11 week old pups don't go well with flu!

Both Neil & I have had flu this week, and having 2 extremely energetic pups around is hard work. It is fortunate that we can now leave the patio door partly open and let them go into the garden as and when they please. You can guarentee that if they are inside, they want to go out.....and if they are outside they want to be in. They have been good for keeping warm though, they like to cuddle up and are like hot water bottles that don't go cold. Brinkley enjoyed snuggling up with Neil and found a lovely little hollow in the quilt, he wasn't too keen to move.

Tomorrow they will be 12 weeks old and able to go out for a proper walk, so I am hoping to be recovered enough to take them out. It will be interesting to see what they make of the outside world. Brinkley spooks quite easily so noisy traffic could be a problem. I think to start with, I'll take them to the Country Park and let them get used to being walked away from close traffic.

Can we go out and play please?

Over the last few days the weather has improved and the pups are now big enough to be let out into the garden without constant supervision. They love being outside and chase each other up and down the decking. After a few minutes, they stop and explore a bit. Brinkley enjoys finding sticks to carry, Brandy seems to enjoy eating the bark we have down. While they are out in the garden they can hear lots of new noises, other dogs barking, traffic, car doors banging and every new noise has them stopping to listen. Yesterday a plane flew over and Brinkley looked up and followed it across the sky. As yet we haven’t had any birds come into the garden while they are out and fortunately none of the cats that previously used our garden as a pathway have been in while they have been out. I think the 2 of them are now big enough that if they ran towards a cat it would turn and leave - pronto, but I would rather not put that theory to the test.

It hasn’t taken them long to know that when I rattle the keys to the door it means they can go out and if they sit by the door it generally means we let them out. Brinkley has also learned that if he sits outside at the door he gets let in, quite a quick little learner this one. In order to get them to come when called, we have been rewarding them with treats, if they do come when called. Trouble is, Brinkley will come when called and as soon has he has had his treat he darts back outside again on the basis that next time he comes in, he’ll get another treat. Brandy tends not to come in when called, he just throws a deaf ear and it can take 2 or 3 attempts before he responds, but he just hasn't realised how to play the system yet, and Brinkley's not going to give him any tips.

Puppy Party………

Well, I have to say the anticipation far outweighed the event. Brandy & Brinkley were significantly unimpressed. I was looking forward to seeing how they got on with other dogs as they have only seen each other since they left their litter. I did have concerns as to whether they would be too rough for other puppies as they enjoy running around the house at great speed chasing each other, pouncing on each other, and playing tug-of-war with their toys, and I thought any puppy that is not used to such play could be frightened by them.

In reality, they just couldn’t be bothered.

There were 3 other pups there, an 11 weeks old Staffordshire Bull Terrier which is already twice the size of Brandy & Brinkley, a 13 weeks old Staffordshire Bull Terrier, which is about the size ours will be when full grown and a 10 week old Jack Russell.

Puppy Party is a meeting held at our vets by one of the receptionists and the senior practice nurse. The idea is to start to socialise pups with other dogs so that when you are out and about there is less chance of issues. They also use the meeting to talk through some basic puppy care issues, how to integrate them into their new world and to show us around the surgery so we can see where they are kept if they need to go in etc. which is useful as they wouldn’t have time to do that during a normal working day.

We all started with our pups on our laps watching how they reacted to each other. To start with they asked for the 2 staffies to be put on the floor. They very quickly went across to each other and within minutes were chasing around together and getting on quite well. Apparently, this is unusual, there is normally more wariness before the pups start to play together. Queue Brandy & Brinkley – we can do wary, big style!

After a while, the owners of the staffies were asked to call their dogs and then the Jack Russell (Alfie) and Brandy were put onto the floor to see how they would get on. Alfie was quite quick to go exploring the room and didn’t come over to Brandy, however Brandy wasn’t going anywhere. His brother wasn’t there and he stayed at the side of my foot, sitting down and watching. After a few minutes he decided he’d had enough and jumped up to be picked up. So we put Brinkley down to see if the 2 of them would go exploring together, but no, we now had 2 pups that were at the side of us, going no where. After a few minutes, when Brandy realised he wasn’t going to get picked up he went under Neil’s chair and sat down. Alfie started to come across and show an interest and for a moment it looked like Brinkley may be interested, then it passed and he came back and sat with his brother. And that was that!

We picked them both up and they showed no further interest in the other puppies, they both went to sleep. All my concerns at whether they would be too boisterous for the other small puppies were somewhat unnecessary, so it will be interesting to see how they are when we can finally go out for walks and they meet other dogs in a couple of weeks.

When we got them back home, they had their supper and immediately started racing around the house!

How are we doing with those New Years Resolutions?

1. We will learn to sit & stay (sometimes) – Yes, we can do this now. We are very good at sitting. Waiting, well it depends what we are waiting for. If it’s pieces of chicken or scrambled eggs – well, we can wait as long as it takes, if it’s to be brushed, not so good.

2. We will learn to get up the stairs, then we’ll know everything that goes on here – this is a doddle, we can both fly upstairs.

3. We will learn to come downstairs – that’s where our treats are kept – this weekend we both managed the whole set of stairs. It’s a bit trickier than going up but we get rest stops, we keep finding little biscuits to eat.

4. We will have our collars on without scratching – well, 3 out of 4’s not bad – and we wear our harnesses without complaining, isn’t that enough?

We’re still waiting to see what our ‘Goals for February’ are!

Our daily schedule…..

Our daily routine is settling nicely so that I am now finding there are times of the day that I can call my own. Our alarm goes off at 5.45am, but the pups get up about 5.30 and have their own way of waking us up by wandering around the room and trying to get up onto the bed, as yet they are still too small to jump up but they make enough noise to let us know they are there. 6.30am sees us in the kitchen having breakfast followed by half an hour running around, playing and fighting and by 7.30 they are both asleep again.


They’ll next be up around 9am when we have a walk outside in the garden. This is taking longer each day as they find more to explore and although they are still unable to come down the stairs in the house, they do manage the steps down from the decking, even though in Brandy’s case it’s just a matter of diving off and hoping for a soft landing.

Next, another hours sleep and then we have some training – at the moment they can sit, but have very twitching bums so they can only stay still for about 10 seconds – which for a puppy is probably an absolute age, so we are now working on stay – this is going to take a lot of treats. I have to spend some time with each of them on their own, as they distract each other all the time. Brandy seems to have the shorter concentration span when they are both together although he does reasonably ok on his own. When we are out walking they will need to sit and wait at the roadside before crossing so this is something we need to get right in the next 2 weeks as that’s when they’ll be able to go out for real.

They are then ready for another sleep and I can usually go out for a couple of hours, leaving them in the kitchen. The worst they have got up to so far whilst I've been out is getting the tea towels down and using them instead of their bed. So, it’s easy to move things above puppy height before I go out.


We have another hour of madness when I get back and they are generally sleeping when Neil comes in from work – it can take a bit of effort to get them up to go and meet him sometimes, but then we seem to have 2-3 hours of madness. They seem to like the evenings and spend the longest time playing, chasing around the house and generally causing chaos. This works well to tire them before bedtime and they now understand that ‘upstairs’ means it’s bedtime. And then, we’re back into the same routine tomorrow.

They’ve now been home for 3 weeks………

..... and it’s difficult to remember back to how it was before the pups were at home. Each morning we are greeted by 2 puppies who are so happy to see us, some mornings they can’t wait for us to wake up so they wake us up by running around the bedroom, and trust me they may only be little, but on a wooden floor, they may as well be a herd of elephants - and jumping up at the bed. At the moment they can’t jump onto the bed, but it’s not going to be long.

They have grown so much and developed such great little personalities already I have to keep reminding myself they are only 9 weeks old. Whenever they are awake and things go quiet for a few minutes, you know they are up to mischief somewhere. They love to chew things at the moment and don’t know the difference between what they can chew and what they can’t. They have loads of toys but prefer cardboard boxes. This afternoon, I found they had managed to get onto the bottom shelf of the bookcase and now the road map is missing a corner.

They have started to really enjoy going out into the garden, but anything and everything is eaten if I don’t get to them in time. They love to chew shoe laces and towels and each others ears. They know they shouldn’t and they stop when they are told, but they have very short memories, it’s all of 10 seconds before they start again. They chase each other and fight most of the time they are awake, but they do everything together. They have their own dishes of food, but they both eat out of one and when that is empty, they both move to the other. They have a bed each, but sleep together and of one goes upstairs, the other is only 2 steps behind.

It’s lovely to see them together and I can’t wait until I can take them on proper walks, they are so full of energy and curiosity, I just know they’re going to love going out. I haven’t yet worked out how to stop them tangling their leads up – they dance around each other all the time. Somehow, the idea of them both walking quietly side by side is unlikely to become a reality so I’ll have to work something out.

A busy day……

This morning saw a trip into Sheffield to my old office so I that Brandy & Brinkley could meet everyone. This was the longest car journey they had done so it was good to see how well they travel. I’m sure that having the 2 of them is making so many things easier, because they are company for each other, so there doesn’t seem to be the same separation anxiety that Ben, my last Cavi had. Ben would only settle in the car if he could see me and so he travelled on the front passenger seat, with his own doggy seatbelt on. If I tried him elsewhere in the car he just barked and howled like a demented dog though out the whole journey. These 2 seem quite happy in their car crate together and there doesn’t seem to be any connecting memories linking the car with the visit to the vets.

They were both brilliant when we got to the office. They are very familiar with people so have no worries about going to others for cuddles, and they are very affectionate pups, they love cuddles – not really bothered where they come from. After a few minutes they started to explore, lots of offices and a whole new world of smells to discover. But so much visiting soon tired them out and they were soon quite happy to be back in the car and once home, they slept soundly.

In the afternoon I had a hospital appointment, which if it was like the last one would take about and hour , maybe a bit longer, so I settled them into the kitchen and locked up. Unfortunately, there were a few delays at the hospital and they ended up being left for almost 3 hours. I could only imagine what I would find when I opened the kitchen door. I expected a lot of mess, and 2 fairly unhappy pups. When I opened the kitchen door I was met by 2 little faces lifted up from where they had been sleeping on their cushion, there was no mess and they trotted across to greet me with tails wagging rapidly. What little stars!

To finish the day on, when it was time for bed, we decided to let them start climbing the stairs to see how far they could get on their own. I went up ahead and Neil followed behind in case of difficulties. Brandy flew up the whole flight and Brinkley took a breather 2 steps from the top, but also managed to climb to the top all on his own, I can see that we will need to keep a close eye on them until they can get downstairs safely!

Into the world outside.

So far we had not let the pups out onto the garden as there are 2 very large cats that come from neighbours houses and use our garden as a through route. The pups are so small we are worried that if the cats see them they may do them some harm. But Brandy & Brinkley are growing very quickly and have doubled in size since we brought them home. So, today we decided we would try them outside on the decking on their leads. We have been getting them familiar with their harnesses, which they are more tolerant of than their collars, but I am hopeful that when they realise that harness equals walkies, they may very soon come to love them.

So, the first challenge is to get their harnesses on correctly. Even the smallest harness I could find is too big for them and Brandy somehow can move around inside his but after a few minutes they were both in their harness with leads attached and we carried them out onto the decking for the first time.

At first they both just stood as if attached to our ankles, not venturing a step. It was cold and slightly windy and they had just come from a very cosy centrally heated room – and I really thought we would be going nowhere today and just going back inside. But, I was wrong. After a few minutes they both started to take very tentative steps. We have a step from one level to another on the decking which is less than the height of the stairs so they both handled that without any bother, up and down.

We only kept them outside for a few minutes but they did manage a couple of lengths of the deck with the help of a couple of treats to encourage them before they both started back towards the door. Brandy (with the black harness & lead) actually looked as if he was enjoying himself.Once back inside, their harnesses off, they both seemed totally un-phased by their trip outside but they did both snuggle up together so they probably weren’t impressed with the cold – can’t say I blame them.

Do we not like that!

Brinkley & Brandy are 8 weeks old, and that means it’s time for our visit to the vets for their first injection. They have a travel cage in the back of the car that we have been getting them used to and they seem happy enough in the car, we’ve been out a few times. I just have to remember to drive around corners gently otherwise they end up running from one side to another. They are always quiet whilst we are travelling and don’t seem stressed when we arrive. That was about to change.

When we got to the vets it was full of a lot of very large dogs. Things took a downward turn when a rather large Retriever decided to bark – not something Brinkley & Brandy were very keen on, but I got them settled down again, and we waited, along with a couple more new puppies who were obviously there for the same reason.

After about 30 minutes it was our turn, and they both behaved very well whilst the vet gave them a general check over. Brandy was extremely well behaved and took his injection with the smallest of noises and that was that , Brinkley however, not so simple – he created at the highest volume of his little voice. Not a happy puppy and he let all the waiting surgery know it. When we got back home he was shaking like a leaf and wouldn’t leave my side. It concerned me that he would associate travelling in the car with a bad experience. So once I had calmed him down and he had stopped shaking and gone to sleep I called Dad to see if he was in for a visit and a coffee.

A little later, we loaded them both into the car again and as expected Brinkley was not happy, but we went to Dad’s, they had a little explore and Brandy seemed to bring Brinkley out of his mood a bit and then we had another journey home to do. This time Brinkley was much better when we put him in the car and by the time we got home he was back to his normal self. They both slept well that night, probably due to a stressful day and the effect of their jabs, but at least we seem to have 2 puppies who are still happy to go in the car. Just as well, we have it all to do again in 2 weeks!

With the speed of lightening……….

Brinkley has developed an extreme ability to get through doors, he moves so quickly. I have deliberately kept them away from the hallway so that there is no risk of them either getting out of the front door onto the driveway or getting upstairs and risking falling. However, on at least 2 occasions, despite our best efforts, he has got through a door with us, without us knowing. I had gone from the kitchen to the hallway being very careful not to let either of them follow me through the door and yet when I went back into the kitchen a few minutes later Brandy was sat there waiting for me, on his own.

I went through the other rooms that lead from the kitchen and there was no sign of Brinkley, so I thought I might as well check the hallway although I was convinced he wouldn’t be there, and there he was, sat quite patiently waiting for me to let him back in! Brinkley has developed into a curious puppy who is quite fearless. He is the one that will lead and Brandy will follow, into small spaces, dark rooms, under furniture – always Brinkley goes first and Brandy follows. Yet Brandy is the little toughy of the 2, being much more likely to start fights between the 2.

I decided it would be useful to teach them to get up and down stairs safely so that if they did ‘escape’ into the hallway, I would have less to worry about. So, off we went for a trip to the bottom stair, to see how well they would do at climbing the first step. I sat on the 3rd step and called them up to me with a treat for each of them. Both were quite quick to get their front paws up but neither could work out what to do with their back legs. As much as they tried they could get them to co-ordinate. I let them try a few times and then went down to them let them have their treat and took them back into the room. We would try again tomorrow!

Brinkley & Brandy - New Year Resolutions:

Our New Year Resolutions are:

1. We will learn to sit & stay (sometimes)
2. We will learn to get up the stairs, then we’ll know everything that goes on here.
3. We will learn to come downstairs – that’s where our treats are kept
4. We will have our collars on without scratching.

What Brinkley & Brandy don’t realise – this is probably all going to be achieved in January, so we will need to set some new targets for the rest of the year. I notice they haven’t resolved to get all their puddles in the right place!

They have started having their collars on for short spells, to get used to them. They look really cute in them but are certainly not happy. I’m sure when we are able to go out for walks and they connect the 2 things, collar on means walks in the park, their tolerance levels will dramatically increase.

Today, I left them alone for the first time since bringing them home, just half an hour while I popped round the corner to Tesco. They were confined to the kitchen area, where they can do little damage. We have a car crate for travelling and I popped them in there but left the door open so they could get out if necessary. At some point they decided to get out of the crate, drag 2 towels off the lower shelf of the butchers block and settle down underneath with the towels for a cushion. Who needs posh cushions?