Kelpie_Pup

I don't understand why she bought a Puppy if she has no time OR patience for it They're BOTH pre-requisites for raising a puppy. Sorry I can't think of anything at the moment.. Will have a think a jump back on here later

Halle has never run in the back door uninvited. She learnt this from a very early age. I can walk around the whole house with her sitting at the open door and she won't come in until told so. Halle and the other dog were separated at every meal time. One was fed inside, one was fed outside. I think, in fact, it could be that she has become used to eating entirely on her own-without any human nearby at all. That just doesn't explain why she only reacted that way with me and not my partner . Thankyou Wobbly.. I will be in touch with him soon!

Have just posted in Puppy problems, and need to find a professional in the area to help with some dominance, resource guarding and aggression issues. It only started this morning but certainly don't want to waste time trying to fix the situation as I'm not sure on how to do it myself. Does anybody know of a reptuable dog behaviouralist nearby?

Thankyou everyone for your advice. I suspect this is a dominance issue. She is walked on a leash daily-by both of us-a one hour return trip to the park-as well as some games/training in the yard, so I don't feel that exercise is an issue. She has growled once at me before -about 5 months ago-when I approached her bed and she was almost asleep, but a loud growl back from me stopped that very quickly. She clearly sees my partner as the boss.. I obviously need to learn how to behave with her so that she understands she isn't up the top of the pack above me. I guess I just don't know how... We live in a rural area and I don't think there are many, if any, professional trainers / obedience experts in the vicinity. Does anyone know of a reputable, qualified professional that would be near the western side of the Blue Mountains in Syd? I was hoping to avoid this but I certainly don't want thisto continue, or get even worse. We love our dog dearly but we also understand that it requires effort to establish and maintain a healthy relationship between us all. Perhaps I am a bit "soft" with her Problem is, I also only see her about 2 days a week atm. I'm really going to have to step up my game ( No, I'm not one of those people who blames their dog's behaviour on their dog! )

Our 11 month old Kelpie has neeeeeeeeeever done this before. She has just spent the last 6 weeks with some relatives-as we have been overseas- and as if all the other issues encountered so far aren't enough (she has spent the last 6 weeks locked in a backyard on her own).. I went to feed her this morning, gave her the ok to eat, went to pat her head, and she literally turned on me! I jumped back and she LURCHED at me, growling and snapping her teeth. This has always been her feeding routine. Since the day we brought her home 9 months ago, we have always done this. We could come and go, patting her as we please.. she always just continued eating. She has never had a problem with it before. But this morning she REALLY frightened me. My partner then came out and did the same thing.. no response from her. She just stopped eating and sat there and enjoyed the head rub. We took her food away and started again 10 mins later. I patted her head again and she did the same thing again to me!! The last 6 weeks, she has not only spent most of the time outside without much human contact, but also with another dog...a 5 year old Kelpie. They get along quite well and I was told they were always fed seperately so as not to cause issues between them and their eating. Firstly, WHY do you think she is doing this?? WHAT could have happened? Is it because she has been left on her own to eat for the last 6 weeks? Secondly, HOW can we remedy it?? We have never seen this kind of aggression in her before and it really upset me this morning to see her like that. She is always-this morning aside- a very friendly, social little dog who loves human contact. Some people may not mind if their dogs do this, and thats fine, but I see this as a big problem. This has me worried ;)

I second Royal Canin. Our puppy luuuurves it. Also, the better quality the food, the more they utilise in their body, and the less they waste/poop. Noticeable difference

Its not very practical to ban your dog from stairs in some cases... like us. We have a full set in the back yard-they are not very steep and have a low gradient, and a full set inside. I think its would be one of the causes, but it doesn't automatically cause it. Kelpie's are not prone to hip dysplasia, like other dogs such as Labs, so I don't feel its a big issue. They are, by nature, very agile dogs. They are used to bounding around, putting pressure on joints, herding animals, jumping up on the back of utes etc. Hasn't been for us anyway.

he he he that was homer simpson's name change!!! :rolleyes: *sings Max Powerrrrr, he's the man who's name you'd love to tooooouch, but you mustn't toooooouch!!*

I couldn't have guarenteed that out Kelpie Puppy was toilet trained until at least 5 months of age. 13 weeks is still very small. I CANNOT recommend crate training highly enough!! We had a smaller plastic one(with a metal grid front door) for our Puppy until she was too big for it. She LOVED her crate. It went everywhere with her, so she always had a home and somewhere she was comfortable. She never had an accident in her crate-the trick is to make sure its not too big for their size. Halle is now just 9 months old and hasn't had an accident since she was 6 months old (unfamiliar house-and I forgot to get her to do a wee before bringing her in). She is now in a larger crate- canvas with mesh sides- which she loves too. She sleeps inside in the kitchen/family room. May I ask where you got Rosie from? I can recommend a fantastic book for Kelpie puppies written specifically for and by kelpie breeders and owners. Halle is one of the best behaved puppies I have ever seen.. she puts our friends' dogs to shame. I owe it all to the book!

What a beautiful puppy!! The waking in the middle of the night for toileting doesn't last long, so just think of it this way.. When/if the puppy protests when you first put her in her crate, that is generally a cry of protest and nothing else. Always be sure to toilet before bed (perferably wees AND poos!). It is normal for the puppy to wake in the middle of the night.. if they wake at say 1 am, it is highly likely they need to toilet. She's already had her "protest cry" when you first put her in for bed.... so it is best to take her outside if she wakes a few hours after and start crying! If she's done a poo before bedtime- try and allow enough time between dinner and bedtime for this to happen- it's likely she won't need to do one until the morning. We fed our pup her dinner at about 6.30-7 and crated her for bed at around 10-10.30 most nights and this allowed enough time for her to do her poop before bedtime. She only ever woke in the middle of the night for wees. Mind you, she only woke in the middle of the night for the first 5 nights we had her. The first 2, she cried even after we put her back in at 2 am after she'd done wees outside... we just put her next to our bed and talked to her for a bit so she felt secure. Actually, a few weeks ago, we stayed at my parents house for the wknd, and poor thing ate something in the backyard that made her sick and she got the runs.... woke every hour on the hour through the night with a sore sore tummy Well done on choosing to crate train - I can't recommend it highly enough!!! Hope it all goes well for you

Luckily they do grow out of it Our puppy started doing this about about 13 weeks..mainly when we got home (she was outside) or when people came over. I always ensured that if someone came to the door, that Halle was taken outside first to do a wee, then come back in. When we came home to her outside, i wouldn't give her any cuddles or any attention until she had done a wee ... "toilet time" is her command. She learnt this very quickly as she was always so keen for attention It doesn't last long and I'm quite sure happens to most little puppies

do you have any yard outside? maybe a small area you could keep him in where he has some space to do his thing but still isn't destroying the entire yard?

I think that is the perfect answer

just because your puppy did doesnt mean someone elses can, it all depends on the puppy, its personality, how much it was fed, how much it drank, if it went to the toilet before hand, if it had been to the toilet more than once in a 24 hr period, it its sick, could have a urinary infection, if it is lonely or scared, maybe it cant hold it as easy, maybe it was asleep when it did it. You simply cannot expect a puppy to beable to always hold it in. They are of course babies and will have accidents all the time. You can have children at 12 years old still wetting the bed and another child who never wet the bed in their life. It all depends on the child and the situation. Even now we may wake up one day and may not need to go to the toilet for 48 hrs, then suddenly a few weeks later we are tearing through the house to reach the toilet before our bladder explodes even though you had just been 3 hrs before. Some foods and drinks also go through your digestive track faster than other things, for all you know they could be feeding a different dog food which isnt as beneficial and is full of fluid so it passes through faster. my point is that if he has been sleeping through the night, which Lindyx says he has for 3 weeks now, which i would assume to be about 7-8 hours, i would have thought that 4-5 hours in the crate would hav been doable as well, based on what she has said. i also stated in my first message that i am by NO means an expert, but from my experience, this was what i could offer her. However, I am not an idiot and realise there are many factors to be considered. A 12 week old retriever has a significantly larger bladder than, for example, a 12 week old pug puppy. Not all baby puppies have accidents all the time. We haven't had an inside accident since 9 weeks of age, hence my 'personal opinion'.

Since your dog is a bigger breed, i would expect them to be able to hold it for 4 hours at 12 or 13 weeks old. Our puppy did it through the night at 8 wks old without a noise from her. and its not like we locked her in there and ignored her. she was next to our bed for 7 nights and only woke mid-night for the first 3 nights. Lindyx I think you are being reasonable to expect four hours at this stage. Perhaps not the entire night, but 4 is reasonable.

ok i'm no expert, but i'll give it a go.. this is what we learnt with our puppy how big is the crate? quite often, if the crate is too big for their size, they will use one end for sleeping and one end for toileting.. this can be fixed by using a smaller crate, or putting in a partition to make it smaller for now until the puppy gets bigger and then you can remove the partition so they fit better. I was going to suggest that maybe he is being left in there for a bit too long but I wouldn't think so .. our puppy was sleeping through 7 hours each night without needing to toilet when she was 8.5 weeks old. Are you making sure he wees straight before you put him in his crate? Every time? It has to be every time. Puppies could go every hour at that age if you let them.. crating teaches them to hold it a bit I guess, but we need to be reasonable. Our puppy often goes into her crate on her own alot of the time, but never when we need her to (which is only at bedtime at night). She has been crated since day 1 and is now 7 months old. I generally get a treat of hers-piece of chicken- and put it in her crate with a rope toy that she can chew on ( not a squeaky one that will keep her awake and not a chew that she can eat ). she will always go in on her own and i just shut the door behind her and tell her she's a good girl. she is always very happy to be in there. is that any help at all?? hehe

I had heard the same thing about Puppy Preschools run by the local Vet but ours was fantastic! We were given an information booklet with details of what we would be going through each week, as well as information on all other aspects of health for your puppy. Each session was wonderful.. all the puppies were the same age roughly-the oldest was 12 weeks-ours was 8.5 weeks. All had only had their first vacc. They had such a good time and really learnt alot. Great way to socialise puppy!! One of the reasons we liked the vet, and it has proved useful ever since, was that our Puppy always LOVES going to the Vet! She drags us in the door rather than the other way around. We had her desexed about a month ago and, although she obviously had no idea why we were going in, she was so excited, and still is whenever we go in. That has been a real plus for us Poor little thing.. thinks she's going to play with her friends! The sessions themselves were run in the large waiting room at the Vets. There were 4-5 puppies in the sessions. The room was a good size and also nice and clean - unlike the other local Vet we visited yukk. He he it just reminded me about our Puppy Preschool classes.. by the second class, our pup had figured out that it was the Vet who was giving out the pieces of chicken when it wasn't us, and even when all the puppies were allowed to play with eachother and have a rumble, our little Halle would sit patiently at her feet the entire time! Good luck finding a good place for you and you Puppy to attend I guess just have a look around and ask what the sessions are like. That's what we did.

thankyou everyone i think a Cuz is the way the way to go from here.. we'll try it at least. we have a king wubba an our dog has no interest in it so therefore it hasn't been destroyed yet

Our 6 month old Kelpie puppy LOVES squeaky toys! She will potter around the house all day just squeaking it! The only problem is that she is tearing them apart .. first she rips off all the ears and legs of whatever the toy is, then she manages to rip it open and I catch her wandering around with the stuffing in her mouth, and even the little plastic squeaker in her mouth!! We have treid Kongs and she has one of those wubba toys but she just reeeeeally loves ones that she gets a response from. Can anyone recommend a good, solid squeaky toy that she won't rip to pieces within a day?? I must say, she has never chewed on anything inappropriate like furniture or shoes (touch wood) and i think this is because we always have toys for her, but she has managed to destroy TWO of her toys just this morning!! Any suggestions from experienced puppy owners??

We had our puppy desexed on monday too.. we were told to keep her a calm as possible...what a joke! keep her dry and not let her jump around too much. of course, the next morning i let her out for the toilet and she starts chasing sparrows in the yard!!! try to not let your dog lick the wound.. we have a crate for our puppy si am am crating her a few times a day while im here for about an hour at a time to make sure she is resting and taking it easy..

Our 6 month old female puppy who weighs 12 kg was desexed and microchipped for $260...

We have had our puppy in a crate since we picked her up at 8 weeks of age. the first week she was in our room, and she woke between 4-6am needing to go to the toilet.. we would take her out, and then bring her back in to go back to sleep. she was quite happy with this. she was making it through the night about 5 nights after she came home. it would only have been a matter of about a week before she would stay in there quite happily, not making any noise. she now, at just 5 months, will just lay in her crate, if she doesn't wish to sleep, until we take her out. this can be as late as 8am sometimes. mind you, we do take her out to the toilet last thing before bed and first thing when getting up.. still ensuring she is toilet trained. provided you use a crate on the proper way, it is such a marvellous training tool. i cannot recommend it highly enough

We had this issue with our puppy, but only for a very short time. The yelping and stopping play is definitly what I would recommend. The thins is, we're very quick to teach a puppy what NOT to chew, but often forget to teach them what they CAN chew. We investd in LOTS of toys and chews for our puppy. Whenever she used her teeth on us, no matter what circumstance or even if it didn't really hurt, we would let out a big exaggerated "OUCH!!" and straight put something in her mouth to chew instead. We would praise her alot and encourage her to use it. This teaches them that not only is skin out of bounds, but that there are things that they get praise for if they chew. Hope that helps it does get better. She i now 5 months and VERY rarely uses her teeth, and even then, it doesn't hurt at all. But we still use the same routine!

when we brought out pup home at 8 weeks, she barely ate. she was on the same food as she had been at the breeders, which was dry food with a bit of meat. call me fussy, but we softened her dry food for a few days with water(soak in water for a bout 5 mins then drain it out) as it was much too hard for her to consume otherwise. we slowly decreased this until it was just dry. that might help ?

We have an 18 wk old kelpie pup. Between about 9-12 weeks of age, her nipping was really starting to distress me. Sometimes I could barely pat her without her wanting to have a go. We tried several things. Letting out a big yelp sometimes worked.. it had to be quite exaggerated though for her to really understand it. We too tried closing her mouth and growling at her, but she saw this as us playing her game with her, so that didn't last long. Each time she put our hands or part of us in her mouth, even if it wasn't too hard, we would let out a big "argh!" as though we were really frustrated, and then give her something more appropriate to chew. We realised that while we were teaching her what we didn't want her to chew, we weren't providing her with suitable alternatives. We would always have a pork chew or one of her toys around so we could put it in her mouth and praise her for chewing the correct thing. Being a working dog, we have worked very hard to establish ourselves as the pack leaders. I really believe that this has helped us with her nipping. If we are walking through the house, we always make her sit and wait for us to walk through the door before she follows us..the same when going inside or outside. When meal time used to come, she would be running in circles around us, jumping up on us wanting her food. She now knows she must sit at the top of the steps until we give her the "ok" to come down. she will sit and wait at her bowl until we again say "ok". it is very easy to start and really helped us with most aspects of her training. She knows how to sit, stop, stay and come and very rarely mouths our hands anymore-only when she is extremely excited when playing! When we leave her alone outside when we are at work, we leave little bits of treats around the yard, hide her toys, stuff like that. The only thing we are now having issues with is her deciding its more fun to not "come" on command. Working on that now!