Rhea's Progress

First, let me say I cannot believe for one IT IS AMAZING how fast she is growing and two how fast her ears start to stand. We have been changing posts every 2 to 3 days. She has a few more nicks on her ears from scratching.

She had a vet visit for a distemper shot yesterday and vet said she is looking great. She is 13 weeks old today and weighs 21.8 lbs. We signed her up for basic and advanced obedience training to start at 5 months old.

She does get carsick. I can tell when she is about to get sick because she starts drooling a lot. We are continuing to work on potty training, recall, crate training, and basic puppy manners.

Pics after removing her posts this morning. As always, I welcome any advice and/or concerns. We are still posting with the bridge. Is it 2 weeks recommended until you lose the bridge?

She is looking good. When traveling in the car is she crated? This will sometimes help with dogs that get care sick. My wife’s dog will get sick if crated in the back of her SUV but is ok crated behind the drivers seat of the van. So location can also play a factor. From my experience they will many times grow out of it.

Doberman Gang said:

She is looking good. When traveling in the car is she crated? This will sometimes help with dogs that get care sick. My wife’s dog will get sick if crated in the back of her SUV but is ok crated behind the drivers seat of the van. So location can also play a factor. From my experience they will many times grow out of it.

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Thanks! No, she is not crated in the car yet but plan to start. I am trying to get her more comfortable with being locked up in the crate. She will lay down in it when her door is open but once you shut her in there she wants out. I've been locking her in in small increments at a time. A few minutes here and there while I walk around the house and try to get some stuff done. She seems to be getting better with no whining and scratching to get out for longer now. We have an Outback so we should be able to fit a crate for her in the back. I am hoping that she will grow out of it.

Loose the bridge when you start seeing slack in the bridge, 2-3 week’s sounds about right. At first it may seem like there is no way she can handle the post without the bridge but give it a couple days. It is okay for the ears to flop around when walking/running, it’s when they alert that it’s important.

She’s so young I’d keep working on the car situation while the car is stationary. Like the crate, just hang out there with treats. Also might help to keep a durable toy in the car which can distract her. Especially if she only gets that toy in that spot.

Sometimes they might want a view or need a window to be open but don’t let her stick her head out of the car as that is bad for their eyes. You’ll need to experiment and monitor her responses to figure out what works.

What a cutie and her ears are off to a great start!

Our first Doberman used to get really car sick but we spent a lot of times taking him for little rides and we gradually worked up to 20 miles before he would start getting sick. I figured out that it was the motion from the back seat that was triggering it so I started letting him ride on the front seat (I know it's not recommended) and that took care of the problem when he could look straight forward instead of seeing things like trees flying by from the back seat.
We started out with the crate in the SUV and that was disastrous and he'd get sick every single time, no matter where the crate was.

We just lost our first puppy tooth. We were playing ball in the yard and saw a bit of blood and sure enough. Incisor gone. Potty training is going well. A couple accidents while playing (running from!) the cat. Still a bit rough with the kids but overall doing great. She had her first case of diarhea. That was fun. Not sure if she ate something or if I over fed her. I’ve been feeding her a cup 3 times a day and kibble for trying treats but she was still hungry. Have some mushrooms growing in the yard and she has a bad habit of eating sticks, grass, mulch etc. I was so worried about a blockage. Any tips for getting her to stop eating the landscape? I bring a bully stick out for her. She either kills it in one sitting or gets bored and starts munching on something else. I’m going to post up in the training and behavior forum for something else. Thanks all!

It will probably feel like it is impossible but try and stop the stick eating early. Mine does it and I hate it. He will lay down and just start eating sticks and acorns. The only way I can truly control it is by being outside with him. If you are not now, you will become an avid member of the poop patrol.

Tips? Stay on it....don’t give any leeway, she goes at a stick, starts eating one, make sure she understands this is not a good thing. It may take 10k times but consistent and firm, she will understand one day.

Otherwise, it sounds like you are doing great!!!

Congrats on the puppy tooth, just another sign that she is growing! I agree with Ddski5, no way to make her stop unless you catch her in the act and take it away. My pup seems to like sticks too. Oh, I also watched him chew on a rock, chew on my tree, and tear up my lovely spring flowers. Gotta love em!

Sounds like you are on top of things! I do agree about the stick chewing though. It hasn't been a huge problem with Jazz but I do worry about her getting sharp bits stuck in her mouth or, worse, her gut. I found that it meant she needed to get something really hard for her teeth and jaws to work at and giving her a nice raw meaty bone a few times a week helped. Not leg bones as they are just too hard and can damage teeth. Ribs and brisket do the trick! Bully sticks aren't available here in Australia so I'm not sure how hard they are so you might already have this covered.

Ezri is mad right now because I trimmed the bushes along the house so she no longer can walk by and grab a limb.

On the plus side, the fire pit has plenty of sticks to grab.

Rhea is 38 lbs now. I can't believe how big she has gotten. We took her to the vet on Monday and the assistant was like "Where did the puppy go?" She is getting tall and with that a little lanky. I am assuming its a 5 month growth spurt. I started to transition her food this week to Diamond Naturals All Stages. I'd like to put a little more meat and muscle on her skinny butt. She started her obedience classes this week. She is still getting sick in the car so we are still working on short exercises and car rides to see if it helps. She sleeps in her crate at night now with no problems and tolerates short periods of crating while I run errands.

Reading thru all the puppy threads, just curious, how has Rhea done on the Diamond ALS?

Nevermind. Hehe I just read up on her progress on anither thread. Lol. My girl has been on Victor nutra pro als since bringing her home at 8.5 weeks. We attempted the homemade raw diet (recipes from one of Dr. BECKER'S colleagues) but we have dealt with so much health wise decided to stick with this particular kibble for now. Now trying to decide what training treats to use because apparently all the Happy Howie's I was using during short training sessions resulted in diarrhea. We are also battling dry, itchy white raised bumps rash. All this Brings back memories of my son's very delicate stomach when he was small.

luckybeemer said:

Now trying to decide what training treats to use

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Use her kibble as training treats.

luckybeemer said:

Nevermind. Hehe I just read up on her progress on anither thread. Lol. My girl has been on Victor nutra pro als since bringing her home at 8.5 weeks. We attempted the homemade raw diet (recipes from one of Dr. BECKER'S colleagues) but we have dealt with so much health wise decided to stick with this particular kibble for now. Now trying to decide what training treats to use because apparently all the Happy Howie's I was using during short training sessions resulted in diarrhea. We are also battling dry, itchy white raised bumps rash. All this Brings back memories of my son's very delicate stomach when he was small.

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We use Happy Howies dog food rolls cut up.

That's what I was using under the recommendation of our trainer. I tried using her kibble mostly and HH's as high value rewards for the harder requests. But she quickly only wanted the HH's. In the beginning I used really small pieces, but then increased the size of my squares and even used ground up pieces with her kibble in all her meals. Began with just the beef flavor, then ordered the variety pack. Hindsight is 20-20 now.

I haven't been on here much lately but Rhea is doing great. She is still on Diamond and haven't had any issues with her food. She is happy and healthy and filling out nicely. We did take her off of Nexguard because she began having mild head tremors. Since we switched her to a Soresto collar the tremors have stopped.

believe it or not when I went to pick up my puppy the breeder/trainer had a bowl of little pieces of meat treats. I ask what it was and she said it's cut-up hot dogs. Yep she microwaves them to render out a lot of the fat and cuts them up into little pieces

Dnetmd said:

We did take her off of Nexguard because she began having mild head tremors. Since we switched her to a Soresto collar the tremors have stopped.

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Wow, I find this very interesting. I've never had the problem but find it interesting and a bit alarming that head Tremors have been associated with heartworm/tick medicine. @Tropicalbri's Mentioned it a while back with her dogs. I remember the first time I saw head Tremors I believe it was with @JanS first dobie and it was quite alarming. Has there been a real medical connection between these two things?