Hello,

I'm new to this forum and what a great place to meet dog owners.

Anyway, I've been looking to get a dog since Christmas, and after much reading and research, me and my girlfriend have decided on getting a Lhasa Apso and I'm going to pick him up later.  I'm so excited! :)

I hope all goes well.

Congratulations!!!   It is so exciting when you collect your new puppy.. The hard work will start now, but completely worth it.. I hope you have bought shares in kitchen roll.. You'll need it :D  What are you calling your puppy??
Goodluck with everything and i'm sure we'll see you on here for advice.. if you need any!! :)

Hi John,

Welcome to CD :D

Congratulations on your new puppy, I am getting an Australian Shepherd in November time, we have been waiting since February! You must be so excited :D

Let us know how you are getting on, when you get two minutes to yourself!!! ;) And we want pictures-a-plenty!!!

Good luck :D

Nat

All the best. Keep us updated.

We're getting a dalmatian in 7 weeks and are also excited.

Congratulations on your new puppy, and welcome to CD we are hoping out standard puppy comes up to scratch so we can show her, each and every dog is as exciting as the last.
what are you all calling your puppies?

Fiona

Hi Guys,

Thanks for the warm welcomes.

Me and my girlfriend picked up our lovely Lhasa Apso Male Pup on Friday and he's really adorable.  We named him Cookie and he's settling in really well.  After 2 days, I thinks he's already settled into our home.  We set up his crete together with a play pen so he has quite a bit of space to play without us having to watch him.  We also laid down a camping ground sheet under his play area, so any accidents can be wiped up easily.  We are toilet training him with the those puppy toilet pads and it's working pretty well, about 8/10 time he will us it but once in a while, he'll pee near the pad but not on it.  He'll get there soon and I can't wait when he's fully trainined and we won't need the play pen any more. :)

The only problem he's had is that his poos was abit loose yesterday and our vet told us to not feed him last night and I think his tummy is settling now.  I got up at 4am this morning cos I think he was hungry but he soon got over it and I feed in at 8pm.  I also have a suspision that he's been eating his poos at night time, when we are asleep and can't clean it up right away, so I'm not too sure what to do about that?  I think he's slowing not doing that now as he know's he gets feed all the time through out the day, but maybe he get hungry during the night I don't know?  I heard from my friend, who has a Shih Tzu Bitch, that if you mess around with their tails, it'll give them loose poos, is this true?

I gave Cookie a bath yesterday too and he was OK, didn't make any noises and just let me get on with it, I think he likes it cos it's been really hot this weekend and the water probably cooled him down. :)  I don't think he likes being hair dryed by an electric dryer, maybe it's too hot and he wants to stay cool.  After towel drying him, he fell asleep in my arms which was very nice.

He also did a bit of play biting with us but we are trying to stop him, so when he wants to play bite, we always give him his dog teddy to bite and if he still bites us we give him a light tap on the noise and he stops. :)

I hope he's not too hot in this hot weather, we've closed all the curtains in the living room so the sun don't get in as much and we try and open the windows as much as possible, but the dirty flys always get in.

We had some of our friends round yesterday too and it seens Cookie loves meeting new people and he was very excited and played with them all afternoon.

Anyway, it's so good having a dog in the house, but sometimes we think......what have we got ourselves into!  I guess it's all worth it at the end and we love our little doggy to bits. :)  We've noticed that we are always cleaning now and we are more germ concious and always hovering and wiping things down with anti-bacterial spray!  I suppose this is all good and can't wait until we can take Cookie out and about.

There's one question I want to ask, Cookie is currently eating Pedigree Chum puppy tin food, as advised by the breeder, but we only give him about a table spoonful every time. So if he was to eat the whole tin, it'll take him about 3 days.  How long can I keep the food for after opening?  We are thinking of buy those Pedigree Chum Puupy packet food for him as, one packet will probably last a day (i.e no wastage) but the breeder insist that he eats the puppy tin food?  What shall I do? 

I would think it would be fine for 3 days in the fridge.  You can buy plastic caps for dog food tins which will help to keep it from drying out and help prevent all your fridge contents adopting the scent of puppy food :)

Hi JohnApso

Welcome to the site and good luck with your puppy. It is a very exciting time, and its also very hard work. We managed to get our Rottie pup who is now 13 weeks (had her 2 weeks) trained in about a week or so. I tried those training pads, but she just kept trying to chew it to bits. I took 2 weeks off work and will be going home every lunchtime to feed her and to let her out the crate for a while.

I feed her at 7am / 1pm / 7pm as recommended by my breeder.

Let me know how you get on with the biting as I have puncture wounds in my legs from the monster. I tried the bitter lemon spray and that did nothing to stop it. I stand there and take it and she stops, then she gets her toy, as if I give her the toy while her teeth are in me, then she may think thats the way to get her toy and will carry on.

Keep us updated

I wouldn't tap your puppy on the nose when he bites but walk away & ignore him when he starts & leave him alone for a minute or two, do this everytime he starts & he will learn that biting means isolation. it's what my GSD does to any puppies we might have & they soon learn that she leaves if they nip so can't play with her

I don't use pads or paper either but take puppies out everytime they wake up, been fed or look as if they need to go to the toilet & stay with them until they have been & then I praise & treat them

I just been home for lunch and my pup was doing fine.  Because he has a crate and play pen, he's happy just playing around in that area.
When I got home he was happy to see me and was all excited and wanted to play, so I played with him for a while.  The good thing about my pup is that he plays for like 5min and then he goes back to his play pen adn chills out.

One thing that annoys me is when we eat, he keeps barking and whining.  We read in a book that we should always eat before the pup does and when we do this, he starks barking and we need to feed him just to shut him up.

When I got home before, there was no sign of pee or poo, but he started doing his business when I was there!  Maybe he wants to show me that he's capable in doing it on the pad so that he gets praised afterwards!

Also, he did 4 poos before and he's never did that many at once before, but they are firm again compared to yesterday.  The worrying thing is that out of the 4 poos, in the last one, I found a speck of blood in it (just a drop or 2) and I look at his backside and it was alittle red!  I called my mate about it and he said that because he's still apup and his skin is still soft, he might have hurt his bum which doing his 4 poos as he's never done so many at once!  I hope he's OK cos I'm not too sure how to help him with this one?  Maybe some cream or shall I leave it and let it heal naturally?