Whole heep of questions

[Suemb]

We are still using the crate at night for Lily-May and as suggest previously I have taken out the paper and replaced it for bedding. This was great and has worked wonders but I have noticed that ocassionally she will wet her bed and then lie in it. I thought they weren'y supposed to like doing this hence the point of only having bedding in there?

When she is out of the crate sometimes we put a blanket in front of the fire for her and she will walk over and wet this too! I am mistified, we take her out at least every hour and she knows she goes outside and has been doing really well, why would she start doing this now?

On another note, this pup is really smelly, not just becasue of the peey bedding but if I bath her, two days later she stinks even if her bed has been dry! Now I don't want to keep bathing her becasue surely this can't be good for her coat..... has anyone any suggestions on  how I can have a lovely smelling puppy for longer than 2 days without a bath?

Lastly, I bought some thornit power for her ears and feet as she has been chewing and scratching, how do I use it and how often?

Any help offered would be welcome.

thanks

Sue and Lil-Stinker 

[Nicola]

How long have you had Lily-May? Has she always had this smell and been scratching at her ears and feet? If she has then I'd be concerned that she's picked up something whilst still at the breeder... Alfie is 14 weeks, we've never bathed him and he doesn't smell at all, he just has that "puppy" smell which is lovely, when I'm cuddling him I sometimes bury my nose right in his fur because it's so nice so I'd be concerned that your puppy has an unpleasant smell just two days after a bath along with symptoms of itchiness...

I'd take her to the vet as soon as possible for a full check up and tell them everything you've mentioned here. She could have mites which are causing her to itch and the excessive peeing could be a urinary infection..

Hope this helps...

[Suemb]

We have had her since she was eight wks old and she too had that sweet puppy smell, it has only been since I've been bathing her that she's started to smell....sweaty for want of a better word. Perhaps I'm beng paranoid about her smelling or perhaps it's more noticable now after smelling her clean from the bath I don't know. She doesn't itch all the time and I always ensure her ears are kept clean, I don't think it's an infection as it isn't all the time. She's going up to the vets soon so I'll make sure then.

I wondered if there was some dry/power shampoo or anything that i could use instead of bathing all the time.

As for her peeing, it's not excessive it's ocassional, I just found it odd that she would chose to do it in her bed when she could have peed on the floor, I didn't think that was normal and wondered if anyone else had experienced a similar problem.

Sue & Lil-Stinker

[Nicola]

When she is out of the crate sometimes we put a blanket in front of the fire for her and she will walk over and wet this too! I am mistified, we take her out at least every hour and she knows she goes outside and has been doing really well, why would she start doing this now?

Sorry, didn't mean to offend, it was more this bit made me think she was peeing excessively (if you're letting her out every hour and she's still doing it inside) 

[sharesy]

If Lily May has wet on her blanket once she could be doing it now because she can still smell it on the blanket, ordinary washing doen't get rid of the smell.  Kalli did smell when she was really small, I don't think she crouched down properly when she weed and it dripped down her legs.

[MaxG]

Our Max whiffed slightly sometimes when he was very young, come to think of it - he had sweaty paws!! He also suffered with the peeing on his belly thing instead of crouching properly!! We used to just wipe both areas regularly with puppy wipes!! 

[Rachel B]

I read this and it was as though i was reading abotu barney - barney used to wet his bed and then lie in it all night.  he ahs eventually just grown out of it - we had him checked out for a urinary infection and given the all clear so definitely worth getting it checked out.

Can't help with the smelling bit - barney probably does smell but i can't smell it

[kate.s]

Sam can get really whiffy...especially now he has turned into a fur ball and when he wees he tends to walk in it as he finishes. He also gets wee on his ears too. It's a bit strange really because I have this starnge habit of sniffing him . I haven't noticed myself doing this but my OH keeps telling me I'm doing it

I think she is weeing on the blanket because she can still smell her wee on it

[Suemb]

Okay the blanket has been binned and a new one put in it's place.... have put the smell down to her laying in pee all night, I caught her fresh this morning, she too used to pee down her legs and although not as much still does now. She was wet when I got up this morning and stinks to high heaven.... so in the bath she goes....again! I guess I'll have to wait it out until she stops peeing at night.

This may sound horrible but I was glad when I read through the posts on this thread because it has just reinforced how common the peeing on blanklet and down the legs/belly bit is... it's made me feel less paranoid and reminded me that she is still only a baby.

Do you think I should put newspaper back i the crate at night time? I try to leave her last pee until as late as I can keep my eyes open and I'm up at 6.30am each morning and feel I'm giving her as short a time as possible. Would be like going backwards though?

Gees you'd think I'd never had a dog before, but I guess it's been longer than I though having a pup around 

[Colin]

Gees you'd think I'd never had a dog before, but I guess it's been longer than I though having a pup around 

I went through the puppy stage with Misty only 18 months or so after doing it with Jimmy and still found it a real culture shock - they learn so quickly but also so gradually that it's easy to forget just how difficult things can be in the early stages.

It's not usually recommended to use puppy pads/newspaper as it means you are effectively having to toilet train them twice - first to go on paper, then to go outside. However I left pads in Misty's crate overnight at first, it was preferable to having her covered in wee every morning from sleeping in it. After a while she had a couple of clean nights on the run so I then removed the puppy pads - I can't remember how long it took though. Pups learn at a different rate - Jimmy caught on almost instantly with the toilet training, it took Misty quite a while longer. Lily-May will get there eventually. 

[sharesy]

I kept paper in Kalli crate until she was clean at night {about 4 months old}.  We got a puppy pen not a crate, once she was clean I reduced the size of it.