koalathebear

Thanks for all the kind replies. I can't believe how quickly Elbie's been growing! He keeps us very, VERY busy but we adore him to bits. This is what he used to look like when he wanted attention Elbie's poor massacred chew toy - the unfortunate horse Elbie with his "not me" expression Elbie's very sociable. When he's not with us, he's in the yard on the deck nearby and he always comes if he hears a sound in the kitchen. When we surf the net, these days he sits nearby in his dog bed playing with his toys. He might even join in. One day we picked him up and he decided he preferred the think pad over the mouse As a puppy, he runs out of energy fast. He has many, many lovable looks Canberra's getting very cold so at night, we give him a hot water bottle and tuck him in. He has learned that the sound of the kettle means that he's getting a hot water bottle so he leaps out of his crate and sits near the the kettle to supervise. We inevitably do not make his bottle fast enough because he will make plaintive little honking sounds that are as cute as they are bizarre. The look below is the one he shoots us when he's tucked in and using the hot water bottle as a pillow. Almost like a: "Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?" He has a very proud way of sitting up - that makes his ears look even more indecisive I get this look from him a lot where he wants some attention or playtime. He'll put his little head in the palm of my hand and just look up at me soulfully

Hi there Elbie cried ALL night for three nights. Not just crying but screaming, howling, yowling and making strange Gollum-like noises. Everyone told us to take Elbie out at regular intervals for his toilet but not to give in to his crying in case he used it to get attention. We were so afraid that the neighbours were going to kill us or report us to the RSPCA for animal cruelty. The compromise was that we put the crate in our bedroom near the bed and put our fingertips against the grate of the crate so that he could lick them. He stopped crying immediately. After a week, we moved the crate further away. Eventually we migrated him to a larger crate down in the kitchen and he sleeps peacefully every night and we just go down there at 4am to let him out for a toilet break and then first thing in the morning. During the day the crate door is open unless we go out for short trips and crate him. Hope that helps.

Elbie's 3/4 kelpie and 1/4 border collie. I have introduced him over in the "Photos Photos Photos" thread here so you can see lots of photos taken by us as doting owners At over 13 weeks old, almost 14 weeks old (my signature is wrong for some reason :D, he now weighs 6.5kg. He was about 2.5kg when we got him at 8 weeks. He eats 3 meals a day with little snacks in between when doing his informal obedience training. I know that puppyhood varies per breed so I was wondering how long puppyhood is supposed to last in a kelpie? The main reasons are: 1. I'd like to know at what point we can switch him from 3 meals to 2 meals - most people seem to say 6 months but I'd like a kelpie-specific answer if possible. My partner and I will both be returning to full-time work soon and so being able to give Elbie 2 meals a day would be great. 2. He's had his first vaccinations and first booster and is scheduled for his second booster in June, which is when the vet says it will be safe to take him for very short walks. Any suggestions on how long a kelpie puppy that young should be walked each day? At present his exercise is running around the yard a lot and playing with us. * ETA: We have been doing some informal obedience training with him. We're not dog experts so we haven't had much luck getting him to stay yet but hopefully that will come in time. This is what he does so far: ( ) . He can do a more sedate spin but I love his athletic, crazy dog spin here :p ( )

Haha! Our puppy is 13 weeks and so naughty sometimes. He knows not to chew cables now but we can't understand why he we find him trying to gnaw on furniture, walls, the outdoor deck, his crate, his blanket, his bed etc when he has sooooooooo many chew toys And worse, for a horrible time *we* were his favourite chew toy :D

*laugh* I thought our puppy as the only one who inhales his food without chewing! See . It's quite remarkable how quickly he eats.

Our kelpie/border collie puppy (13 weeks, almost 14 weeks) poops a lot, too. They were runny when he was on Pedigree - which was awful. When we switched him to Science Diet, his stools firmed up a lot but he still poops very frequently during the day. Today, he had runny stools which we're not sure about - he seems very lively and happy still and he's drinking water so we're not too fussed right now, but it's possible that the treats given out at puppy class unsettled his tummy. No idea I sympathise with the having to clean up the yard thing though. We have to do a poo pick every day otherwise things get out of control. I know we should be confining him to one spot to do his toileting but to be honest he's less likely accidentally tread in the stuff when he poops in different areas

Haha - it's quite possible He's a very inquisitive puppy! Weirdly enough, his behaviour has settled a LOT over the last few days with a LOT less biting. His high fives and hand shakes have improved a lot and he can finally and - 2 tricks we have really struggled to teach him!My worry is that he's going to be starting to teethe in earnest soon and we'll probably have to go through the biting all over again JUST as he seems to be stopping with the biting!

Hi Flux Thank you soooooooooo much for taking the time to write out such a thoughtful post. So many of the things you described were what we have been seeing in Elbie and the 'remedies' have been what we have been trying with little success.... That being said, Elbie's been HEAPS better these last few days and your words were very comforting and encouraging, particularly these: "perseverance and commitment! Lots of whinging to humans that will listen and good cups of tea, but to the pup a solid wall of determination that will match theirs! Good luck" So much of what our puppy is going through is normal and I realise that we just have to be patient and bear with it and do our best to guide him. It's just nice to have someone who has been through it before affirm this and encourage us. It's easy to feel like we've been bad puppy parents and I was a bit freaked out by the thought that we should be seeking behavioural therapy for our poor puppy when he's clearly just going through a phase Thanks again - I really do appreciate it!

Thanks for all the kind words He's actually very smart, too he's doing a high five and shake hands he's waiting for his food (im)patiently If he would quit biting us, he'd be the perfect little family member.

He is so food motivated that if he sees treats, he will immediately stop biting or whatever it is he's doing but we don't want to be inadvertently rewarding his bad behaviour by giving him treats after he has bitten us. He's still playing because his tail is wagging but we really want him to stop with the biting. We tired him out with running around the backyard and lots of short sessions of obedience training but he still has tremendous energy during the day even though he becomes angelic at night when he's sleepy. He's otherwise a pretty well-behaved puppy, all things considered. Just a little biting machine, unfortunately. For reference, his shake hands and high five are and his ability to wait patiently is . He is smart! He just won't stop biting The 'oy' is usually combined with us attempting to walk away while a puppy hangs onto us with his teeth.

Our puppy is still biting like crazy He has stopped jumping up which is great and when he's quiet/tired, he's also very well-behaved but in his hyper moods he can't stop biting. The crazy thing is that he clearly wants to be close to us - he'll play around our ankles, he'll want to be picked up but as soon as we do - he bites us. Play stops as soon as he bites but he isn't getting the message The oy doesn't work, the loud yip doesn't work. Shunning him doesn't work, leave the room immediately doesn't work, saying no doesn't work. Holding his mouth closed doesn't work, putting him outside doesn't work. He is generally very smart and has learned other things like if we tell him not to lick the bin, he backs away etc. He's learned how to do high five, shake hands, beg, sit and drop but he just won't stop biting. It's very upsetting because especially when they're this small and lovely, you want to be close to them, pat them and cuddle them and that's clearly what he wants to - but he just can't seem to stop himself nipping at us with his increasingly sharp teeth

We bought Elbie a pig's ear and he loved it. He ate about a quarter of it - by that time we'd googled that pigs' ears are very high in fat and not very healthy for puppies. ;) He wasn't very happy that we took the pigs ear away. Then for the rest of the day, we had to deal with incredible foul, eye-watering, room-clearing dog farts. So for us, even though he loved the pig's ear and it kept him occupied, we are never going to give him one again I don't think our noses could cope even if we covered his crate with the Better Marriage Blanket

At present, we have been able to teach Elbie to sit, drop and wait for his food at meal-times. He also knows how to go and sit on his training mat. The big problem is that no matter what we do, we can't get him to stay while we take a couple of steps backwards. He'll wait for his food, but as soon as we try to step away, he'll chase after us. One of us trying to hold him doesn't work and neither does a leash. Does anyone have any ideas or is an 11 week old puppy just not capable of 'staying' on command. Also, we are able to get him to return to a sit from a drop but haven't got the foggiest how to encourage him to simply 'stand'. Thanks very much in advance! Also, as to what motivates Elbie - he's motivated by food of course, but also by his favourite toys. We keep his training sessions very short - no more than 5 minute and he appears to love them.

When we first got Elbie at almost 8 weeks, he was very tiny so we got him a travel-crate like this. He absolutely loved it and would go in there to sleep, hang out or sulk. You can see how tiny he was in comparison to it here. He grew fast though and even though he loved it, we thought he'd be more comfy in a large crate. We went to Pet Barn and got him a large crate. He seemed to love the additional space at first - see here. Then we noticed that it was actually too large for him and he always hung around at the front anyway. The crate came with a divider so we put the divider in at just under half the crate and he absolutely loves it. When he grows bigger we'll increase the size of the crate. The crate was surprisingly easy to assemble. We're moving to a new house with more space soon (hopefully) and so we'll be able to use the side door of the crate which means Elbie will be able to enjoy more room without feeling like he's way way way at the back of the crate. Hope that helps. Elbie did have the option of sitting on a cushion outside but he seems to like retreating into his crate to play and sleep from time to time.

Hi wotan - our puppy is exactly the same as that. He goes to the door and waits for us but doesn't make a sound. How did you train your dog to make a sound without having a lot of messes along the way? I guess right now our default is to let him out so that we don't have a mess in the house but it really would be great if he could make some sort of sound to let us know he wants to relieve himself rather than just standing by the door. Our puppy is almost 11 weeks now and for the last week or so, has not had any messes. Thanks heaps!

Hahaha! Thank goodness! Elbie's adorable and we love him to pieces - but I can't believe how time-consuming this tiny little biting, yowling pooping machine is. I don't think we could cope with sheep Also, it is so hard to find a vaguely definitive view on how to raise a puppy/dog. One place said that we were bad and evil parents for letting our dog run unsupervised in the puppy-proofed yard at 10 weeks, others say we are evil for telling the dog 'no', other people say we are spoiling the dog, some people say the Dog Whisperer is wonderful, others say he is dangerous .... *head explodes*

This may not all be down to genes KB. Where did you get Elbie from and how old was he? We got our little mongrel puppy when he was almost eight weeks from a private home in Goulburn. He and his brothers/sisters were being given away for free so I suspect that the next step if homes weren't found was the pound He was living in a home with children, cats and other dogs - both his mother and father were there with him. We had 3 nights of puppy crying - we found out later that the seller had allowed the puppies to be taken to bed with her children We took him to a vet almost immediately and the vet says that he was well-fed and healthy and appears very intelligent. Elbie settled down very quickly to crate training and being house-trained. When we come down at night to let him out for toilet breaks, he sits there very quietly to be let out, goes out to do his business and then scampers back in. When we come home (we haven't left him alone in his crate for more than 2 hours), he will sit there quietly and wait to be let out and doesn't yowl and complain. Elbie shows no food aggression and waits with suspense but great obedience for his food - we can put our fingers in his food bowl and play with it while he eats without him being troubled. He will wait for his food - so far at least 30 seconds. He's generally very quiet - at present his only anti-social behaviour arose in the last week and a half or so when he started with the attacking of jeans and socks. To be fair to him, he has had a very traumatic week - last Tuesday, he cut his foot when running outside and had to have two stitches put in - we had puppy proofed the yard and still have no idea how he cut himself! I swear, I only took my eyes off him for a second after he ate his brekky. The vet said that to avoid having to put him under anaesthetic more than we needed to, we should have him desexed and microchipped at the same time. He was not a happy puppy that day and cried a lot until we got him home last Tuesday. It took him a day or so to settle after that but he seems to be back to normal. Tomorrow night he will attend his first puppy class with 3 other puppies so presumably they will set him straight if he is out of line. He's already very relaxed with cats and doesn't seem bothered by them at all. He's so eager to learn and play - if we could just get him to quit finding our jeans so attractive he would really be the perfect little buddy ...

Hee hee! Thank you soooo much for saying that and your reassuring words of comfort as well. You would not believe the amount of "just do this" advice on other forums we've received as if we haven't tried it. Ignoring/time-out/firm no/high pitch yowl/soulful eye-staring disapproval blah blah. Each dog is different and each dog responds a different way so that has worked for other people doesn't necessarily work for other dogs. For instance, we spray the garbage bins with the "bitter spray" bought from the pet store and Elbie stands before me and licks at the stuff while staring at me - clearly he likes the stuff he's supposed to hate The reason that the biting/growing is so upsetting for us is because Elbie's still small - we know this won't last long because he's growing fast and we'd love the chance to be able to cuddle and pet him while he's still small enough for us to do that. It's not made easy when sometimes he has fits of demonic possession. We discourage his biting/jumping, he has plenty of toys, we rotate the toys so he doesn't get bored, we play with him, we give him short obedience training lessons, we praise him when he's quiet and good, we try to use a soothing voice ... The thing that terrifies me is that technically speaking - he hasn't even started teething yet!!! Someone I know warned us off kelpie/border collies and said that someone she knew in desperation ended up buying a small flock of sheep to keep the dog entertained. That sounded hilariously extreme (and bizarre!) at the time but now we can kind of understand it

Thanks so much to everyone for their replies. Corvus and cosmolo - thanks for giving such detailed considered answers, it's much appreciated given how distressed we're feeling at our puppy's Jeklyll and Hyde behaviour. We're still quite baffled about how he goes from this: This and this to being an absolute little monster who's growling and biting. I should confess that Elbie is actually the 'nice' version of L.B. which stands for Little Bastard because he's Elbie when he's well-behaved and a L.B. when he's badly behaved Clearly his prey drive is very strong and we are trying to deflect him with his kong (which he loves) and his toys. It's just that sometimes his personality suddenly transforms and he starts snarling and gripping onto our jeans/socks and nothing seems to be able to distract him - he can be very single-minded. I notice that it's related to play so generally he won't attack if I'm in the kitchen cooking or ignoring him - it's only if I've been playing with him at all. He is very well behaved during our very short sessions of obedience training - and his sit and drop are improving and he's learning how to go to his mat and sit/drop etc. We just need to redirect him when he goes into monster mode ... or when his prey drive kicks in He'll have his booster shots on Friday so it will be safer to take him 'out' after that - the vet recommended keeping him secluded until he was fully protected. Thanks again to everyone.

Ooops You're right. He's almost 11 weeks!

Thanks for all the replies and suggestions. Much more helpful than having people telling us to do exactly what we've been doing without any success 1. The way we run him around the yard is to toss his chew toys ( he has a cloth rope chew toy and a frisbee) - he chases after them and brings them back NEAR us. He hasn't mastered fetch yet so we generally have to wait until he accidentally drops the toy - we refuse to play tug of war with him because we think that's just encouraging him to be aggressive. He can keep himself occupied for ages just chewing on his chew toys and chasing around after them. 2. We put aside a portion from each of his meals to serve as 'motivation' treats and we have short 'training' lessons with him in which he practises sitting/dropping/sitting on a mat etc. He is doing very well and appears to enjoy these a lot and is even doing the commands when there is no food for motivation. 3. The cutesy voice is hard to get rid of because he is incredibly cute but we are trying to get rid of it. We do praise him for sitting there and being good - the problem is, sometimes just praising him and calling him a good dog is enough to make him excited and lose his cool. 4. When we have time outs and leave the room, he whimpers so it seems that he knows that he's done something wrong - but when he gets excited, he just starts his biting and growling all over again. So far he does not like his lead at all and just chews on it as though it's another toy. We don't like to put him on it much because he just tugs on it unless we have treats to bribe him

He has some chew toys that he loves but for some reason they only distract him momentarily and then his returns to chewing his favourite thing - us We even put away a lot of his toys and 'rotate' them so that they remain novel and he doesn't get bored of them. When he's in 'calm' mode, he's fine and just licks and gums at us, it's trying to get him out of the turbo mode that we're really having difficulties with.

We have a new puppy named Elbie. He's 3/4 kelpie and 1/4 border collie. You can see photos of him here. We think that he's absolutely adorable. He's very clever. At almost 11 weeks, he can sit, drop, wait for his food (see ). He's now toilet-trained and goes to the toilet on command and sleeps very peacefully at night in his crate.He will start puppy classes on Tuesday and formal obedience classes in June. The problem we are having with him right now is that although we do our best to run him around the yard and tire him out, when he goes into turbo mode, he becomes very jumpy (jumps up on us), growley and bitey - he bites our jeans, socks and toes. We have tried everything: 1. We yelp 'ouch' or yip/help in a high pitched voice 2. We try saying: "no" in a firm voice 3. We try ignoring him (not easy when he's biting, growling and hanging onto our leg) 4. We stomp our foot on the ground 5. We hold his muzzle 6. We try leaving the room and 'shunning him' - again, not an easy task when you have a growling puppy dog dangling from your jeans We know that it's normal for puppies of this age to be bitey and his tail is wagging when he's growling/biting/barking but it's still very unsatisfactory behaviour. This is him biting on our jeans: This is him when he's well-behaved It's starting to get frustrating because everyone is giving us advice under one of the above 6 categories just because it worked for them, but it really isn't working for Elbie. Ignoring really doesn't work when you have a dog jumping all over you and biting.

Elbie's our new puppy. He is 3/4 kelpie and 1/4 border collie. This is him in his original crate used for toilet training This is him in his new crate Elbie sleeping Elbie waiting for food Elbie with rawhide bone Elbie on his cushion Elbie in the yard Resting on the deck He's now almost 11 weeks and has wonky ears - they can't decide if they're going to stay down or stand up He starts puppy classes next week and obedience classes in June.