New puppy!

Hi there,

Just made a quick post in the new members section but thought I'd introduce our puppy here. His name is Harley and he's a blue/white male (actually he has a slight champagne/light brown speck on his forehead! cute). He came home to Leeds with us on New Year's Day and he's been amazing! We've been using a crate and the first night in there he cried horrifically, but after that only crying around 6am - and going in there himself when he wants to sleep. He's been a bit hit and miss with his training pads but is getting there.

I have a couple of questions though - he doesn't touch his water bowl! We encourage him by splashing with our fingers and letting him lick but he doesn't show any interest. We're currently feeding him on a wet diet but are about to try and switch to dry to see if that gets him interested in drinking. Any other thoughts on this?

He's also super super bitey, but we're being persistent with distracting him with toys and praise and as it's early days have faith in him haha.

He's due for his first vaccinations on Wednesday and can't wait for him to be fully vaccinated so we can get him out and about. Here's the man himself:




Ps. he has just been humping his bed - is this normal for an almost 8 week old pup?!

It is normal that he wont be interested in either his food or water to be honest, my puppy was the same, I reckon it was because his bowl was quite shiny and he was a little "scared" of the bowl, but in time and when he is really thirsty he will end up going to his bowl for some water so don't worry to much.

All normal puppy behaviour, you are doing right in the distraction of the biting, he should drink when he wants too obviously if he isnt drinking hardly anything and its ongoing. Just pop him to vets. If your worried try giving him an ice cube that way he will get some fluid

He's a nice boy, looks like he's going to be a chunky one. Bo's on wet food and unless he's been madly playing with another dog he barely drinks anything - two seconds of lapping in the morning, maybe, and that's it. He hasn't drunk anything today so far. Check with the vet but it sounds normal. He'll drink more when the weather warms up.

If he's on wet he will be fine without drinking too much. My Flo only drinks rarely but will lap a lot up if she is hot etc.

Great pics

great pictures

Love his pics hes sooo cute, our Ruby is 13 weeks we got her at 8 weeks too, the biting was the same... replacing our hands with toys, firm NOs and praise.. it will eventually stop, will seem like your saying it over and over and over, Even a yelp from you will help, he will think hes hurting you and its just like he plays with his littermates.We have Ruby on dry premium food, we did try wet but she seemed to find it harder to poo out. so we switched back

Thanks a lot for your replies! Made us feel like we're on the right track with him, we're both learning as well with it being our first ever pup haha. It's when he gets super excited he'll start going crazy with the biting but he does seem to be responding to us saying no and we've tried yelping! So I know we just need to keep at it til he gets it haha.

Did some more water encouraging tonight and he actually lapped some up himself! (Only a tiny bit, but it was good to see). We mixed in some of the new dry food (Burns Puppy) with his wet stuff too tonight which he seemed to enjoy crunching on.

Great pics and you're doing the right thing as far as the nipping is concerned.
If you look on the tin ingredients it will have about 70% moisture in there. That's where he's getting his water from.
Pete

Thank you!

Ps. here's another of him from this evening;

Pete is spot on with the wet. If he's still thirsty he will drink

He had his first vaccinations today and he didn't even bat an eyelid haha! Too interested in the treat he was given.

His wet food contains a lot of water anyway, he will drink when he gets thirsty try not to worry too much. You are on the right track with the biting issue by replacing with a toy. A useful link below too:

http://staffy-bull-terrier.com/stop_your_staffy_puppy_biting

Awwww super cute!!