds. Thanks for the advice fuzzy. I do have treats in every available fold of clothing, the problem is I take something (usually sticks) away and give her a treat in return, but she won't have a bar of it! I have a few different varieties as well, so I shouldn't think she's bored of them. She'll even turn her nose up at treats sometimes when I'm rewarding her for going to the toilet outside. Any tips of what I could use to get her interested in what I'm giving her? She's just on full stick mode! Cheers!

Wow! This topic has been so comforting to read! Thanks Panzer attack and everyone else for your experiences! I can relate to so many things you have said. I completely agree that whilst the internet and DOL are wonderful resources, they can be the source of a lot of angst - so much conflicting information and MUST DOs and DON'T DOs, such detail that sometimes I wondered if all the other people a full time puppy raisers! I've had a new puppy for 2 weeks now, and I've been on edge for most of the time and feel like I'm missing out on the enjoyable puppy time. I'm a person that gets easily anxious at the best of times and a perfectionist to boot, which isn't so good when it comes to puppies! Little Bella is beautiful and really quite well behaved but I'm so nervous about doing the wrong thing that I feel like I'm constantly hovering and I can't get anything done in peace, even when she's locked up because I'm worried she'll have an accident. Outside I feel like a party-pooper mother because I'm constantly taking sticks from her because I'm scared she'll swallow something (she's a dachshund and apparently they eat everything). I think I'm all the more nervous because I was the one with the idea of getting a dog, and although the rest of the family agreed and love her too, I'm worried she'll turn into a badly behaved dog that we'll end up resenting. In the last couple of days I've started to relax and recognise that we will raise her and train her the best we can, and that accidents and inconsistencies will happen but we will get there in the end in our own way. This topic has made me feel even better

Hey Everyone, I'm about to start crate training my 14 week old puppy during the night. At the moment I'm getting her used to actually being locked in there by doing short sessions in the day. If she's a bit sleepy (but still awake) she's fine, but if I try it in the morning she gets a bit cranky. Anyone have any tips how to spot if she just doesn't want to be in there, or if she actually needs to go to the toilet? I put her in after a toilet trip, but sometimes she can do two in quick succession, so I'm never really sure. At night she sleeps through from about 11 to 5, with the opportunity to go to the loo, but the last 5 nights have been completely dry, so I think it would be ok to crate at night with maybe one toilet stop in the beginning, just in case. I just don't want to ignore her whining and then have an accident to clean up and a bad experience for her. Thanks!

Like many of you, I would love some advice on crate training! I have a gorgeous new puppy who is about 14 weeks old. We've had her for about a week and a half and I think she's getting used to her crate fairly well, she'll curl up and sleep in there during the day. At the moment during the night she is secured in a room with the crate as well as some newspaper for an indoor potty area. For the moment I have removed the crate door because I haven't started shutting her in there yet and didn't want her to hurt herself on it in the first few nights when she was jumping aroung and screaming her head off. The first 5 nights were hell but since then she's been quiet all night, realising that we do come back in the morning, and there haven't been any nighttime poops for the last 3 nights. My question is, can I wait a little for her to naturally develop more bowel control before starting to crate train her, or if she has the opportunity to toilet during the night is she unlikely to develop it? Therefore I should start asap? For now, if we get the timing right with toileting and limit water after dinner she can make it through to 5 am without any poops or wees during the night, but I'm not sure if it's a good idea to do that straight away when I start locking her in the crate, incase she does have an accident which makes for a bad experience. So I think I'll toilet her once a night when I start, just to make sure. Of course I'll start closing the door during the day to get her used to it. I'd be grateful to hear other people's experiences - there is so much overwhelming and conflicting information out there I get a bit anxious about doing the wrong thing! Thanks!