deltoid

We have a 9wk old Silky puppy. We created a playpen for him in a corner of our dining room. We bought some cheap lino from bunnings ($12/m) and some steel fencing. We then zip tied the fencing together. Works great. If puppy has an accident we just wipe it off the lino (we have wood floors but didn't want anything getting in the cracks). The main thing is to get your puppy comfortable in the pen and happy to be in there. If he cries while he is in there ignore him. Feed him in there, give him some treats in there, make him think it is a great place to be. Lock him in the pen for different lengths of time both when you are at home and when you have to go out (start with short times and lengthen). Our little guy has settled into his pen really well. 99% of the time he doesn't cry when we put him in there and is calm 99% of the time when we let him out. Both my wife and I were gone for 9 hours one day last week for work. Being the first day we were going to leave him on his own I setup a webcam so I could watch him from work. He slept the first 6 hours (I was really surprised how long he slept considering he'd just slept all night already). Then he played for a couple of hours. Then fretting/trying to get out for 30 minutes. Then spent the remaining time between sleeping and playing. He did renovate his pen though moving his bed around and all his toys.

Yeah, we will be careful with him and make sure he only has a couple of kids at a time with him. We don't want to accidentally make cause him to have a fear of children.

We have a 9wk old Silky Terrier and want to get him started in puppy pre-school. Can anybody recommend a good on on the northside of Brisbane (we live near Nundah). I've found one or two but without seeing any reviews it is hard to tell if they are any good.

Well, we've had little Thor a week now and I'm very proud of the little guy. For such a small puppy he has been very well behaved. For the past couple of days when in his pen he has flawlessly used his puppy pad. So we decided to try not waking up for him over night. The past two nights we've done this and we haven't heard a peep from him all night. The first night he used his puppy pad and last night he just held it! We put him in his pen at 10:30 and I took him out at 6am to pee. The little guy has been crying the last half an hour though. I think he has gotten into the habit of me waking at 6am and thinking it is play time (as I take him out straight away on week days so I can have time to play before work. We will just ignore him until he settles down) We invited a couple of kids over yesterday to play with him and he was great with them. We then had a BBQ to socialise him with some adults which he also handled really well. Next weekend we are taking him to a kids birthday party which will have 20+ kids 7yrs and under so hopefully that will help with his kid socialisation. So all in all, it has been a tough week at times ignoring his crying even though it was upsetting it has been paying off. Thank you so much for all your advice and support!! I very much appreciate it.

so just leaving the tap on and ignoring him isn't the right course? His toilet training is still ongoing. He makes mistakes but he tries to tell us that he needs to go sometimes. When he is locked in his pen he uses his puppy mat flawlessly. He has full access to his pen when he is out of it but he doesn't use it.

Thor is going well, he is a cute little guy. One weird thing which I'm not sure how to handle. He has started barking at me when I wash my hands in the bathroom. I ignore him when I do this (should I rouse on him?). What is also weird is a couple of times when I wash my hands in the bathroom he barks at me and then goes to the toilet on the floor (poo or wee, he has done both). I assume he is getting excited and loosing control of his bladder. How do I get him used to me washing my hands?

sorry, wrong thread

His toilet training seems to be coming along, most times I can take him out and say "go wee" and he will go. He seems to be making a habit of pooing right near our back steps so I'm working on breaking that out of him. Last night he barely cried at all. It was bliss. He'd cry for about a minute each time we put him back in his pen but that was it. I've got a couple of problems at the moment I'm trying to work out the best approach for. 1) Chewing, he loves to chew things, I've taken most things out of his reach now but he seems to like chewing our shorts when we sit on the ground. When he does this I say no and move him away and give him a chew toy. I've read that feeding them their daily meals through a Kong can help promote the correct chewing (eg. on their toys). I've started doing this today. On the plus side, at least he is actually eating his food now. 2) Humping. Just yesterday he has started humping a stuffed monkey we gave him. It is a little bit smaller than him and he likes to wrestle/chew/tear it apart. But now he has started humping it as well. I thought he was a little young for that. I've never owned a male dog before. Is this something that will stop when he is desexed (at around 6 months, which is 4 months away). Is there something I can do to discourage the behaviour? 3) Eating. We were told to feed him 3 meals a day but he doesn't seem to want to eat them. He will graise on his food eating it now and then, he likes to pick up the pieces and walk off with them and eat them somewhere else then go back to his bowl. This morning in an attempt to get him to chew on his toys more rather than our stuff I packed his kong full of his breakfast. He has been eating it quite well from the kong. I think the fun of playing with it combined with the pay off of food falling out does it for him. He doesn't have to chew though as the dry biscuits just fall out when he rolls it so not sure if it will actually help him with his chewing. On another note, I stuffed his kong full of natural peanut butter, liver treats and dry biscuits yesterday and he didn't touch it. I suspect he didn't like the peanut butter as I know he liked everything else that was in there. I've tried him with Kraft's peanut butter and he loved that. Is there a problem giving them something like Kraft's peanut butter over an all natural one?

Yeah, that is what I was worried about, even though I'm not playing with him he is still getting attention. I think the little bugger has started fake peeing as well. He gets into position and acts like he is going but I'm pretty sure he hasn't. So I've started checking afterwards to see if he actually went before giving him praise.

Say you take the pup out to the toilet and then you put him down to sleep again, he cries for awhile then settles down. Then about 40min after you put him down he starts to cry again. Does that mean he needs the toilet or he wants attention. He did it last night. We just took him out to the toilet and didn't make a fuss about it (i don't want him thinking that crying = attention) but I don't mind if he cries when he needs to go. I've also read that using a crate can help them feel safe and that you close the door on it when they go to sleep. Is that something I should try (i was thinking of getting a travel carrier for the car anyway so I could use that and close the door at night). At the moment he sleeps in an open top box with some towels and a tshirt of mine which I haven't washed. He has full access to his little enclosure (about 1.2m x 1.2m if he needs to go to the toilet or wants to play) EDIT: Another photo. This time of him asleep in his pen.

Thanks, that is what I thought. The little guy has started wanting to chew everything today. He especially likes my thongs. He has picked up really quickly on a "give" command or at least it confuses him enough that he drops whatever he is chewing. But he just goes straight back to chewing it again. I've tried distracting him with other toys, removing him from the shoes. I've moved the shoes to where he can't get them but that doesn't stop him from trying it in the future. Any ideas? We have a couple of chew toys for him to gnaw on for his teething, etc.

Thanks, I'll look into that. What sort of things should you do when your puppy is scared of something? Earlier I went to take him out to wee while the neighbour was mowing his lawn (the mower was near where he does his business). The little guy just kind of sat behind my legs. I just ignored him and then after a few minutes took him back to the house as he wasn't going to go. Is that what I was supposed to do?

Well we discussed it while playing with the little guy and we think Thor still suits. So we are going to stick with it I think. I have no idea how these forums work but hopefully this picture attachment will work.

Thanks everyone, I will check out those books when I'm at the computer next (on my phone with the little guy asleep at my feet). Eventually we'd probably get him to sleep outside, however given how young he is I figured we'd start with that when we start letting him have yard access unattended. I've moved his pen to another less used room today so we can leave it setup all the time. I put his bed and some treats in there and he has done really well so far. I went out for 10 minutes and when I came back he was sleeping in his bed. I went out again for around 40min this time and when I came home he was half asleep and had gone to the toilet on the puppy mat which is great. The only time he has cried in his pen today is when I put him in and took a shower. He only cried for about a minute though. We have also been taking him outside every hour or whenever he looks like he wants to go. Only 1 accident so far today (using the puppy mat I don't count as an accident as there wasn't much he could do about it). I'm feeling a lot more settled this afternoon. I've been getting paranoid that I'm going to raise him wrong and make him develop bad habits. But yeah, things are going great. Only issue at the moment is that we think the name. We always said we'd name our dog Thor if we got a boy. But it doesn't fit his personality so he might have a name change coming today. He doesn't respond to Thor at all yet so I don't think he'd mind

We were originally planning on taking a couple of weeks off work and get the pup then but I was told/read that it isn't a good idea as the puppy gets into a routine of you being home all the time then you go back to work and they fret more. So they said it was better to get straight into your routine and leave them a few toys to play with. As mentioned though my wife is only working 2 days a week for the next fortnight and possibly longer so she will be home a bit over the next couple of weeks. She will be trying to not be home all the time though so he doesn't get too used to her being home all day.

After talking about it for a long time and having a trial run babysitting a family member's dog while they were on holidays for a couple of weeks my wife and I picked up a new addition to the family yesterday. We got a little male Silky Terrier pup (8 weeks) which we have named Thor. Both my wife and I have grown up in homes with dogs but it has been a long time since we had to deal with a puppy (and previously it would have been our parents doing the caring for the puppies). So I thought I'd start a thread where I can ask for some tips. I've been reading a lot of material in the past few months on the topic however a lot of it can be conflicting. I guess my initial questions would be regarding: Sleeptime: We have built a little pen for Thor in our bathroom. Bedtime last night we put him in the pen where we have a box containing some soft towels and an old dirty t-shirt of mine so it has our scent. I put in a soft toy that he likes and also put a kong in the enclosure. I also put down one of those puppy mats incase he couldn't hold it. We put him in the pen without making a fuss and closed the bathroom door. We then put on some music at a low volume as I read that could help. He cried/yelped for about 45min. I then got up and took him to the toilet. I then put him in the pen again and he cried for about 30min and then went quiet. I left him for 2 hours and then took him for another wee break, I gave him lots of praise for going outside and put him back in the pen. He cried for about 15min then went quiet. 2 hours later I took him out again. Again I gave him praise for holding it and going where he was meant to. This time he cried for about 45min (not sure why he cried longer this time. Could be because there was starting to be light out?) I plan to leave him for 2 hours again and take him to the toilet again. Question 1. Did I do the right thing? Obviously I want the little guy to settle in to going down without crying as soon as possible and want to make sure my methods aren't causing more harm than good. I plan tonight to leave him for 3hr stints rather than 2hr (if he has accidents I will go back to 2hr). Question 2: during the day we are still trying to learn when the little guy needs to go. We were expecting to see clearer signs but we'd be watching him and then all of a sudden he'd go on the floor. Today we will try taking him outside once an hour and see if that helps him. How do we teach him to make indications when he needs to go (eg. Heading to a particular door of the house / getting our attention?). On this note, our house is raised. So we carry him down the stairs, does this have any effect on him making the link between going outside and peeing? I try and make him walk to the door before I pick him up. Question 3: Eventually Thor will spend his days outside while we are at work and come in with us at night time. But while he is little we plan to keep him in his pen inside while we are at work. Obviously he won't be able to hold his bladder for 9 hours at this stage. Is putting down a puppy mat/newspaper going to affect his house training? (i plan to line the floor of the pen with newspaper and a single puppy mat and then once he decides where he wants to go I will slowly start removing newspaper until just the puppy mat is left) Question 4: My wife isn't working full time for the next couple of weeks as her work was flooded in the floods up here last week. So she will only be at work 2 days a week for a bit. We are not sure how to get him used to us coming and going though with her home so much at the moment. I was thinking we will start by giving him some treats in his pen and then us remain in the house and him in his pen and just ignore him until he has stopped crying for awhile. Then us do the same and leave and then come straight back in, wait for him to stop crying for a bit and let him out. Then do the same but leave for a minute, then 5 mins, then 15min, etc. Question 5: Feeding, we've been told to feed him 3 times a day. He seems to be a bit of a graizer, we put the food out and he will eat some, but not all of it. Then come back 10 minutes later to have another little snack. Should we be removing his food after x number of minutes? Should we only feed him in his pen so he associates the pen with good things? Is this the right way to handle that situation? All in all he is a cute little guy, he enjoys smuggling up to our feet but at the same time will spend long amounts of times playing with his toys even when we are around. So hopefully he will do fine. I'm just trying to sort out the best way to handle this initial settling in phase as to not upset him too much. Sorry if there are any typos, I typed this on my phone