A Follow On Thread For Those Who Now Have Their Puppy

[huski]

Thanks Lisa we love them so much already! I can't wait to see how they grow over the next few weeks. I could spend all day watching them (sadly work is far too busy to allow that lol)

[LisaCC]

Nova just ripped a hole in his bed while vigorously humping it. He seemed just as surprised as me. *Sigh*

[Lollipup]

Awesome, thank you! I remember with Cleo in her later fear period, we walked past a chair on the beach, just your ordinary green plastic chair but she was SO scared of it! And further up on the walk, it was a postal basket on wheels, she did NOT want to walk past it! I think Nala will be more laid back anyway, but I also think I know how to deal with it better to (make it positive).

Well my well socialised confident malinois puppy at 7 months of age yesterday on our walk was afraid of a black garbage black moving in the wind on the side of the road. I couldn't help laughing at her and I knew she recovered quickly. So here is the before and after pics of how we got over it

[Esky the husky]

She's not very impressed that I brought this thing into her palace.

I'm a little surprised actually. :/

This pup has such prey drive and such a ridiculously strong grip on the toys. It's pretty awesome to have a dog that likes toys! Half tempted to send an email off to k9pro to see if this is something I can use to help with racing and weightpull :)

Lol I just saw this and the answer is definitely, yes!

We are in puppy heaven at the moment with Wisdoms babies being born early yesterday morning. So. Much. Cute!!

Thanks, have just sent a lovely awkward email :laugh:

Congrats on the babies, love the pic of wisdom and her little daughter sleeping together.. Awww

[Sares]

Nova just ripped a hole in his bed while vigorously humping it. He seemed just as surprised as me. *Sigh*

sorry but I just laughed out loud reading that! haha

[~Rumour~]

Oh dear...Nala figured out the Kong Wobbler after 1 day. I fear I have a smart cookie on my hands and that she is going to drive me nuts with her intelligence lol.

You can make the wobbler harder by putting something else in it with the dry food. I start off by putting a tennis ball in as well and work up to bigger objects that make it harder.

[Esky the husky]

I like the idea of making the wobbler harder. Might try that :)

My cat is a total a-hole. He kept out of the way the past couple of days but now has started to harass puppy. Standing by the bavk door and snarling when we wantes to come in. And he fully went up and attacked ( hissed and scratched ) at pup, while pup was whining at the baby gate

[megan_]

Does the wobbler really exercise their mind though? They are just pushing it back and forth. Mine got it in a minute.

I like the Nina Ottosson stuff, as well as the Trixie range that I get through Amazon. They have lots of different drawers to open, levers to push etc.

[Dory the Doted One]

My cat is a total a-hole. He kept out of the way the past couple of days but now has started to harass puppy. Standing by the bavk door and snarling when we wantes to come in. And he fully went up and attacked ( hissed and scratched ) at pup, while pup was whining at the baby gate

One of our cats did this to Willow, I got pretty cross and then just managed them by putting the cat elsewhere when Willow was out and about. Mostly because Willow was really, freaked out by the cat.

Fast Forward to Now....

And *sigh*...and I wonder if I did the right thing, or if I should have let him biff her.

Willow hassles the cats. Mr Swipey, Tease Pants Oscar (the one that would try to bully her as a puppy) is given a small margin of respect...very small...(although it was hilarious watching her try to avoid a collision with him when he stopped dead from a full run, right in front of her...that's the Tease Pants...he teases by running, just when she gets some manners around him...ARGH).

He was sitting in Dory's crate yesterday with Willow doing her play bow, butt wigglin' woofy dance at the open door. Then she tried to drag the blanket out, hoping that he would come with it (clever girl that Willow). She did get brave and try to squeese in there with him, he bopped her pretty hard and she gave him back his safety margin. :laugh:

All bets are off in Willow's world if we touch or pick up the cats....so it's..."SIT SIT SIT SIT SIT SIT....GOOOOOOOOOOD Girl", she's getting the hint slowly.

As for poor wee Bungee Bin Cat, I don't know what vibe she gives off, but Willow will try to hug her. Bungee is not even 3kg...Willow is 36kg at last weigh in. Fortunately, Bungee is a smart cookie, and if we give her a hint that we are about to unleash the Willow Beast, she will go and find her hidey holes.

Interestingly. Bungee can hide in an open box and Willow will just stand there wagging her butt real hard and make no attempt to grab her. Even though she could if she wanted too. Ditto the hiding behind the door, all Willow would have to do is nudge the door and she could grab Bungee. But she seems to respect the barrier.

I find it fascinating.

None of that is any help. I just got lost in my tale. :laugh:

[dotdashdot]

Today I discovered that Nala much prefers her clam shell dry and upside down. It's her very own pride rock (any Lion King fans here? lol). She stands on it and watches the goings on of the world, pounces on it, plays on it.

Glad we're not super hot here yet...only a matter of time I suppose.

[Esky the husky]

:laugh: Maybe you should get her a raised platform of some kind. So she can survey her kingdom.

I've got my clamshell pool raised on a pallet. Very popular.

Dory I love your cat stories. Corpsie is our oldest animal pack member and he's raised a few pups. Esky and him get along quite well, he often will run up and tackle her chest fluff, her leg fluff any fluff he can get a grip on.. They used to play a lot.

He's still being mean to Fritz. I'm just trying to encourage Fritz to behave nicely around him. Praising him when he walks past, calling him to me if he's unsure when the cat is looking at him evilly and telling him off for barking at him.. Hopefully that's in the right vein

[LisaCC]

Tonight is the night.

It is WAY too hot to have Nova in his crate in my room away from the air con. I am letting him have free range of my room, the hall, the lounge room/kitchen. Crate is of course in it's usual spot and open to him.

He is currently on the end of my bed but I'm hoping he has the sense to seek out the cool areas. He did originally go take a toy to his matt under the aircon but came back to within eyesight.

Crossing fingers he still wakes me up in the morning and I don't wake up to toilet accidents or not so accidentally destroyed stuff.

[LisaCC]

And it's already over. Night time is not the time for wandering!! He's happy to have the same freedom during the day and just sleep under the aircon urgh.

Crate in the open bedroom doorway getting the breeze instead.

Edited December 19, 2013 by LisaCC

[Guest hankodie]

We have also started letting Hank sleep out of his crate the last few days but it's working out quite well! I've set him up with a bed but he prefers to lay right under my side of the bed lol I've almost stepped on him a few times already. It's supposed to be really hot today in NSW so I've closed up the house already and put the aircon on.

[LisaCC]

We have also started letting Hank sleep out of his crate the last few days but it's working out quite well! I've set him up with a bed but he prefers to lay right under my side of the bed lol I've almost stepped on him a few times already. It's supposed to be really hot today in NSW so I've closed up the house already and put the aircon on.

Hanks a good boy then!

I left the aircon on all night, my weather app is telling me it's already 30, it's only 8:30am!

Nova is currently playing in his paddle pool after some morning training. I need to find a way to film us, he's doing an awesome job at heel work in the back yard and at parks etc, but it drops heaps when we get to training. So I'd like to show his trainer what he can do so she can help us get like that at training. I was so impressed with him this morning, right up on my leg, eye contact the whole time!!! I'm loving having a dog that is so motivated by a bit of tug!!

[Dory the Doted One]

Lisa, does your body language change from when you are at training and when you train at home?

My line of thinking is that maybe you are a bit more animated when you train at home, than when you train at training.

I had to switch things around a bit for Willow, she went from super to derper, switched to tug and went super again. Then she went all naughty and defiant (I don't think I let her 'win' the tug enough, I have to work on that). So I switched back to food to keep her focussed then rewarded with the tug at intervals when she gave me SUPER DUPER work.

On another note...only ever let Willow have free range over night once...she kept jumping all over me, and I found socks all over the house. :laugh: So now she is still crated in the lounge room, with the AC on. Only room in the house with it, and she gets it like the Spoilt Brat that she is.

[LisaCC]

I'm not sure if my body language changes, I'll have to take notice of it when we go back in the new year.

He's been super distracted by the other dogs the last month or so, we stick the the far outside now.

I think a big thing is that when I do training at home and at parks I don't let it run very long, I play lots of games in between and reward him with some exploring time. Where at training it's of course much more restrictive and much much longer sessions then we normally do.

We normally leave training early before he starts getting frustrated.

Willow a sock thief?? But her face is so innocent

[aliwake]

Nixon has generally been quite an unsettled sleeper at times. Likes to get up and move around, and then occasionally nudge his wet nose into your arm while you're sleeping, then refuse to go outside when you get up... sigh. So the last couple of weeks he seemed to voluntarily start sleeping either in the lounge, bathroom, or laundry, and wouldn't come join us at bedtime, so we started shutting the bedroom door and leaving him to it! It's been working out so well. We've all been sleeping so much better! After months of broken sleep we're all (including Nixon), very happy.

I still occasionally hear him move around, and he comes to sleep outside our bedroom door at times (particularly in the early morning, when he's waiting for us to get up). If he needs to go out he'll usually do a big shake and a few sighs outside our door and one of us will let him out. To be honest though, he hasn't actually done that lately at all.

It's been months since we all slept this well!! hooray!

Lisa, sounds like Nova's training is coming along brilliantly! I guess the distraction of other dogs probably reduces his focus at training?

[Kanae]

Keep at it lisaCC, maybe Nova just needs his training times slowly increased at home to improve his focus? It sounds like he is doing great work though :)

This morning at puppy school, we had a round the room regarding time-outs, since last week we were taught to time-out the puppy if they misbehaved, we were the only ones who didn't do it. I don't think the instructor believed us when we said we didn't need to do any time-outs. Honestly, Ezio is a bit of a goodie two shoes. And I tend to get redirect any misbehaviour the second I see it and haven't had any problems.. He is just a good puppy.. Really.. I swear.. We give him a verbal warning and he stops. He is by far the most uneventful puppy when it comes to daily stuff, maybe it is because we are sticking to a strict routine? Or maybe because we have 3 weeks off to focus on him? I don't know but he is doing extremely well.

[LisaCC]

Aliwake that's great you guys are finally sleeping! I remember the roubles you were having.

Thanks Aliwake and Kanae, I don't want to increase the length of our normal training too much at this stage, as I want to keep it SUPER fun and my trainer agrees, he is still only 7 months so we have plenty of time to increase time between rewards etc.

I think I need to find a place with a few well behaved dogs in the distance and do some more distraction training, they are surprisingly hard to come by though!

Kanae that is great that Ezio is being a good puppy! I hope he stays that way