Don't we just! I was just commenting on this yesterday. I vaguely remember the pain of the teeth and the seemingly never-ending mopping up of puddles, but it wasn't that bad. Was it?
Hang in there @LooneyLuna! Puppies are hard work when you are focusing on raising them right! We are currently raising puppy #4 for SA Guide Dogs, he's 19 weeks old, and we raised our own Lab (born blind he came with a whole other set of challenges to go with his Labrador personality). And we do forget! I actually speak to the puppy raisers - new and experienced - at an induction they attend two weeks before they get their new Guide Dog puppy, to give them a little insight into what they can expect from a Puppy Raiser's perspective. One or two of them change their minds because they are expecting the bundle of fluff from the toilet paper packaging, not a hooligan with needles for teeth who needs a firm hand and lots of attention.
@LooneyLuna I think I tried to rehome Harley twice by the time she was 4 months old. She was just a never ending ball of energy with very sharp teeth and nails. I am a cat person. Who knows what possessed me to want a dog, some days I really wonder. I think my crowning moment was when I cried for about 30 mins in therapy because. I am such a failure as a dog owner. Luckily my therapist is a huge animal lover and a damn good therapist so it definitely didn't phase her. Harley is now 10 months old and I really enjoy her. She is adjustable and flexible and seems to mostly know what I need, and then change her play and attention style for my DH needs. She is great with the cats. But when people told me that it would be better in a few months when she was 3 months old I wanted to scream! It felt like I would never make it and on top of that I felt so guilty because I didn't like her. She was supposed to add to my quailty of life and yet I could hear quality of life disappearing like debit order notifications at the end of the month. But is really does get different. Good luck.
Oh @Harley Quinn this tugs at my heartstrings a bit, although I know you love her now In the early weeks of having Cassie I felt mostly the loss of freedom and quality of life. But now I can see how much she has added -- company when the house is empty, new people not least through this Forum and Severnside Walkies. She gets me out to places I haven't been for years, I've lost weight since having her (I needed to, and more). There's more besides all that I'm sure!
@selina27 I do love her intensely now. Just yesterday we took her for a walk on a gold course close to us and she was just so good. She is just so good most of the time. She was off lead and maintaining good recall. And she had a wonderful time and so did we. She has improved my quality of life in all the ways that you have mentioned and even more. I have a terrible professional habit of not leaving work at work. And I have chatted on here before about how emotionally heavy the work is, and there is nothing I can do once I am at home. Harley doesn't like it when I am sad, or preoccupied. She sits on me, or bothers me until I shift focus onto her just a little at least. This has improved my time at home so much because it is a concrete reminder that I need to 'close the door' on work. DH has become desensititized and has accepted that my mind is often in another place. But Harley is way more stubborn. And it has been great for all of us.
A girl at work got a puppy on Saturday. She's had no sleep for 2 nights and is saying how hard it is. I just keep saying it DOES get better. It really really does! Although I look back on Stanleys puppy days quite fondly, I'm not sure if I'd want to relive them. Crying for aaaages and then when you finally went to see them you got attacked by razor sharp teeth. No no, I like my big lad now
Hi there, sorry to hear you've had such a hard time. Holly is 14 weeks now and does seem to be getting marginally more civilised (relatively speaking) ... but yes, it is such hard work!! Much as I love her I confess I am looking forward to the times when I don't have to watch her every move, mop puddles off the floor and stop her eating everything (literally everything.. there is nothing off the menu). We were really excited about getting a puppy too, and it hasn't been quite what we thought it would be, the biting in particular came as a bit of a shock, we've had some interesting moments, but I think this absolute mad stage only lasts so long... xx
I have SOOO many pictures! We're raising puppy #4 - Riggs (yellow Lab), and the pups we raised before him were Volt (yellow Lab, Guide Dog), Lennox (black Lab, Guide Dog), and Nimble (black Lab, career changed). Between our puppies we've helped raise a few older pups, taking over from other puppy raisers - Kenzo (yellow Lab, Guide Dog), Rhody (yellow Lab, Service Dog), Wendel (yellow Lab, Service Dog), Patrick (black Lab, Guide Dog), and Xander (yellow Lab, career changed). We've also had pups stay with us for a few weeks while their puppy raisers are on holiday - Finley (black Lab, brood bitch), Annie (black Lab, career changed), Dawson (black Lab, in training), and Isaac (yellow Lab, puppy) - and its amazing how quickly they crawl deep into your heart!
Tell me about it. They find the most random things off the floor and you think "where the hell did she find that". Fed up of trying to get stones and rocks out of her mouth. Have come to terms with all the grass eating now! We are at 11 weeks now. My husband does the first thing in the morning routine and apparently she's been a naughty girl this morning re biting! Constantly watching her when she starts sniffing round ready to grab her to go outside! One good thing though is she is holding her bladder through the night and didn't even wake us up this morning. We got her up at 6am! Progress! X
I really appreciate knowing I'm not the only one. Im too stubborn to give her up and I don't think I actually want to. I look at her and she is so cute. But then she bites you and it's like oh you little b***h! I am missing my independence a lot at the moment though! People look at you like your being ridiculous when you say the puppy is taking over your life! Everything revolves around the dog! When did you start seeing a noticeable change? X
Wonderful photos. I am on number three Guide Dog puppy here in the UK, plus two who I had for two months each. Oh yes indeed, each one takes a piece of your heart xx .
I think the best owners are the ones who say everything revolves around the dog - because it means you care! When people's lives don't change very much I just think well how much is the dog getting left etc.. because they are very much a baby. The hardest part for me was my loss of independence. I had to miss out on a lot when Stanley was little - my friends (who have children!) would go out and I'd have to stay at home with the pup. Stanleys 15 months now, and I think it was a double improvement for me. 1. He could be left longer or people would be more willing to pop in and walk him when he's older and 2. I'd just now prefer to spend time with my dog. He's my favourite person and I'd rather take him for a nice walk than go out now. But there is still sacrifices that have to be made - in a couple of weeks it's my friends birthday and they're going out for the night. OH is on nights so I'm going to have to drive and come home about 12 o clock so Stanley isn't on his own for too long. When he was 3 months, that would have really upset me. Now I'm just like oh well, it's not the end of the world
About our feelings and puppies - I think we need to remember that our pups are just being puppies and all the biting etc is very very normal behaviour. It's not an easy time - there's tons and tons of hard work and time involved. But puppies are not being naughty, they are just being puppies. If we can frame the narrative to involve what we need to do to manage them it helps us feel much better, rather than to expect them not to behave as pups. I think framing it as 'what can I do?' rather than 'S/he's driving me mad' helps. All pups will grow up and stop being puppies, how we manage that to bring up the pup to become a well behaved dog and keep ourselves sane is what matters Im not good at expressing this and this thread says it much better - http://www.thelabradorsite.com/what-to-expect-of-a-new-labrador-puppy/ .
@Holly Chocolate Loveheart also just found an earplug in Lunas poo too! Seriously does eat everything!
I agree entirely, Mags. It's very easy to think of your puppy as being naughty, but they're really not doing these things out of spite. On the other hand, it's very human to become frustrated by their antics. We just have to use our superior intellect to control our emotional response and engage our brains a little I work from home and it always seems to be when I'm at my busiest that the monster appears in my puppy, Luna. It's intensely frustrating, when I'm trying to concentrate and I have a puppy doing "naughty" things. The thing is, she's brilliant most of the time; I've taught her that I have to work and she needs to settle down while I do. So, the fact of the matter is, if she starts "playing up", it's because I have left her too long without stimulation. I need to resolve the issue and try harder next time to not let her get to that state. When she was a tiny puppy, this would only be a couple of minutes before she needed something to occupy her. Now, at nearly eight months of age, it's a couple of hours. She's doing so well, but I need to appreciate that she's still a puppy, and she needs regular interaction. Without it, she will entertain herself, and you can bet your bottom dollar that the way she chooses to do that won't coalesce with my views on appropriate behaviour So, when she starts to get antsy, the computer has to go down, and she gets some training and play time. Even if it's remarkably inconvenient, and I'm tearing my hair out on the inside, it's not her fault. I might sigh, I might plead, "Please, Luna, just let me finish this one bit", but, in the end, she's been asked to be quiet for longer than she can manage, and that's down to me. We ask so, so much from our dogs. We expect them to fit into our lives without question. We expect them to behave by our rules, which are often completely opposite to the way they are programmed (sausage left unattended means it's fair game, right?). And we expect them to do this when they're still tiny babies. If you asked the same thing of a human child at a similar developmental stage, you'd be called out as being a nutter. Of course you can't expect a toddler to sit still, unoccupied, for hours on end. So why do we expect exactly that from our young puppies? Of course, it also feels great to vent, and this forum is a brilliant place for doing that
