Winter Greetings !

No idea why this picture is sideways - does anyone know how to fix this in the blog ? Thanks !

Here is a picture of Tika with her "friend to be" - my friend's labrador puppy - 9 days younger. Not sure how they are going to get along yet - possibly signs they might or might not. It would be easier if they could just get along as that would be good for walks once they are a bit older. Anyway her friend decided to follow Tika's fashion sense and got the same very trendy tartan coat ! Essential for minus ten degree temperatures !

For Christmas entertainment, we got her a Jibber Jabber toy from the pet shop ! That kept her busy most of the day. It is a ball which sort of jumps around and responds to their movement - if they throw it through the air it starts jibbering again ! Anyway she wasnt remotely frightened or wary of it as I thought she might have been. But it did provide a lot of fun for her ! Unfortunately just like kids toys, the batteries had run out by the end of the day !

Other news is that she is now toilet trained - yippee !! Mind you we have left no mats of rugs down just in case ! I will eventually risk bringing out the fleece throw I bought from Ikea to protect our chairs but I think its early days yet - I dont want her associating any of these things with "toilet" !!

And today as she hit 16 weeks old we got the parvovirus booster at the vets and also the kennel cough vaccine which she needs for the puppy classes we are going to go along to next week.  So that was more money to the vet - expensive business !  The vet also recommended that depending on her lifestyle we may need to keep worming her every month, but it doesnt always need to be the tablets, sometimes we can use the "spot on" skin version. She now weighs 9.9 kg and when they hit 10 kg they can get adult worm tablets which are larger. I liked the puppy version ones as they went down really easily. However I must admit she seems very calm at the vets and doesnt appear to even notice her injections so thats good news !

Oh yes and the other good news is its finally thawing so we can now see some grass, although there's still lots of ice around...

A Collie who knows 1,000 words !

Wow here is a collie who knows a 1,000 words. So far Tika can do Sit, Stay, Come, Down, Paw and Rollover so we are doing well but have a long way to go !
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12067099

Two Paws forward One Paw back !

Well we still have continuing snow and ice but some wonderful views to keep your spirits up in those sub zero temperatures. Here are some photos from this mornings walk !

The highlight today was that she is increasingly good at her toilet training but this morning I just thought we had it sussed to come through to find a "mistake" in the room that had to be cleared up.

However after a really bad day on Friday we had a good weekend for toilet training. I think the presence of lots of people in the house encouraged her to go outside. Anyway no doubt we'll get there - I am blaming the cold weather as she looks out the door and decides it much warmer inside ! .... In fact I must go and turn up that heating !!

Vets for Worm Tablets

Age 14 weeks - now weighs 8.95 kg !
She was 4.2 kg at 8 weeks !

She got weighed at the vets and they then gaves us two worm tablets as puppies need to be wormed every month until 6 months and then 6 monthly after that. They were pretty small and went down quite easily with a chocolate drop. However she may be more wary next time now that she knows what I am up to !!

Anyway must dash - I can hear her wrecking stuff !

Winter Still here and Pup now Reluctant to go Outside ! (age 13wks 5days)

Well Tika is still full of energy and has had me running around all day rescuing the various things I dont want to be destroyed - music, sellotape, Christmas cards, glove, Christmas stamper, brush, windowsill (expertly installed by my husband), chocolate from bin that was through the stair gate etc etc. And the headphones which I didnt rescue in time ! Her own toys do not seem to be of any interest today !

Anyway the weather outside is still very cold. Think it was at least -5 degrees today and probably down to minus 10. And the back garden is still mostly snow and ice. So its actually not good for her to run out there. Its not good for them to slip and fall so I have been throwing the ball in the top half of the garden where the sun has melted the ice. However it means that firstly she is not running off energy and secondly the temperature is putting her off (and us off) standing around in the garden to catch those moments when she decides to "do her business". Any time we do catch her going outside we lavish praise on her but at the moment we are running at a 50% success rate and not improving from day to day which I believe is not great for a collie !

Also she refused to go any further on her walk tonight and that was even with her coat on !
Also I have now slipped three times on the ice, Once on our back steps even after I had gritted them heavily. However the snow was melting off the roof and had led to thick ice on the steps. I was lucky to avoid serious injury. The other two falls were while I was walking her. I landed on my left wrist both times but seem to have avoided too much damage.

They are predicting more snow for here in Scotland for Thursday. As you can see from my posts we have had about two or three weeks of this. The bins have not been emptied as the dustmen have all been working on the gritting lorries (not that I have seen any of those !). My neighbour tells me its now three weeks since our bins were collected. I can believe that as we have four bin bags in the hall and two in the cellar as well as all our recycling items stacking up. So its a chaotic run up to Christmas here at the moment !

On a final positive note though we have met lots of dogs and she has got on fine with all of them. She is still on her lead but she has enjoyed meeting them. That is apart from a few older dogs who werent interested and a few terriers whose owners quickly hurried past with their dogs ! 

We also had a day of major socialisation when I took her to watch our local Christmas lights being switched on. So we were able to tick various categories (as recommended in The Perfect Puppy book) - fairground rides, lights, crowds, cars, lorries (she didnt like those), noise, uniforms, shops ! She did very well considering it was a first time for many of those things !

Wax for Paws and more Retail Therapy !

You can apparently buy wax for a dog's paws to protect them from the salt and grit on snowy pavements. So when our pet shop has restocked I might buy some.  Might also buy her a coat and some boots as its been so cold here.... more retail therapy !

Home Made Liver Treats for Dogs !

Good tip for today is that I heard you can make your own chicken liver dog treats which you can chop up and freeze. What a good money saving idea !
Here is the recipe I might try which I got from a friend :

• 2 cups Flour
• 3 tablespoons Vegetable oil
• 1 cup wheat germ or cornmeal if wheat allergies are a problem
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 1/2 cup chicken broth
• 2 tsp. parsley
• 1 cup cooked chicken liver, chopped or mixed in a mixture

Combine flour and wheat germ. In separate bowl, beat egg with oil, then add broth & parsley, mix well. Add the dry ingredients to bowl a little at a time, stirring well. Fold in chicken livers and mix well. Dough will be firm. Turn dough out on lightly floured surface and knead briefly. Roll out 1/2" thick and cut into shapes. Place on greased cookie sheet 1" apart. Bake at 400F for 15 minutes or until firm. Store in refrigerator or freeze.

I will try this out and let you know how it goes !

Or for an easy life here are some liver treats to buy online.
http://www.petskitchen.co.uk/Pets'-Kitchen-Joe-and-Jack's-Natural-Dog-Food-Natural-snacks/c2_3_11/p36/Poochwork-Liver-Hearts/product_info.html

As they are hard treats remember I think the dogs need to be over 3 months to eat them.  If you want to make or buy liver treats for puppies then you need to buy liver cake. I bought some lovely liver cake from Princess Sisky's Dog Treats at a local craft fair this weekend and Tika loves them ! However they are not available online.

Doggie Pubs !

Just found this website - hope to check some of these out once she is a bit older ! And toilet trained !!
http://www.doggiepubs.org.uk/

Snow and More Snow !

We have had continuous snow since she has been allowed out in the garden !

So its not been great temperatures for toilet training ! However we are having some success so far. We are following the advice in the books and only praising her when she gets it right and goes in the garden. However its hard standing around in sub zero temperatures !

We bought a training lead so have made a little use of that so she can have a run around when out walking at open spaces and also she can do some training. Its 15m long !
I took her for a walk this morning. I decided to walk on the pavements so we would only meet dogs on leads. However the first dog we met was one running loose while the owner cleared her drive ! However I just picked Tika up and crossed the road to avoid trouble. However we did then meet a very nice older dog who she said hello to and that went well. He could have eaten her in one mouthful as he was about double her size but it was a good first introduction to other dogs while out for a walk !

Pet Insurance !

We also are in the process of finalising which pet insurance to go with. So far we have narrowed it down to Pet Plan, More Than or maybe the Kennel Club. They all offer different cover and vary between £15 and £25 a month.  Its a lot of money. They vary between offering £4,000 per condition per year which would be good for a long term condition. The other cover offered £7,000 total for any one condition but didnt state that cover was for life so I'm not sure if they might not be able to terminate the policy if they felt like it. Its quite difficult to decide. The vet thought that £4,000 should be enough to cover most things but then you hear stories from some people whose dogs have cost a lot more than that for various things......

International Sheepdog Society

We discovered that our breeder has registered her pedigree with the International Sheep Dog Society. I never knew there was such a thing but there is lots of interesting reading at : http://www.isds.org.uk/

They have some lovely Collie themed presents as well as dog whistles etc for sheep dog trials.

Their information about dog names says that the Society permits the use of only one, simple working name for a registered dog.  Working on the fields, perhaps with more than one dog, a shepherd will be able to cope with names such as "Ben", "Meg", "Cap" or "Moss".  But names such as "Philip", "Flossie","Pretty Boy", etc. would be impossible to work with. They are happy to accept non-English language names.  The test is that the names should, ideally, be single-syllable.  This is the same advice we were given by a relative who had had a collie but unfortunately we had already named her. So lets hope the name is OK !  I am only planning to have one dog so hopefully the name will work out. Once we got her we thought of some other names such as Mystic which would have been nice. Meg was a name we had in reserve as well.

Allowed Out !

Well finally our new collie puppy is allowed out. She is now 11 weeks old and has completed her course of puppy vaccinations. So, after a last visit to the puppy socialisation class at the vet, where she met the same two poodles as last week, along with a labrador and a pug (very cute !), she finally got to go outside !

She is enjoying being out in the garden (newly fenced off !) and has been following various scents.

Our next task is to introduce her to some well behaved dogs so she can have some good experiences with meeting other dogs. In addition we need to try out "planes, trains and automobiles" ! Well maybe not all of those exactly but before 16 weeks we should expose her to various experiences. The reason for this is that puppies are very impressionable as well as eager to try new things at this age. Any good experiences are stored up by the impressionable little things and will make them more confident dogs in the future.

At the age of 16 weeks, they become much more wary. Apparently in the wild this is the age at which they leave the den and a survival tactic is for them to be wary of new things.

So between 8 weeks and 16 weeks its important to introduce them to a variety of new people and experiences. They will probably only complete their course of injections and be allowed outside at about 11 weeks so you have to cram a lot of new things into those last 5 weeks !

There are quite a number of out of control dogs that walk near us, so I want her to have some controlled good experiences before meeting some of them - and also maybe put on a bit more weight !

So I'm away to text a friend to see if her friendly spaniel is available for a "playdate" !!

Puppy Socialisation !

Last night Tika went along to the puppy socialisation class at the vets ! She met two poodles and apparently had a great time once she was brave enough to come out from under her chair.
We will hopefully take her along again next week as its a good chance for her to meet some puppies in a safe environment.  The day after that she will be able to go outside finally ! Yippee !

Calm Sunday

Well we have now had her for two weeks and today was actually quite a calm day. Maybe she is learning !  This week she will get her second injection and a week after that she can get out in the garden and possibly for a walk. This should let her get rid of some of her energy !

We have spent today making sure the garden is secure and we only have one more gate or barrier to build.

The vet has a puppy socialisation class so we may take her to that this week although I would have thought that possibly the vets floor might have parvovirus so maybe we should wait a week. We'll let you know how it goes.
We went back from using newspapers to using the puppy mats again as we had visitors. In fact the puppy mats seem to be a bit more successful.

She has definitely learned to "Sit" and is pretty good at "Fetch" and "Bring" with a tennis ball.

Hyper Collie !

Well she is now beginning to show her true colours !

She can vary between being a very calm, sweet dog to certainly in the evening becoming a snapping, wild, full of energy challenge !  We are doing all the things the books say such as ignore her when she isnt behaving and also saying a strong "No" - "uh uh" or actually growling which seemed to work well.

However on a positive, she has learnt "Sit" and this has been useful actually to make her behave and sit down instead of jumping.

We have bought some more toys - a puppy bone from Asda and some new tennis balls for dogs from Asda which didnt have so much fluff on them to be chewed off.

We also have a stair gate up now so she is kept in the kitchen. This apparently is a good idea, apart from protecting your carpets but it also stops them being given the "right" to greet people at the door which lets them get a big opinion of themselves in the "pack" which is not what you want.

Also we discovered a new game she likes tonight - hide a dog treat in a box along with her toys. Kept her busy for a while !

I have signed up for dog training classes which begin in February !

Also she is still sleeping well in her crate at night. We have allowed her to roam the kitchen for the last few nights and that has worked well. She appears to get up to go to the toilet and then go back to her crate to sleep.

So we have reached 9 weeks with her !

Two weeks to go until she is allowed outside and I think that will help to let her run off some steam.

Fireworks

Well we survived Fireworks night. Two nights of fireworks although the Credit Crunch has cut down the number from previous years I would say. We followed the advice of the books and turned up television noise and we didnt react to any fireworks. It seemed to work but whether that is just because she doesnt yet really have an understanding that there is a world "outside" the kitchen yet I dont know. Anyway we got through it.

We are not sure if she may have a bit of urinary infection at the moment but she is going all over the place. However she still seems bright so I am keeping an eye on her at the moment.

The crate is working well. She is comfortable in it and settles down. I have now managed to escape from the campbed and slept upstairs again last night. She seems perfectly happy now in the kitchen. The only thing is that I need to be able to hear her squeak in the night around about 3 or 4 to get out to go to the toilet - she was very good last night and just got up for this then straight back to bed. I am sure I can probably leave her with the kitchen to roam in rather than closing the crate door but I still prefer to know exactly what she is up to.  We have found some toys and books are absolutely essential and I will list them if they are on Amazon. The crate we got is 36 inches long and is a good size although wouldnt be big enough if you need to be out at work for 4 hours or more. In that case you need to set up a puppy playpen area with a crate plus extra space for toileting.

4 Days Later

Well the first night with a puppy did not go as planned !  We had followed the advice of some books and thought that she could have two nights in a soft crate in one of our rooms before migrating to her metal crate downstairs (which has bedding etc in it - its not just metal !).
Anyway she became a howling, teeth flashing demon trying to get out. I doubt she was missing her littermates at all and was merely concerned with getting out. However as we live in a semi detached house, firstly we couldnt just keep ignoring the noise and secondly when I looked at her, I thought she was possibly going to get a tooth trapped in the fibres of the soft cage door. So out she came and into bed ! In fact I was even contemplating taking her back the next day but when I brought her through to see everyone else the next morning they were all happy to see her so that was the end of that ! So we now have our new family member !

In fact it has been quite an adjustment getting to know that new member of the family. However by day 5 she is now a firm member of the family and I think I am getting used to it !

She now sleeps in a crate and I took the advice of a friend and slept the last three nights in a camp bed next to her. It was supposed to be for two nights but we have found that she is pretty good at her toilet training but in fact she still needs up once in the night for a "No. 2" or a poo, whatever is the polite term for that ! So following advice from the books, I have not interacted at all with her until after she does her business and at that point its fine to praise her then settle her back to bed. So so far I had one night that was 11 - 7 with a wakening at 4 and last night she was 12 - 7 with two breaks at 1.30 and 5.
I am surviving OK on that so far as I was a bit of a latenighter before. However I am making sure I get to bed at the same time as her and get as much sleep as is possible.

Other things we got on top of is that we seem to have managed to stop her "puppy biting". A combination of sharp "Nos", ending the game is she bites and diverting bites onto her toys has worked.

Toyswise, we already had a teddy and an old baby rattle and a Kong Wubba which has been good. Today I went out and got a great ball which you can hide a treat in and there is a hole which the treat will fall out of when it turns the right way. She has thoroughly enjoyed this ball and exhausts herself chasing it. The Pet Shop also recommended a small space hopper which squeaks which you can throw to them and they bring back holding onto the handles. Apparently the feedback from customers has been good about this. However she is a bit wary of that at the moment.

Well I must go and get back to my new "routine".  Oh yes and the ironing has piled up - the pile is currently the volume of an arm chair! Aargh !  Oh and the other thing is we have had lots of visitors eager to meet her so that is good and helps with her socialisation. All have to remove shoes at the door to keep the dreaded parvovirus out until after she completes her vaccinations.

And the other thing is to see how tomorrow night goes with Fireworks night. I am hoping she will be too young to notice them but if there are very loud that might be difficult.... Bye til the next time !

Home at Last !

Well the 2.5 hour car journey home with a new collie pup wasn't too bad. She stayed in her great portable soft dog crate for the first hour and then transferred to sitting on the back seat ! She was sick a couple of times but it didnt cause her too much distress and after that she pretty much slept all the way. We had a quick stop at Pets at Home to buy some more puppy pads and then got home for 5 oclock.

(This bit added two weeks later - I should add that the breeder gave us the most laid back puppy of the litter as we are not experienced collie owners. We have experience of dogs from our childhood but this is the first time a puppy has been our sole responsibility so wish us luck ! The two boy puppies were apparently more of a handful. So in the light of our experiences even two weeks later with her showing her "true colours" then I have to say I hope the other owners are getting on fine with taking on the challenge of a puppy !)

She is very laid back and has taken everything in her stride so far - including listening to a violin practise ! However she does have some taste and turned away when X-Factor was on ! (during a channel change !)

So we will see how the first night goes. We are trying to follow the advice in the dog books so avoiding chasing games and we will try and not let her bite and if she does try that she will be told "No". However so far she doesnt seem to have a tendency to bite and is very calm.

So Welcome Home Tika !