Morning all, Hope you’re all well. Thought I’d give a 12 week update on Lulu, the 4 weeks have flown by. She is 7.5 kilos (16.5lbs) She had her vaccinations at the start of the week and the past couple days, we’ve slowly been letting her on the ground just outside the house (we’ve deemed the risk low and trying to balance socialising her versus any risks), no more than 40-50metres. She’s been going outside for her morning poo and wee whilst the rest of the day she uses the garden for her business. It has been 11 days since her last accident indoors. From Monday, we will start walking her 15 mins in earnest and start heading to green spaces. She’s still sleeping from 9pm until 7am although the naps during the day are less frequent. We give her two hours a day in the crate alone, one in the afternoon and one early evening. She will whine initially for a minute before settling. We use any opportunity to train, even when she approaches the garden or front door more recently, we get her to stay first. Her training is coming along well, she seems to get what we want from her, we also understand it’s not a linear process so any setbacks, we try to be patient. She tends to be a lot more bitey in the evenings and it is still being redirected on to chew toys. We have no concerns over the biting and she gets plenty of stimulation during the day, we recently bought one of the Nina Ottoman puzzles. She has had quite a lot of exposure to other dogs when we were carrying her and she’s been good. On our little foray on the road yesterday, we bumped into a golden retriever that one of our neighbours has and Lulu was jumping up at her, it was tough getting her to settle and the owner was great about it. I eventually got her to sit and settle with a treat. It is something we want to work on a lot as you never know the personality of the dog you’ll encounter. She’s so young so there is a lot of scope. We’ve exposed her to as much as we can and so far, she is not phased. She did a poo this morning as a van was driving by. I have the distinct feeling we will have the issue of her being extremely bold as she grows into a teenager as she seems to have no fear of anything. As per the previous posts, we’re investing an awful lot of time into her to reap the rewards. It may sound as if everything is going seamlessly well, rest assured it has been extremely hard work in terms of the hours we’ve put into her, trying to be consistent and having slight cabin fever as she only has access to the kitchen and garden at present. We are also spending less time as a family unit compared to before. We are thinking of letting her have supervised access to the rest of the house in the next month dependant on how she is. We are trying not to set her up to fail, for a split second she was chewing the garden furniture whilst I was in the kitchen the other day, she stopped as I called her and they was entirely my fault. Overall it’s been amazing albeit a lot of work.
Hi Oatley, That's a great update, thanks for taking the time to share your progress! As Chief Puppy Wrangler in our house, I can commiserate with the feeling of being trapped in the kitchen! That period will be over before you know it though Lulu sounds like a wonderful dog. In the long term, it's much easier to teach a bold puppy good manners and impulse control, than it is to teach a fearful puppy not to be afraid, so it's great that she's so confident and receptive to new things. It helps to cling on to that thought sometimes Puppies are so time consuming to raise properly, and you're doing a fab job - she'll be a credit to you Come back and and leave us more updates in future!
