Hi everyone, We have now had Tatti for about 5 1/2 weeks (she is 14 weeks old) and I'm sure you wont be surprised to hear that things are very slowly getting better on the crocopup front, there is still work to do with her eating everything in the house (including the actual house itself) but the 'using my arms as a chew toy' has reduced to occasional mouthing. horay. If there is anyone reading this who is currently wrestling their own crocopup, I feel your pain (literally) but everyones advice on here is spot on. Once you recognise when she is getting overexcited and give her a time out or get the hang of replacing your arm with a toy, it does get better. Today, I have a query about food, or more precisely meal times. At 14 weeks, I know that I should have reduced Tattis meals to 3 a day but because it took so long to get our routine down - this has only been working well for the past week or so - I am worried I will ruin all my hard work by changing the game. I work from home in an open plan living dining room (the same room as her pen but also where we have breakfast in the morning and relax in the evening) so it has been quite difficult to establish when is 'work time' and when is 'play, training or family time'. Also, our lovely pup tends to be at her worst for the hour before mealtime. So, i'm worried about what moving our timings around will do to her routine. Does anyone have any advice for how to deal with this? I'm thinking that starting at the weekend when the routine is less strict (and there are two of us to cope with her) might be best but even then, how should I move the timings? Currently, she eats at 06:30-07:00, 10:30-11:00, 15:30-16:00, and 19:30 - 20:00 and she sleeps from about 10:30 - 06:00 (give or take half an hour). We have a little walk after breakfast and lunch so that she sleeps for at least some of my working day (although the snoring during conference calls is not helping my professional development). Any ideas? Do I do this gradually (i.e. make one meal smaller and smaller then remove it) or gradually bring two times closer together, or just change it and deal with the consequences. I have a feeling I know but would like to hear other peoples experiences if you are happy to share?? Thanks all, Lou (and Tatti)
I would gradually bring the second meal towards lunchtime while making the third meal smaller. It won't take long and the best way to judge if it's working is whether or not her poo becomes soft which can be a sign of over feeding. I still often give my dogs a lunchtime snack if they haven't done any training near that time.
When Juno joined the family at 10.5 weeks she was already on 3 meals a day so I only had to knock out lunch at 4 months of age. I just split the lunch value into breakfast and dinner and she has a dentastix or a few fish sticks at lunch, usually followed by licking out my yoghurt pot and a piece of my apple . To reduce 4 meals into 3 just share the meal out between the other 3. I would probably keep breakfast around 7 if that's your normal time and bring dinner to around 7 to 7:30 so lunch around 13:00ish. Tatti could be a bit more demanding with her meal coming later, although of course her breakfast is bigger, but a play in the garden and some training can take their mind off their tummies, it does depend upon how food orientated they are. Starting at the weekend sounds a good idea so there are 2 of you to distract her but she will soon bet used to the new pattern. I'm sure others will be along with suggestion as well. Good luck and let us know how it goes
Hi I'm glad to hear Tatti and you are doing better! As for your question, there might be an entire science behind the changing to meals but I don't know. All I can tell you is what I did with mine when the time came . When I got him from the breeder, he told me to feed him 3 meals a day. When the time came to reduce it at 2 I increased the food in his 2 meals and the meal in the middle of the day got replaced with a snack (few pieces of carrot or few pieces of apple..etc) not a big quantity but I've put them in his bowl and within a week I started to give them to him out of the bowl (so I took the bowl away so he will not think at the snack as a meal). The transition was made without a problem. I would move her mid-day meal at around 13:00 and give her a snack when she was usually eating at 10:30 and 16:00. But, when she sleeps during snack time I would skip that also. That was my experience.
I will be moving Twiglet to 2 meals a day when she's six months old (on the 19th November) I will do it gradually as suddenly increasing the size of her meals gives her a runny tummy.
I'd definitely go with what others have said as they sounds like sensible ideas. We in the other hand clearly didn't think about it and when the breeder said we could go from three meals to two we just did! One day she had three meals and the next day she had two! Luckily for us our ignorance didn't come back to bite us as it didn't seem to affect Ella.
Saba was on two meals daily when we collected him at 10 weeks of age, although his daily food allowance is split in three, and he has the other third as training treats throughout the day. Some days, he's not keen on breakfast at about 07:30, and now he won't eat his kibble if it's been soaked beforehand. He has a Dentistix when we come back from our walk, and his evening meal between 18:30 and 19:00, depending on when we eat. Like Emily and Ella, we didn't give his meals a second thought, and carried on what the breeder was doing! Best of luck to you both
Boogie - When you say gradually what will you do? give slightly less each lunch time and more breakfast/dinner until lunchtime feed has gone all together? Eric is 6 months on 25th November so will be looking to cut his lunchtime feed out too
Piper was already on 3 meals when she came home from the breeder. to be honest she fusses around her lunch so i think i'll be dropping it soon. although she likes being stimulated so I've just ordered a kong wobbler, make her work for her food!! she's almost bored by the bowl.lol x
Hi all and thank you or your suggestions. We changed the schedule of the weekend (giving her a kong at her old lunchtime) which seemed to be fine (the true test will be whether I can handle her today now i'm back at work). One unexpected set back is that after 2 weeks of no accidents (and only 5 in total since we got her 6 weeks ago), this weekend we had 3 wees and a poo inside. She just wasn't telling us when she needed to go outside like she has been doing. I think that this is partly our fault for not being more vigilant on thinking that her habits would change If her feeding schedule changes, she also did her first wee outside the garden this weekend for which she received lots of praise - so maybe she is overgeneralising the not peeing in the garden rule. She still gets praise when she goes in the garden (and we do not react to accidents indoors) and can do both on command (providing they are needed). I also wonder if it may not have anything to do with the feeding schedule and may be related to another post I put up last week which is that last week we had another dog (a grumpy old dog who growled at Tatti) in our home and Tatti did a little pee on the floor (out of excitement or nerves). Could it be that we are not cleaning up all of the scent properly? This feels like a huge set back as this was one area we thought we had cracked. My husband and I feel like we've really let her down. Do I now need to take a step back and enforce garden time more regularly do you think?
My Labs have always been on twice a day from 13 weeks with no problems at all. I just gave them more to eat and they scoff the lot in one go. I've said before I go by how they look and react not to what the book/packet says.
Don't think of it as a huge setback, it's so easy to forget that she is still a very young puppy. I wouldn't worry too much about the set back on the toileting front, just be more vigilant and not necessarily wait for any signal from her, but take her out regularly so she has an opportunity to go if she needs to and of course lots of praise. I guess it is possible that she picked up a scent in the house so thinks it is OK to toilet there so it might be worth a good wipe around with something like Simple Solution. Apart from that relax and try not to be stressed, increase her toilet opportunities and she will soon be accident free again.
She's only 14 weeks so don't think of it as a set back. You've been given first rate advice so I don't really have anything to add. I'd get some simple solution I also use a floor cleaner called Sanidog which smells like fresh air. You'll both get there in the end, just enjoy your little puppy time flies so quickly.
