....more like regurgitated her lunch - 3 hours later. Now offered her tea and she's not interested. Due to go training in an hour. Not sure what to do. OH saying not to worry and to go. She is 13 weeks. Any advice?
I'd make sure she's drinking and perky - and, if so, take her. Come home if she seems lethargic or unwell or has a runny poo etc etc. Pups (and dogs) quite often throw up if they eat something which irritates their tum - it's usually tough grass, I find. Then they are fine afterwards. ...
So long as she is drinking and seems her normal self then I too would go. As @Boogie says keep an eye out for any other symptoms. Bailey had a couple of episodes of bringing back undigested food, he would bring it up - look at it in disgust (this from a dog that thinks fox poo is a delicacy) and walk off, he never seemed bothered by it at all and he never had any other symptoms.
Thank you for your responses. Well I did go. It's a 30 minute drive and so far Red has not been brilliant in the car but I have been doing a lot of work preparing her for car journeys. We got there and she was very calm until we entered the building!! She then just freaked out at the other puppies, wouldn't do a thing asked of her. She pulled constantly on her lead. At a certain point, I thought she needs to go outside. Outside she pulled and pulled on her lead and then after what seemed like an eternity, she did the most enormous mass of diarrhoea imaginable. I had a devil of a job scooping it up with her pulling and managed to get poo all over one hand!!!! Got back in training room - got her back on her mat, trying to wipe poo off my hand and then trainer said I had missed a cue that she was sitting still!!!!! I left quickly at the end as I felt we got nothing from the session and received little help - all the other dogs (smaller breeds) somehow seemed to get the trainer and her assistant's attention and they were doing what was asked of them. Road diversions were in place coming home so we had to go off onto a major road but we got home ok and she was fine in the car - only positive of the evening. I went down to her once in the night and she had a wee but this morning she had wee'd in her crate (she hasn't done this for a couple of weeks). She has eaten a third of her kibble in a very disinterested way, wanted to go outside - ate grass. I have put her in her crate for a sleep. Utterly exhausted and despondent. Sorry.
What an ordeal!! And poo on your hand!!! If you don't like the trainer, stop going! I made the mistake of sticking at one school for over a year. Made very little progress. Felt like I was useless, and worse, that Snowie was impossible and would never learn. Horrible trainer. When we finally moved to a lovely, gentle school (positive only), we made massive improvements. If only we'd started there, imagine the problems I could've avoided... You might also find that private lessons are much better for you. You probably won't need as many so you could factor in the cost that way. Dogs in my local park who'd been in private lessons, not big classes, were miles ahead of us. I think cos the owner had been trained better! Re the diarrhea and disinterest in food, I'd be calling the vet to see if you should be making a visit.
Sounds like one big stressful evening I agree if she isn't eating or drinking much a call to the vet for advise would be appropriate. I hope you have a better day today x
Yes will see how she goes today and if necessary will call the Vets for advice. I have had to pay upfront for the course but I will seriously consider whether it is worth going. The trainer makes a big point of her approach being positive and I could see the ways she was using the 'good' dogs to model what we had to do, was indeed positive. I feel so useless and despondent this morning - ever since we got a Red nearly 6 weeks ago, I feel I have struggled with all aspects to do with her.
Poor girl, it sounds like she has a bit of a tummy upset. As long as she is drinking she should be ok, but if she gets lethargic at all I would go to the vets. I've been to several classes where they use the dogs that can do it to demonstrate and it has made me feel like I had a naughty delinquent.
When I took Luna to her first ring craft show, she was a whirling dervish, desperate to get to the other dogs. She was the only Lab there, for what it was worth. Plenty of other puppies of a similar age, and all very calm. That's OK. Similarly, this class wasn't set up to set Luna up for success (to be honest, it wasn't that sort of class), but what I had was a great opportunity to work on her focus on me in the face of this massive distraction. So, without even saying anything to the person leading the class, I just took her to a different area at the back of the hall and just worked on C&Ting for the briefest of calm moments, or focus on me. I had already trained the hand target at home, and this was very useful for helping keep her attention. She was still completely OTT, but we celebrated our small victories, rather than failing to do what everyone else was doing with ease. So, my advice is, go back and, before class (and without Red, leave her in the car while you talk to the instructor - or, if possible, talk to the instructor by phone first), tell her that you won't be trying to do any of the exercises until you've got some focus, which may not even be that session. You need to be able to sit well apart from the rest of the group, to set her up for success. Don't worry what everyone else is doing, and remember to go right back to square one because of the challenging environment. So, once you have a tiny bit of focus through C&Ting for it, you can retrain "sit" - or whatever she has a strong behaviour. Start at the beginning, with a lure. Fade the lure, introduce the cue yada yada yada. But don't just say "sit" and expect her to be able to do it in that environment. When she's comfortable at the distance you're at, move a bit closer and work on focus again. Then closer. And so on. It may take several sessions before you're mixing with the rest of the puppies but that's OK. Forget what the other dogs are doing. You have to train the dog in front of you.
This. I wish I'd had the knowledge and confidence to do this at the start. Ella is nearly two and I've only just developed the confidence to say "sorry, we'll sit this one out/I'll modify this because/it's ok, we'll just watch etc." as Ella is becoming a fantastic girl (she already is a superstar in so many ways) but her excitement threshold is soooooooooo much lower than most other dogs I know. Use the room full of puppies to your advantage and work on things that are right for you an Red. I hope her tummy is better soon too. I agree with others that a vet trip would be worthwhile.
Always remember, you wouldn't need to be in class if you & Red were perfect. We have been there with our 30kg, lunging, barking adult dog, both of us sat on a chair in the middle of the room while the class went on around us. All we had to do was concentrate on Coco and keep him calm..that was an hour I never want to repeat again! But we have progressed. It was Red's first class so it must have been super-exciting for her, I'm not surprised she couldn't listen to you. She will, in time.
When we did puppy classes at first I don't think I've ever been so embarrassed. OH couldn't come so it was just me and Stanners. At this point he was about 15 weeks old and a crocodor to the max. I was sat in a class that had a cavapoo, a cavalier, a schnauzer and a puggle. They all sat quietly and nicely and the big oaf that is Stanley went charging in - he was tiny at that age for a lab but still bigger than them all. He refused to sit still, he kept biting me, he would pull and pull. I remember once the instructor was speaking and he was sat bopping the cavapoo on the head trying to get it to play. Luckily, the instructors were really nice about it and could see I was really embarrassed. They let us sit a bit further away and taught me to do "watch me" to I could get Stanleys attention and just let me practice that because he could already do sit/lie down/hand touch anyway. They explained they felt that would be more beneficial to Stanley. I think it's all about the instructors you find - they should want to help you and make you feel comfortable. They kept being like "ahhh don't worry about it, he's a lab " and it did make me feel better and less embarrassed. If you don't feel comfortable, then I'd maybe look for somewhere else. You don't want to leave feeling defeated every week because they've failed to offer you any help.
I love all your advice. But I can't help but think you can do it because you've got so much experience and knowledge. For me, I'd be at the class cos I need the trainer to help me. It is a great opportunity to practice look at me with so many distractions. But if it were me - thinking back to when Snowie was a puppy and I, too, was a sleep-deprived wreck - I'd need some hand holding, which is why I advocate private classes. It's usually the handler that needs the training, with immediate feedback, and big classes stretch the trainer thin.
I can totally see where you're coming from as I was/am the same way. I just know that, if I were to have another puppy right now (calm down, calm down, it's not happening ) I would do things completely differently to how I did with Ella.
Guide Dogs could have a real money spinner if they ran puppy classes for the general public and their pups. They are used to crazy Labs and Lab crosses! ALL our puppy classes involve high energy loopy pups who need (somehow!) to become mature, sensible dogs who hold people's lives in their paws. If only you could come along to watch one of our classes and see how normal Red is! It gets me very cross when trainers look down their noses at people who have exuberant Labs. Why do they think we attend the classes in the first place? ,,,
I don't have that much experience! W&S are only two and a half, and my first dogs! I think you're right that a 121 would certainly help a brand new puppy owner who wasn't confident in focus training. But it's the being around other puppies that's the valuable thing, and you don't normally get that opportunity in 121s. Would it be possible to have half an hour 121 before the class, for the instructor to show you how to work on focus before the other puppies come in? Again, a phone call maybe to set this up?
Yes, but each pup is different - so there are no experts here imo, we learn all over again with every pup. I've also found that, as I have more pups, I become a little complacent and assume things - THIS pup hasn't already learned the thing I'm assuming - that was last years pup - but I forgot that, so she can get confused by my training. I should be more systematic and write a regime down methinks. ... ..
That's got me thinking... I don't think it is actually the norm to be around hyper dogs in large numbers. When I look back on dog school days, it was a once-a-week experience to be confronted by about 50 hysterical dogs and handlers, with my dog being sent into loopy land, beyond over excited. And me struggling to stop him from excitedly saying hallo to every dog and chasing every ball (like a child in a candy store ALREADY on a sugar high!!). I think most dogs - unless they're going to shows and competitions - live a much quieter life. Even on our walks, when dogs abound, it's nothing like the hysteria at dog school. I had my epiphany one day when I visited the dog school with Snowie to buy something from their shop (we were no longer taking their classes) and I realized Snowie's barks were not excitement at all, but rather he was very stressed by it all. I stopped taking Snowie to their shop altogether because of this. He can cope in any situation, but I saw the stress he was enduring. Perhaps I'm lucky, but we have a local park that is popular with puppy owners (and adult dogs), so there's always plenty opportunity for training with distractions. (Not that anyone does - it's generally socializing for the pups and humans alike!)
