Morning and that’s really exiting, I’m sure you can’t wait In regards to the garden, I also read the conflicting information, however decided the garden was safe. We have cats that come and go and not had and foxes in the garden for a year apart from passing through on the fences. I guess some vets will err on the side of caution which makes sense. I deemed it safe from all the literature I read including this forum. I personally wouldn’t have it any other way as it would seem detrimental for Lulu and her development. We leave the garden door open and she goes in and out whilst we are around, apart from a few accidents (all our fault), she goes outside. We also bought a sand and water pit from Argos which has helped her not bite the plants. She plays a lot in the sand and water pit during the days. We do two daily walks in our arms outside for around 15 minutes which also stimulate her. I noticed it helps her sleep. We started to do the outside walks about a week in.
Thanks very much for your kind reply. We are excited! Our garden has a high brick wall all around so no other dogs go there, though we do see foxes on the walls and sometimes in the garden. We will try to keep the puppy on a lead on the short grass near the house until after the vaccinations take effect so she doesn’t go foraging in the bushes and find something she shouldn’t. Her third week will be in Cornwall (we live in London), so she will have a couple of long journeys. We will still have her in our arms on walks. Does that work for anything other than short periods or would you recommend a carrier/bag of some kind? Love the idea of the sand pit! How does she play in it? Thanks again for posting. Hard for new owners to imagine what it’s all going to be like before it happens.
You’re most welcome and we also live in London, southwest, looking forward to exploring all the parks and commons with her. The one issue we have is that our preferred vet at present isn’t carrying out vaccinations and don’t intend to anytime soon so we will be using one of the other vets in the area that are vaccinating. With the walks, I would go with personal preference. Our thinking was that, whilst we can, let’s hold her in our arms for the bonding as that won’t last long, by the time we won’t be able to carry her, she should be ready to be on the ground. It can get get tiring tough and I would say it’s a personal preference whether you’d use a carrier or hold her in your arms as the growth is amazing to witness. Cornwall will be a lot of fun. With the car journeys which we’ve done a few as we want to familiarise her, I also sought advice on here and we decided to crate her. We put a Kong along ( some kibble) with a couple of toys. The first 10 minutes she whines and cries a lot before settling down, we’ve done 6 car rides (we started off with two short 20 minute rides) and she’s peed on 2. We will continue to see how it goes. I’m certain you’ll find what works for her and yourself. With the sand pit, we have water in one and sand in the other, she digs around in the sand and plays in the water. The key is trying to stop her darting back in to the house with wet sand We’ve noticed this week that she’s also a lot better with our 1 year old, she was biting her and would go for her dummy, now she just sniffs her and carries on. It’s amazing how fast they learn. Although it’s early days, I’d say just as the kids do, Lulu makes me a better person to.
Hope you’re all well. A weekly update with Lulu as she is 11 weeks now. She is sleeping from around 9pm until 7am now. She doesn’t have as many naps during the day as she did initially. Her training is coming along well, mostly basic commands and we are also using the leash at time’s in the garden which she is quite comfortable with. We are trying to be consistent with feeding and we all take turns feeding/training her. She has not had any accidents in the house in the past week. She has started to jump on the garden furniture and we are trying to tackle that (we want her up on the furniture on our command) with the advice from the forum. She is also jumping up at our eldest (7 years old), the eldest now comes in, gets Lulu to sit before kneeling down herself before greeting her. If she starts biting and playing rough, she gets up and turns her back towards her which tends to work 50% of the time, if not, we get her to settle in her crate. Her biting is about the same, she has great bite inhibition so when she does bite, it’s a soft bite. She has lost one tooth. We introduced a Nylabone which keeps her occupied for a certain amount of time and we give her ice cubes, a carrot a day which help. We are still investing a lot of time in her, however we’ve started to loosen up slightly whereby if we are not in the kitchen for 5-10 minutes or so, we will let her have access to kitchen whilst leaving the garden door open. She’s stopped eating stones and biting the plants. To me, it seems to me that she is maturing slowly, understanding things. She is also content on her own and can be by herself in her crate for roughly an hour. Our daily walks with Lulu cover less as she is getting heavier to carry, due for her vaccinations this week. She is great when she encounters other dogs, she is very calm and this week she spent half a day with a friend of ours who has two golden retrievers. We dropped her off in the morning and collected her in afternoon, feedback was great. We intend to now drop her off for an entire day once a week to socialise for the next few weeks. Looking forward to letting her on the ground in the coming weeks and will just let her explore at her own pace as per Pippa’s suggestion. It’s been a great short journey so far and I’ve also learnt a lot about myself too. As most people will testify, it’s not easy but certainly rewarding, moreover nurturing your dog never really stops. I do believe, what you put in is what you get out.
