Give me the low down on puppies

[Anonymous]

OP here. That is great to know about the pairings! We’re going to meet them this afternoon. The foster mom said of the 4 she has, only 2 are not spoken for - a female & male. She has a 5 acre property, so she’s letting my family choose a sunny spot to play with them on our own and then will bathe them after we leave. We’re currently in Indiana, sorry PP who is also looking!
As far as socializing - would letting people meet our pup in our backyard help? Thinking mostly about grandparents who would normally be over often. We have a large (fenced) backyard, so distancing would be fairly easy. I am also thinking the pup would take cues from our older dog, but maybe I’m wrong? Also, a PP mentioned moving the crate at night - it’s ok to not keep it in the same room all the time? We obviously still have some learning to do, but fortunately have at least a couple more weeks to get things in place. And, elearning for us ends in 2 weeks so we’ll have a wide open schedule for training.

[Anonymous]

Get an outdoor play pen set up (gates that attach to form a circle). It’s very good for allowing the two dogs to be outside but have some separation too especially when the puppy is so much smaller than the older dog.

I have two crates, one for the main floor of the house and one in our bedroom for night time. Puppies need a lot of breaks and when you have two dogs, even more so. Playing with kids and another dog can be very stimulating for a pup, and lots of rest ensures he doesn’t get over tired and snappy. Having two crates means you don’t have to bring him upstairs all the time.

[Anonymous]

If you are going to recruit the grandparents to help socialize, don’t just do it in your backyard. The puppy could think that those in his space are safe but be fearful or skittish or grisly re humans he encounters out and about. The key is to expose him to new sights and sounds and yes people, in a variety of spaces. That is of course tough to do during covid, but I would have the grandparents encounter him in the front yard, on a walk etc.

[Anonymous]

https://thebark.com/content/socializing-your-puppy-during-covid-19-pandemic

[Anonymous]

We have a puppy now and the socialization has been okay- there are still lots of opportunities. Our training instructor (virtual classes) has described a few ways in which it is even better (people not constantly approaching the adorable puppy, puppy learning to control their excitement at new people) but this might be her trying to find the silver lining. We do take puppy on lots of walks to grocery store parking lots, different parts of the neighbor, empty school grounds and there are lots of opportunities in these places if you are creative. We are struggling with dog socialization a bit.
The actual work of a puppy is incredible. Like PP, our previous dog came to us as a 9 month old so the puppy thing is new. Ours was pretty much house trained after 4 weeks, was sleeping through the night (with a few regressions Here and there) at 11 or 12 weeks. 8-12 weeks she’d wake once to go out in the middle of the night so it wasn’t horrible. Our biggest challenge is that she’s very nippy. Her teeth are crazy sharp and draw blood. We’re working on that with stern “no”, turning and stopping play and, recently, a physical correction if she’s really out of line. We were reluctant to do the physical correction since most people advise against it but her biting started getting really out of hand, it was a last resort -it’s just not okay for her to very painfully bite/ sometimes drawing blood at her will. And it has worked like a miracle- she still bites occasionally but now responds To “no” and is clearly trying to not bite.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We have a puppy now and the socialization has been okay- there are still lots of opportunities. Our training instructor (virtual classes) has described a few ways in which it is even better (people not constantly approaching the adorable puppy, puppy learning to control their excitement at new people) but this might be her trying to find the silver lining. We do take puppy on lots of walks to grocery store parking lots, different parts of the neighbor, empty school grounds and there are lots of opportunities in these places if you are creative. We are struggling with dog socialization a bit.
The actual work of a puppy is incredible. Like PP, our previous dog came to us as a 9 month old so the puppy thing is new. Ours was pretty much house trained after 4 weeks, was sleeping through the night (with a few regressions Here and there) at 11 or 12 weeks. 8-12 weeks she’d wake once to go out in the middle of the night so it wasn’t horrible. Our biggest challenge is that she’s very nippy. Her teeth are crazy sharp and draw blood. We’re working on that with stern “no”, turning and stopping play and, recently, a physical correction if she’s really out of line. We were reluctant to do the physical correction since most people advise against it but her biting started getting really out of hand, it was a last resort -it’s just not okay for her to very painfully bite/ sometimes drawing blood at her will. And it has worked like a miracle- she still bites occasionally but now responds To “no” and is clearly trying to not bite.

What kind of physical correction do you do. I agree most places say do not do this and I do not want to frighten our puppy, but we are having a similar issue we want to discourage (puppy almost 12 weeks old) but otherwise everything is going great.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have a puppy now and the socialization has been okay- there are still lots of opportunities. Our training instructor (virtual classes) has described a few ways in which it is even better (people not constantly approaching the adorable puppy, puppy learning to control their excitement at new people) but this might be her trying to find the silver lining. We do take puppy on lots of walks to grocery store parking lots, different parts of the neighbor, empty school grounds and there are lots of opportunities in these places if you are creative. We are struggling with dog socialization a bit.
The actual work of a puppy is incredible. Like PP, our previous dog came to us as a 9 month old so the puppy thing is new. Ours was pretty much house trained after 4 weeks, was sleeping through the night (with a few regressions Here and there) at 11 or 12 weeks. 8-12 weeks she’d wake once to go out in the middle of the night so it wasn’t horrible. Our biggest challenge is that she’s very nippy. Her teeth are crazy sharp and draw blood. We’re working on that with stern “no”, turning and stopping play and, recently, a physical correction if she’s really out of line. We were reluctant to do the physical correction since most people advise against it but her biting started getting really out of hand, it was a last resort -it’s just not okay for her to very painfully bite/ sometimes drawing blood at her will. And it has worked like a miracle- she still bites occasionally but now responds To “no” and is clearly trying to not bite.

What kind of physical correction do you do. I agree most places say do not do this and I do not want to frighten our puppy, but we are having a similar issue we want to discourage (puppy almost 12 weeks old) but otherwise everything is going great.

[Anonymous]

I pushed down hard on her tongue or gums with whatever fingers are in her mouth.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have a puppy now and the socialization has been okay- there are still lots of opportunities. Our training instructor (virtual classes) has described a few ways in which it is even better (people not constantly approaching the adorable puppy, puppy learning to control their excitement at new people) but this might be her trying to find the silver lining. We do take puppy on lots of walks to grocery store parking lots, different parts of the neighbor, empty school grounds and there are lots of opportunities in these places if you are creative. We are struggling with dog socialization a bit.
The actual work of a puppy is incredible. Like PP, our previous dog came to us as a 9 month old so the puppy thing is new. Ours was pretty much house trained after 4 weeks, was sleeping through the night (with a few regressions Here and there) at 11 or 12 weeks. 8-12 weeks she’d wake once to go out in the middle of the night so it wasn’t horrible. Our biggest challenge is that she’s very nippy. Her teeth are crazy sharp and draw blood. We’re working on that with stern “no”, turning and stopping play and, recently, a physical correction if she’s really out of line. We were reluctant to do the physical correction since most people advise against it but her biting started getting really out of hand, it was a last resort -it’s just not okay for her to very painfully bite/ sometimes drawing blood at her will. And it has worked like a miracle- she still bites occasionally but now responds To “no” and is clearly trying to not bite.

What kind of physical correction do you do. I agree most places say do not do this and I do not want to frighten our puppy, but we are having a similar issue we want to discourage (puppy almost 12 weeks old) but otherwise everything is going great.

[Anonymous]

They can injure you by tripping you up. And hawks can eat them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They can injure you by tripping you up. And hawks can eat them.

Correction: Eagles can eat them but not red tailed hawks, if they are big enough. We’ve learned a lot on DCUM today!

[Anonymous]

Both of my dogs came from the same breeder. They keep them till they are about 12 weeks old and they live among a big pack once it's safe for them to romp with the big guys. The dogs teach one another to not nip too hard, so when they go to their new home they know how to play without hurting people. If they do bite too hard, you can make a high pitched yelp, which is what one of the their litter mates would do if hurt. I can put my entire hand inside my dogs' mouths to pull out chicken bones and other gross things they find on the streets of DC when out on walks. They've never once hurt me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our breeder told us the worst pairing was female-female, then male-male with the best pairing being female-male. We went with a male for our female dog and they get along splendidly.

I can second on that.
I had two males with large age gap and had to be a constant mediator. The hierarchy has to be set right and from the very beginning, and it is still difficult. There was no aggression, just humble sh*t between them.