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Forum THE LOUNGE Puppies!

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    • MoxieMeadows
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        Welp, we have 2 new additions to the family, 2 mixed breed puppies named Tillikum (Tilly) and Paris. The person we got them from said they were Husky/German Shepherds but they look more like shepherd/rottweiler. I see no husky in them. They needed an emergency bath when they got home because they smelled SO BAD like urine and feces and felt grubby. It was gross. But anyways, sorry for the bad pics but puppies don’t stay still for long!  (BTW they are about 12 weeks old.)


      • JackRabbit
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          Moxie they’re adorable! We had a dog that was a shepherd/husky mix and she was the sweetest thing. Ours looked more husky than shepherd as far a coloring and the tail but still had the shepherd look in her face. Her brother (same litter) looked just like your pups. Our female was named Walter and her brother was named Clarabelle (pups were born at a frat house during a party).

          Congrats!


        • MoxieMeadows
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            Thanks JR. We are assuming they are actually rottweiler/shepherd mixes because 1) They have rottie markings, 2) HUGE feet, 3) Short muzzles, 4) The lady said they would be 90 pounds, and huskies are only like 40-50 pounds and german shepherd wouldn’t get over 70.
            I’m thinking the lady didn’t tell us the real breed because they really needed to be gone. But who knows?


          • Hazel
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              Moxie, they are adorable! I agree, they don’t look like part Husky to me either. Also, at 12 weeks old, their ears would usually be up if they were GSD/Husky, since both breeds have uppity ears.


            • MoxieMeadows
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                Hazel— Only one of the puppies has 1 uppity ear and their legs are VERY thick. Tilly’s ankle is almost as thick as our full grown husky’s ankle. So I definitely think they have a larger breed in them. 

                Here are some better pics:


              • MoxieMeadows
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                  I am wearing tights in the above pic. I do not have some sort of foot disease. Tilly is the one in the blue collar/leash and Paris is the one in the pink collar/leash.

                  Paris was playing with my hand. She’s very playful. 


                • BubblesJo
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                    PUPPIES!!! *Squee* They’re SO cute One of my committee members has a Rottweiler/German Shepherd mix that looks just like those two. He’s such a goofy doggy too!


                  • LittlePuffyTail
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                      Aww…..they’re so cute!


                    • LBJ10
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                        PUPPIES!!!


                      • Megabunny
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                          How cute! Makes me tired just looking at them. 90 pounds?? Yikes!! Enjoy! Your house just got a lot more busy ha ha


                        • Little Lion Head
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                            Awwww I want one I want one!!!!


                          • Sr. Melangell
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                              They make good family guard dogs Alsatians (German Sheppard) very loving protective too


                            • Bam
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                                How extremely cute! They look like GSD puppies. I get all nostalgic! The ears can take a long time to stand up in GSDs, my dog didn’t have both ears up until she was over 7 months old.

                                PS I love your comment about the foot disease =)


                              • MoxieMeadows
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                                  Okay here is a quick update on the puppies in case anybody is wondering.

                                  Tilly and Paris have been successfully introduced to 1 cat and 1 dog (not including my brother’s dog who is currently living with us for now and he gets along with them fine even though he’s an old fart and will give them a warning growl and walk away if they bother him) The other dog (our husky named Zero) is OK with them if you are sitting there, but he still doesn’t like them very much so we are still working with them. The other cat doesn’t like them at all and will growl at them. But she is always the last one to accept a new person/animal so we were expecting that with her. It will just take time.

                                  I would guess they are about 15 pounds. (My reasoning is that Moxie is about 9 pounds and they are at least 6 pounds more then her, maybe double her weight) But our scale broke and we haven’t gotten around to getting more batteries lol. Paris’ other ear is starting to stand up. Tilly’s ears might stand up, because they are the shape of ears that would stand up even though they are still flopped right now. They probably are german shepherd/Husky, but are mostly german shepherd. Tilly has a little white on her paws and looks more like a “mix” then Paris.

                                  I like German Shepherds though. For those of you who remember, my male dog Sky who passed away last September was a German Shepherd/ Golden Retriever cross. So I am not completely hopeless on the breed. (and we do have a pure bred Husky)

                                  But I really forgot how much work puppies are. These are not potty trained, and you litterally have NO warning when they have to go to the bathroom. You just need to take them out ALL the time. And Paris, she whimpers when she’s in her kennel and she whimpers when you hold her. So yeah. And they play fight, to a point where they get in trouble because one will latch on the other’s ear or something. But we are working with them. And they have already learned to sit and lay down.
                                  So there’s your quick update!


                                • Little Lion Head
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                                    I just love that your dad rescued these two without even thinking twice. Sounds like a great guy!! So happy they are with your family Moxie!


                                  • JackRabbit
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                                      I can remember how much of a handful Mysti was as a pup — but two?!?! That’s like having two energetic toddlers! LOL!


                                    • HappyHollandDays
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                                        Oh yes the puppy stage. My dog is five now, but he acts like he is 8 weeks old still. Enjoy it though, I miss that stage of his life. Those two are adorable by the way!!


                                      • the4bunnies
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                                          Omg they are adorable!!!!! I might be getting a dog this sumer 


                                        • MoxieMeadows
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                                            Does anybody know anything about pups being separated early from their mother? Somebody told me that if they are separated before 8 weeks (the lady we got them from got them at 6 weeks) their mother hasn’t taught them the boundaries of playing/play-fighting. And these pups really go for each other when the wrestle!


                                          • MissGabbster
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                                              Awwww ♥ Look at these sweet babies.

                                              I would think that having each other as playmates would help teach them the “rules” of playing. They’d be able to let each other know when they didn’t like something.

                                              Nice nails!


                                            • HappyHollandDays
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                                                There is a lot of debate in the puppiverse what age a puppy can be separated from their mother. 6 weeks is the minimum, but it won’t harm their behavior. 8 weeks is recommended, but some breeders let them go at 6. Since they have each other, they’ll figure out boundaries eventually. If they get to rowdy you can “brace” them. This is a calming maneuver done by mother dogs use on their puppies. You stand over them and put a leg on either side of them just behind the shoulder. Squeeze enough that they don’t wiggle away, but not enough to restrict their breathing. I still use this on my 5 year old dog. It really helps. If they don’t do something you want them to do and you’re right there, you can do a muzzle grad. It’s something mother wolves do, but is effective with domestic dogs too. Just grab their muzzle and stare at them in the eye until they look away. It asserts dominance. …I’ve done a lot of research on puppy behavior haha if you have any questions about dogs, I’m your girl!


                                              • Bam
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                                                  8 weeks is considered ideal, here it’s illegal to sell younger pups than that. In Finland, 7 weeks is ok.

                                                  It is true that puppies need to learn boundaries and social behavior from their mother, so without a mother present, you’ll have to teach them. If a dog mama doesn’t like the way her pups are playing/fighting, she will intervene. Do you have any friends with a nice adult dog you could let the pups meet? They need to learn “dog-speak” from an adult dog, it will help them develop good dog “language skills”.


                                                • The Law Bun
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                                                    Love the puppies!


                                                  • MoxieMeadows
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                                                      Bam—- I believe it is illegal to sell them before 8 weeks here too, but am not sure. People still do it a lot though, and it doesn’t seem to be pursued legally unless they find other things they are doing wrong. :/

                                                      Thanks for the input everybody, I really appreciate it! Now here is my next question, and this one is slightly more serious:
                                                      Toy aggression/possessiveness, how to stop it? For nearly 4 years my dog (mini dachshund) has been our only dog interested in toys other than a tennis ball or bone. So she’s been really the only one to “have” toys. (even though the others are provided some, although they generally ignore them).
                                                      Now there are 2 new bundles of energy that LOVE toys. Well, at first my mini dachshund (Snickers) didn’t want to share any of her toys. Well that’s completely understandable because they always have been HER toys. So off we went to the store to buy some different toys (that didn’t look like Snickers’ toys) for the puppies. We bought some balls, dental chew rope toy thing-a-ma-bobs and some rope toys. Well Snickers has decided ALL they toys should be just hers. She will OPEN the doors to the puppies cage and take their toys away, or pull them through the bars. And if the puppies have their toys out and are playing with them she wants them, or if they try to take one from her she growls at them. (we haven’t waited to see if she would bite them, even though she is half their size, they are puppies and she could hurt them). So what should we do? The puppies want to play tug-o-war with Snickers ect. but she is taking it as a threat and isn’t being very peachy lets just say. I’m going to try and buying some more of those toys tonight and see if that works. I don’t know what else to do besides covering my floor in hundreds of toys lol? I really want them to all be able to play nicely together.
                                                      Any advice on what to do? Thanks.


                                                    • Hazel
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                                                        I look at it this way: As the human, you’re the top dog. In other words, ALL the toys are YOURS, and you simply allow others to play with them out of the goodness of your heart. Keeping that in mind, you have to decide for yourself with how much you want to let them get away with. If it was me, I would let them hash it out on their own, as long as they can play nice-ish. For example, if the pups are trying to play with Snickers, she growls at them and they leave her alone, that’s fine. If they keep bugging her, I would make them back off to let them know they’re out of line. In turn, if Snickers actually goes out of her way to cause trouble, as in opening their pen door and taking their toys, I would not allow that, either.

                                                        Let them know that access to the toys is a privilege, not just the puppies but the adults as well.

                                                        I’m surprised that your Husky doesn’t like them much. I would have thought he would be happy to have a couple of big puppies to play with.  


                                                      • Elliriyanna
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                                                          I highly recommend Victoria Stilwell’s training methods. She use to have a show its me or the dog, I would look up how she worked with different dogs on their possessiveness


                                                        • MoxieMeadows
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                                                            They are getting a little better with sharing their toys now, but I can still see some possessiveness over Snickers’ favorite toy hedgehog named squeaky.


                                                          • Lee
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                                                              MM – Professional dog trainer here – It is obviously really hard to sometimes answer questions over the net but I will do my best if you have any issues to help you out.

                                                              BTW they are just stunning! I can kind of see some Husky in there.

                                                              My first and biggest advice to you though is forget about dominance! It has long been proven that dogs do not live in ‘packs’ nor do they fight for social dominance. They do have social structure but that is determined by the situation, the dogs present and the resource available at the time. Dominance is not a personality trait, it is rarely the cause of issues between dogs, it is certainly nothing to do with you (dogs do not see us as the same species they are much smarter than that). And in the end you are a natural leader because you control all the resources (food, toys, walk, play time, sleeping spaces etc).
                                                              The best way of describing this is my clients: I am only 27 but many much older people (into their 60’s) defer to me because of my experience with dogs, does that make me dominant? No it is just how social heirachies work. If I was to go and then visit that 60 year old at their place of work (lets say they are a mechanic) I would defer to them and the same would go for visiting peoples houses etc.
                                                              https://positively.com/dog-training/myths-truths/pack-theory-debunked/

                                                              Definitely DO NOT let dogs work it out themselves. It is one thing to allow Snickers or the other dogs to tell one or the other to back off if they are being inappropriate, it is entirely different to let them bully each other etc. This is how fights start and it is not recommended. You need to teach them that if they are being inappropriate and one of the other dogs tells them to back off, and they don’t, you will step in. Ie: there are consequences.

                                                              6 weeks IS to young to leave the mother and litter. Research has shown that leaving the litter prior to 7/8 weeks has lasting neurological effects (at this age dogs are developing neural pathways that cannot be changed later), for some dogs this will be minor and have no negative effects, for other dogs it leads to anxiety, fear and aggression issues especially with other dogs. Unfortunately it is still all to common for backyard breeders to flog off dogs at 5 – 6 weeks because it is becoming to hard and costly to care for them.
                                                              The answer is to socialise socialise socialise and not just to dogs but to everything.

                                                              Also it is generally not recommend by professionals to have 2 dogs of the same age raised together, unfortunately they tend to form attachments to each other that are much stronger than the attachments they form to us, this isn’t only an issue when we want them to focus on us but it also leads to issues such as seperation anxiety, fear/anxiety around strangers and unknown dogs and sometimes it can lead to intra-household aggression (ie: fighting between the two dogs) because you usually end up with one confident dog and one who relies too heavily on the confident dog which causes conflict.
                                                              The best thing to do is to ensure you raise them as separately as possible, ie: different sleeping spaces, take them on separate walks, train them separately. You don’t have to separate them all the time but time apart is essential to them so they grow up not *needing* each other.

                                                              Sorry I feel like a total kill joy! Anyways, ask away if you have questions.

                                                              Here are some links to my favourite websites, blogs etc

                                                              http://www.ultimatepuppy.com/

                                                              https://www.youtube.com/user/TheUrbanPuppy/videos

                                                              https://www.youtube.com/user/kikopup/videos

                                                              http://www.dogstardaily.com/

                                                              https://mrsbehaviour.wordpress.com/

                                                              http://eileenanddogs.com/

                                                              http://www.patriciamcconnell.com/theotherendoftheleash/

                                                              http://suzanneclothier.com/blog

                                                              https://positively.com/


                                                            • MoxieMeadows
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                                                                Lee—
                                                                Yeah I already knew about the 2 puppy thing. It really couldn’t be avoided though because they were rescues and they were being mistreated so we didn’t want to leave 1 behind who would be released onto the streets. And we couldn’t help that they were taken away early because we didn’t get them until they were 10-12 weeks old. Here’s what we’ve been doing about keeping them separate:

                                                                *Sleeping in different kennels (although the kennels are only a couple feet away)
                                                                *Eating in their kennels (minor food aggression)
                                                                *Walking them alone and taking them to the bathroom alone.
                                                                *Training them alone (they can sit and lay down currently)
                                                                *Playtime alone (and a playtime together)

                                                                Does that sound about right?

                                                                Now I have a question about food aggression. Since they were being mistreated at their previous “home” they were not being fed really at all. When we got them the lady told us she would have given their food to us also but she had none. This has been causing the puppies to be a little nervous about food. If one of the other dogs (or the other puppy) goes near their food they get aggressive. Although they haven’t shown any aggression to humans taking away food. That is partially why they have been being fed in their kennels. I personally like the idea of feeding them in their kennels anyway because it teaches them kennels aren’t all bad, but I’d rather there be no food aggression. I’m slightly worried there isn’t a way to make this go away. Any tips or advice?

                                                                And thanks, they are cute little monsters.


                                                              • Lee
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                                                                  Oh good! Most people do not know about it at all and think that 2 puppies together is great because they keep each other company etc.
                                                                  I totally understand why you went ahead and bought both of them home! And I did see that you guys weren’t the original owners, I make a point of never blaming people for bringing their pups home too early, it isn’t their fault that someone else was lazy and/or negligent and you can’t really help that someone wants them gone now or else.

                                                                  Those are really great steps for keeping them separate, perfect. The only other thing I would suggest is if they are currently spending all day together, trying to have days where they do not have the entire day together.

                                                                  It is very common for dogs to develop food guarding because of neglect. You may find that it wears off with time as they get used to getting regular food. But I wouldn’t count on that, because Shepherds are guarding breeds (as are Rottie’s if there is some in there) and Husky’s are known to be common resource guarders as well.

                                                                  It is great they have no issues with people, that is usually the first concern, guarding from humans is very dangerous. If I were you I would still be doing ‘prevention’ exercises just in case. So for instance when they are eating, just walk past their kennel and drop an extra yummy morsel (something different to what they are eating like a leftover bit of steak for instance) into each of their bowls so they start to equate humans near their food/bowl with great things happening.

                                                                  Food guarding from other dogs is definitely the harder type of guarding to fix because you can’t get your other dogs to participate the way you can get other people to participate. In most cases people opt to manage the dogs when they have one who guards by doing things like you are going – kenneling them for meals etc as it isn’t too big of a deal if you are always feeding them separately (and even if you were to work on their guarding I would still always recommend caution and separate feeding).

                                                                  If you really want to work on it, it will take time and patience.
                                                                  I can PM you a protocol designed to work on resource guarding between dogs that I wrote up for a client if you wish? I have to stress this was specifically written for this client and their situation, I have just double checked it and it is generic enough to work for your dogs. But you will need to do it with each dog who guards separately….
                                                                  Also this book is an excellent resource on guarding issues in dogs: http://www.dogwise.com/itemdetails.cfm?ID=dtb740


                                                                • MoxieMeadows
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                                                                    Lee— Yes that would be awesome. (although members have been having lots of PM issues) I really want to nip this food aggression in the bud before they get grown and big and I can’t do anything about it. 1 of the puppies (Tilly) would literally eat until she couldn’t eat anymore, but still guard the food from other dogs. :/ And she eats so quickly and with so much “power” (I can’t think of a different word to use. It’s like she’s angry at the food). And we don’t under feed them at all. We read online to feed them 3-4 cups a day of food. Well at five this morning they were fed about 1-2 cups (I wasn’t the one who fed them then and the person didn’t measure it), then when I fed them around 9 am I fed them 2 cups. Then Tilly snuck out and ran into the kitchen before I could get in there and scarfed down over another cup of food less then like 2 minutes after I had just fed her! She looked like a balloon and then started sniffing at the food bag! I want to get one of those bowls with grooves in it to slow down the eating.

                                                                    But I guess my only “question” would be is this normal? Paris doesn’t act like she is starving and eats her food like a regular dog would (calmly and “normal” paced). And I KNOW Tilly eats because I personally feed them in their kennels and usually watch them eat their food, kinda just to supervise. (although with how Tilly eats I don’t want her to choke herself).


                                                                  • Lee
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                                                                      Hmm I have met dogs that eat like that. It isn’t necessarily normal per say but can be common. Dogs like us need the appropriate caloric content for the metabolism and activity levels, so sometimes feeding the recommended amount doesn’t work out well for the dog. But there could be a variety of reasons Tilly is feeling so hungry.

                                                                      1) What food are you feeding? Some lower quality foods don’t have good nutritional content so she may not be getting what she needs from it (and yes what she needs could be quite different to what Paris needs). – this is a good website to check how ‘good’ the food you are feeding really is http://www.dogfoodanalysis.com/ – it is surprising how many of the ‘good’ or ‘vet’ quality foods are no good for our dogs.
                                                                      2) She is having issues absorbing all the nutrients from the food, this could be caused by an intolerance to something in the food (too many grains are normally bad, as it corn (maize) try to avoid corn and high grain contents in dog food)..
                                                                      3) She just has a faster metabolism to Paris.
                                                                      4) She just values food higher than Paris does and is therefore more prone to gulping it and guarding it. This may lessen over the coming months as she ages, it might also lessen when you have her spayed.

                                                                      What you could try doing is adding a cup of steamed sweet potato to her daily food and see if this helps her feel more full. Sweet potato (steamed not raw) is a good way of adding calories to a dogs diet without too much extra protein.

                                                                      I would definitely look into getting some of the slow go bowls, or other food toys like kong wobblers etc to slow her down when eating. Obviously make sure she is separate from the other dogs when using these.


                                                                    • Lee
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                                                                        Oops also rather than PM I can email?


                                                                      • Bam
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                                                                          Lee, I find that PMing works best with Mozilla Firefox. Chrome and Explorer currently won’t work for me.

                                                                          I also want to say that I think your advice is great, I really enjoy reading it even if I don’t have a puppy now, just a fully grown dog. You seem very qualified and knowledgeable. I’m in awe =)


                                                                        • Lee
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                                                                            Thanks Bam I will see if it works from Mozilla!

                                                                            Aww, I still feel like I have LOADS to learn, and I do, which is why I spend so much time reading, studying, doing online courses, going to seminars, talking to mentors etc, it is such an exciting time to be part of the animal behaviour world, there is so much more research being done, our understanding increases on a daily basis, it is fabulous.

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                                                                        Forum THE LOUNGE Puppies!