hi,
new to all this. getting a gorgeous cocker spaniel pup in a few weeks, and want to go about the first few weeks properly. get very confused about all the different advice,especially about blooming crates.i understand most of the thinking behind it, but i'm worried about the night time. do you have one crate for the day, and then a smaller one by your bed? or is it best to have one for the day, and let pup sleep in the kitchen with a baby gate? are you supposed to confine a young pup until he has more control of his peeing,etc almost all the time? i also don't want to create any separation problems.so how do you know how much to "ignore" him without him feeling unwanted? any advice would be very much appreciated.

Congrat7ulations on getting a new cocker pup. They are lovely dogs - although I am biased;) I would recommend getting The Perfect Puppy by Gwen Bailey - funnily enough I was just reading mine in bed this morning. It's a really good book that gives you all you need to know about raising your puppy. You can get it from Amazon and szome good book shops or even decent pet shops.

Crate training can be confusing - but it all comes down to what you want in the long run and how much work you are willing to put in in the early days to help with house-training etc.

I have a crate in my kitchen which the boys only go in when they come in very wet or dirty - just while they dry off a bit - or when I need them out of the way during the day - but only ever for a short while. At night I have a crate in my room that they sleep in. It's actually bigger now than the other one I use as there are two in it overnight. When they were small though, I used a small crate by my bed so I could hear when they woke in the night needing the loo. I would take them out and then out them straight back in afterwards. No playing - just praise for weeing etc. I found they settled very very quickly this way.

The main thing with a crate is to understand that you can;t just put your puppy in it and leave it there. Make it a nice snug happy place to go, introduce it gently and your puppy will grow to see it as their place and go very happily. My boys open the doors of their crates and put themselves in :D

If however, you wish your puppy to sleep in the kitchen then you will need to approach it differently. Gwen Bailey's book gives you some tips for this.

hth

Pam n the boys

THANKS PAM N BOYS,
I WILL DEFINITELY GET THE BOOK.ANY OTHER ADVICE ABOUT HOUSE TRAINING COCKERS WOULD BE BRILLIANT.
THANKS AGAIN.WHAT COLOUR DOGS DO YOU HAVE?

Have replied privately. Hope it helps.

Pam n the boys

PS - can I ask you to turn off your caps lock. Its the equivalent of shouting on the internet and also makes posts hard to read - thanks:)

thanks pam for the reply.your dogs are gorgeous.thanks john.i realise it' a round the clock job for the first few weeks.just like kids!!! but can i ask another thing.if you paper train your pup, i thought you couldn't put paper in the crate,as he won't want to soil his crate, but i've read in loads of sites to put bed in one half and paper in the other.is this just for the first few nights? won't it confuse him? is it okay to paper train pups?
thanks again for your help

I have never used a crate during the day except for the short time when going to the shops. The crate was just there with the door open so my puppy could go in to bed whenever she felt like it. It became just "Her bedroom" I only ever use them for the short "Destructive" period during teething. It is important that you never use it for discipline. "Go to bed you naughty dog!" is not the thing to do because it would lead the puppy to think that whenever you put him in it he has done something wrong!

It is up to you to decide the ground rules. Is your dog going to be with you most of the time or are you going to confine it to a room, rooms, maybe just a floor? This is the kind of thing your own circumstances will dictate. For my part my dogs have the run of the ground floor and I have a child gate at the foot of the stairs to stop them going up. That does not mean they never go upstairs but only by invitation as a treat.

Just because your puppy is in a crate does not mean that he will be able to last through the night. Until he gets control of his bladder you will still need to get up during the night to take him outside to spend a penny.

Regards, John

No dog wants to wet in their bed but the problem is that being in a crate means that they cannot get out to relieve themselves. The onus is on you to be one step in front to get him out of his crate in time to do what’s needed before it's too late.

I never as such "Paper Train" my puppies. I train them to go out side right from day one. Paper is only there to sop up mistakes which if I am observant should not happen. Unfortunately accidents are always bound to happen.

Regards, John

I agree with John. If you are going to crate at all then you have to be there to ensure puppy gets out before he needs to go otherwise he will have no choice but to soil his crate. What you can do is get a crate big enough for when he'e full grown but use a piece of wood to block of part of it to make it smaller - if that makes sense, and only have his bed in there. As he grows, move the piece of wood towards the back of the crate so it grows with him.

I never paper trained my dogs either as it can cause confusion but if I know I'm likely to be out longer than normal then I do put paper down just in case. It's very rare it happens and even rarer that they need to go. If they do they go on the paper, but I stress, this has only been done when they were adult and after they had learned to go outside and could hold it for a while anyway. A puppy needs to learn where he should go before giving him options that you control.

Pam n the boys

I also often lay the news paper down on the floor beside my chair and I would hate for it to get watered! :d

John

John
Why not let the newspaper be watered? Might make it grow so you'll have more to read :D
Steph

It's only full of rubbish Steph so all it would mean is that I would have even more rubbish to get rid of. :rolleyes:

John

hi john,
why does everyone tease you????!!!! you seem quite wise....or is this just a facade.?.......what dogs do you have? i'm new, so probably missed your life story..
awaiting with bated breath....

John-the-wise-one has been known to encourage the teasing at times (especially when the hip flask's half empty ), so how can we not oblige??? (*ducking quickly*) ;) But it's a two-way street! :D

Got me hip flask refilled with the presentation at the last AGM! Lovely bottle of Damson Gin!! Guess who's looking forward to next season ;)

You see Matrixmama, they have not yet worked out that I'm really just a bad tempered old fool!

John

PS. Labradors or rather at the moment Labrador!

Now there's a question - has anyone stayed awake long enough to hear your life story, John? :D

Can you wait till October?? Bet you can't! Cheers!! Monty's Mum :) Hic!

As in the immortal lines in the film, “Infamy, Infamy! Everybody’s got it in for me!” :p

If the bottle runs out before then I will just have to drink the gun’s Sloe Gin. I know plenty of Sloes were collected last season whilst I was busy picking up for them.

John

I love sloe gin!

I love gin anyway......I must be a ruined Mother!

After standing around for an hour or more in frozen flood water in December waiting for the beaters to come through, a sip of Sloe Gin really hits the spot!

Best wishes to you all, John

thanks for the advice.will try to follow suggestions and read up some more.

Just to add - not sure if it's already been mentioned but the crate that Argos sell (item 870/2135 £38.75) is the perfect size for a cocker. It's a little large for a new puppy but is perfect for a fully grown adult. I blocked off the back part of the crate when my cocker was a puppy and it didn't take long for her to grow into it :)

HTH,

Fiona
x x x

thanks fiona, did you have any problems with your cocker as a pup? how did you crate train her? how old is she now? any advice appreciated!! i plan to get the argos crate.do you know of any place,anyone, where you can get an open pen thing,
thanks