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meet SPLASH!!!


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Hello everyone! A couple weeks ago I made a post asking for some name recommendations. I was about to get a pup and was choosing between River, Quinn, and Haiku. Well.. I got the pup.. and realized none of those names fit!

After about 6 hours of brainstorming in the car (the trip back from breeder), I thought of the name Splash and it was just perfect! 

Splash is now 8 weeks and 2 days old (to be exact). He’s blue merle with lots of black patches on him, and very blue eyes (not sure if they’ll stay)

………………...........

i have a few questions, I wonder if anyone has any input 

1. He is very nervous of dogs barking. Will sit still and watch as cars, loud bikes, trucks, and construction machinery pass by, but as soon as a dog barks he runs behind me in fear. Is this just an 8week old pup thing? 

2. He sleeps through the night. Well, mostly. From night 1 he slept 5 hours straight, and last night we slept from 11-7:30 with one pee break at 4am (but he wasn’t even awake - my 1am alarm didn’t go off and I woke up at 4 and woke him up to pee). Should I be waking him up every 2-3 hours to pee even if he’s asleep?

3. How long did it take your pups to catch on to the clicker? I feel like he’s kind of slow at it, but then again maybe he’s just young.

 

 

Overall, this puppy is a dream. Sleeps like a boss, crate trained himself (not 100%, but the longest time he’s barked from being locked in was 4 minutes then he just went to sleep), and is so sweet. He falls asleep on my lap every time we’re in the car, and let’s me carry him around like no problem. Seriously. Sometimes he goes crazy high energy, but other times he is SO MELLOW. 

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Gorgeous pup!

As blue as those eyes are, they're going to stay blue. And he's got the biggest patch of that brownish great that most blue merles have patches of I've ever seen!

I'm of the very firm belief that if a puppy doesn't wake you up to go out during the night you don't tempt fate. Let him sleep. Otherwise you could actually teach him want to go out during the night.

Did you "charge" the clicker? By this I mean did you teach him what it means? If not, by all means do so. Grab the clicker and some yummy treats. Get his attention and then click followed by an immediate treat so that he makes the connection that a click means treat. You don't ask him to do anything else to earn the click/treat. You just want him to make the association. Rinse and repeat at least 10 times in a row. You can repeat sessions of this throughout the day if necessary, but he'll figure it out quickly.

IMO you should never attempt to actually do any clicker training until you've charged it really well.

Oh, and the name's great. I especially like it for a merle, but mostly because now I can steal one of your earlier picks that I loved if it should suit my next dog. :ph34r:

 

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What a great looking pup! Looking at his pictures, I think the name Splash suits him perfectly. Well done, and congrats!  I do think his fear of dogs barking is just due to him still being just a babe. When Mancer was his age, she cowered underneath me whenever a big dog down the street barked. One time a flock of honking geese flew overhead and frightened her nearly out of her wits. But now that she's older she barks back. So I don't think there is anything to worry about. Just be a good mom and let him know you're there to protect him. :)

I agree with GL on not waking him. Mancer also slept through the night sometimes, but other nights woke me (sometimes more than once) needing to go out. Though it wrecked my sleep, I actually thought it helped in getting her house broken, since it was a clear opportunity to make sure she went outside and heap praise on her afterward. Of course at two months old I knew not to expect too much in terms of her actually retaining what I was teaching her, but I'm of the philosophy that it's better to start teaching basic things early, while maintaining patience and limited expectations.

Congrats, good luck, and enjoy the ride!

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Splash is a fantastic name!

And he is sooo cute!

Our puppy did well overnight from the beginning. I didn't get up in the night unless I heard him moving around and whining. The first couple of weeks he could sometimes go four or five hours and that time increased quite quickly. I did feel a bit sleep deprived though, there were nights he needed to go out a few times.

I remember him cowering at the sound of other dogs barking but I don't think it took long before he ventured a little bark back. He was also really good with traffic and would not mind it passing at all. I thought I was doing a fantastic job exposing him to so many different things, then suddenly around 16 weeks he started barking and lunging at it. I'm not sure if I could have done anything differently as we saw traffic every day and he really seemed unfussed, maybe someone with more experience can advise on if we could have done anything differenty.

We didn't get a clicker until much later, but in the early days our puppy didn't seem very food motivated. He learnt to sit and down quite easily within the first few days but didn't always eat the treat we used to lure him. When we did get the clicker he learnt quite quickly that click = treat.

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Thanks for all the responses!

the clicker is charged as you say and he does a little jump of excitement when he hears it (this was during charging). My main thought was it was just taking him soooo long to learn how to sit.. like for th first 2 full days he’d do anything for a treat EXCEPT sit. He’s finally got it and I’m not really worried. 

Im writing this at 6:18am — we went to bed at 10:30, I set my alarm for 1:30 but he was sleeping ... and he woke me up all by himself at like 5:40 for a pee.. then at 6:00 for a poop that I actually stepped in :(

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55 minutes ago, jami74 said:

I remember him cowering at the sound of other dogs barking but I don't think it took long before he ventured a little bark back. He was also really good with traffic and would not mind it passing at all. I thought I was doing a fantastic job exposing him to so many different things, then suddenly around 16 weeks he started barking and lunging at it. I'm not sure if I could have done anything differently as we saw traffic every day and he really seemed unfussed, maybe someone with more experience can advise on if we could have done anything differenty.

Thanks for this input! I’m gonna make sure to train him to actively sit for these things passing, so hopefully when the next fear phase comes he’s got some mental and physical structure that ‘hopefully’ will help haha

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Yeap, love blue eyes on a dog, and Splash is beautiful!  I also love the name.

If he has just come home, I would not worry about training too much right away, beyond toilet training.  Build the relationship and have fun with your puppy for a week or so.  Try to capture behaviour that he does naturally, like sitting, lying or bowing with your clicker and treat, rather than a specific training session.

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