Hi All, This is my first post to this forum. I've often come across it when researching in preparation of my labrador puppy arriving. Maverick arrived on Saturday, 6 days ago and has been a delight. He's a golden lab and 9 weeks old today. Crate training Maverick spends his night in his crate. I wake up at 12am, 3am, 5am to let him out for a wee. I haven't had any mess in his crate and he only howled for about 15min on the first night. He loves his crate and will wonder in the crate himself during the day for a snooze. It's his safe space. Toilet training He's only had one accident on the first day and nothing since, however I do let him out every 1hr 45min on the dot. Tricks He knows sit, stay, lie down, although needs a lot of encouragement through treats. However, where I'm after some advice is on the following problem areas... Eating Grass He LOVES eating grass in our garden. Should I just let him eat the grass? Or chase him around the garden like a looney 10 times a day. Crunching on stones We have a few areas of the garden with stones. He loves to pick up, walk to the garden and chew on it. I'm paranoid he will swallow and I'll be in the vets. I feel like I'm running around the garden steering him away from everything and I can see him getting so frustrated. Chewing lead Three times a day I'll place him on his lead to get used to it ahead of going outside in a few weeks time. He goes mad chewing the lead and won't even look at me - even with a treat. Any good tips here? Transferring onto better food I appreciate dried food isn't perfect, but I'm not in a situation where I can prepare raw food. Maverick is currently on Beta Puppy Dried food and I'd like to move him onto a better dried food - James Wellbeloved Puppy. This morning after settling into our house for a week I thought it'd be a good idea so slowly introduce it. I gave him 25% JW puppy and 75% Beta puppy. He's been sick twice since. is 25% too much to introduce, or do you think there is another issue - maybe doesn't get on with the food? JW Puppy is supposed to be very gentle on the stomach. I hope someone might be able to give some advice. And if I can help anyone where I've had success please just ask. I'll try and attached a few photos of Maverick to this post. Many thanks, Adam
Further update from me here. I've placed wood boards over all the stone areas which has meant no more stone crunching! Just lots of digging around the boards. I can live with the digging for now! Lead work is still very hard work, Using treats now I can get him to walk on a lead up and down our hallway (can't go down the road until 25th Dec). Which I guess is progress, still won't move on the lead without treats guiding him. Hoping this will come in time?
Hi Adam! Our puppy did the same thing with gravel. I made sure to teach him “leave it” but it was a lengthy thing to teach him in terms of time, versus sit/stay. Whenever he goes near the gravel, I tell him to leave it, and reward him coming away from it with a treat and lots of fuss. When he walks past the gravel without going to eat it, and we’ve passed the distraction, he gets a treat and lots of fuss! I do the same thing with any distraction and so far, he’s doing really well. I keep reminding myself that he is just a baby and he is learning about the world, when he slips up.
