New puppy

[Jaysmumagain]

Welcome....lovely to see you are having fun with little Tilly.

Glad you have found us and hope we can give any tips.


Julie owned by Ollie cocker

[Patp]

Agree with above don't tell them what you don't want them to do rather tell them what you DO want them to do (as in chew this not me )

[Tilda]

Again thank you so much guy's for taking time to give your tips & welcome messages,  it really is appreciated.
So AlanT I've been working on sit & calm today with her & to be fair she's done pretty well. Not overly sure it will work yet when she's really excited, but it's all working progress & so far so good.

PatP I now have a clicker! And am looking forward to using it. I looked a lot into what food to give her before we got her and decided on Lily's kitchen, it seems to be quite natural, well as natural as dried kibble can be! She gets the dried & wet mixed together as that's how the breeder gave it, or chicken or fish mixed in. I'm thinking about bulk buying wine & chocolate, might even need to stretch to a bottle of gin 😁

We are booked on to the puppy school class for the beginning of November and they encourage you to take children along, so I will be taking my eldest daughter who's 7 with me. She's really looking forward going.
Xx

[AlanT]

Doesn't work completely for me if we have been "attacked" by the milkman/postman/parcel-dude.
But sanity returns sooner and gradually you get control.

I don't have "perfect" recall, perfect "leaving", perfect "staying". Just too willful and excitable.

But I have it "good enough" to make life easy. I'm a bit lazy really.

Dog keeping is supposed to be fun, we're not in the Army.

[Patp]

A useful one to start with the clicker (look up on you tube how to start with the clicker i.e. scatter lots of small high value treats on the floor and click every time she picks one up) is a "go to" command.  Get a blanket and put it away from you.  Lead her over to it and when she is on it give the command "go to " click straight away and give a treat.  Do it a few times before you let her do it on her own.

The idea is not to set her up to fail and that the blanket is a "go to" and later "settle" place for her.  Useful when the door knocks or you have friends round.

Good luck!

[bizzylizzy]

Hi and welcome! Lots of good advice on here so far and there'll be lots more to come as and when questions and problems arise. Humphrey's coming up to 18 months soon and I can't believe how far we've come since the days of "OMG, what have we done?!"
My contribution would be to say, keep your humour, knowing everything will pass (even the swallowed socks! ), celebrate each new success and ignore the failures - tomorrow's another day. A perfect dog is a boring dog, and when you're looking back, its the naughty moments that make you smile and laugh, not the ones where they did as they were told first time!!!!

[Tilda]

Thank u 
She's been a darling today, we've all come down with a flu like bug & my eldest daughter has been of school.  So Tilly's not had as much attention as she should have today & she's been no bother. A really good girl. When she's not had runs in the garden she's been content to lie in her bed on her own in the kitchen. Saying all that she's leaping all over us at the mo  we r still at the 'what were we thinking' part but couldn't imagine being without our little lunatic! Xx

[MIN]

Oh, the infamous "what were we thinking" bit.   No worries, its a very short lived bit   followed by a " can not imagine life without her " bit 

[hoover]

We play 'find it' with Ollie which can keep him amused for a while and tires him out (and helps him learn the names of all his toys) We trap him in one room, show him and let him sniff the toy he is to find and then give him a sort of lecture 'Now, Oliie, I am going to hide Paddington and I want you to find him ok?'  Leave him in that room and then find a hiding place in the rest of the house (I tramp through all the rooms loudly as I realised he was listening for where I went and went straight there). Let him out and tell him again to find Paddington. You might have to help her out the first few times but she'll soon figure it out.  Ollie can find any of 10 toys by name, hidden in all sorts of places now, and he doesn't destroy the place because he is on a mission.

Also, save any plastic bottles like milk bottles, rinse them out and put treats or kibble inside.  They love trying to get the kibble out and then chewing the bottles (but watch out if she rips up the bottle and tries to eat smaller pieces)

[Tilda]

Ooh thanks Hoover, we'll try those games with her, I think the kids would love to play along with the hiding games too 😁 She's had her last injections today so a week today we can take her out 👏🏼. I've completely convinced myself & husband that once we are out with her walking and taking in new sights it will completely tire her out 😂😂  I know this won't be the case but a girl can dream. Is it 5 minutes walking for every month to begin with? So she'll be 3 months so 15mins to begin with?
With all the tips we've had off here, we've started some basic training and so far she's doing really well. I'm thinking she's really quite bright in a no common sense, run in closed doors kind of way.  My 2 little girls are getting so much more used to being around her & the 3 year old said today after Tilly was removed from hanging off the bottom of her dress, 'I love Tilly!' Which is a massive improvement!
Honestly the advice from here has been invaluable, thank you all again x

[AlanT]

Agree with Hoover about "finding" games. Check in Videos on here and watch my Archie finding balls in the garden.

He learned to do this in about 2-weeks. Now we work it about half an hour a day mixed with Rugby games.
His ability to track and find is now awesome.

This generates an feeling of purpose, often people see him and say "he's on a mission".
This is what they need for mental health.

We have no "separation-anxiety", nervousness, aggression, guarding or destructive behaviour to deal with as is common in this breed.

It's simple when you get it going. Children can easily do it with them.

[bizzylizzy]

Once he's learned "sit" and ""wait" and eventually  "down" (while you go off and hide something) its a great way of training the commands. When he finds them and brings them back, you can then (try, at least  ), the drop command and then reward. I don't tend to use balls, as Humphrey's possesive and also a bit obsessive with them, so use other things instead. For them, success is the key, so you might need to help him along at first, rather than let him search fruitlessly for ages. Its a perfect bad weather occupation, you can do in the house and gradually make it more difficult by hiding things under cushions, or upturned boxes etc..Great fun and always impresses the guests!!