Inventory of clothes damaged since I got my puppy.

Well, I've had my puppies for two months now. Here is an inventory of the clothes they have damaged:

Best coat I ever had in my life, only bought it a few months ago, cost me 350 euro and irreplacable - tore a hole in the bottom while jumping up on me.

Nicest dress I own - dug it out of the laundry basket (I've no utility room, and puppies sleep in my kitchen) and tore the hem. Irreplacable.

Second nicest dress I own - just bought it a few days ago - badly damaged by Milton (a sterilizing fluid) which I was using following a mess made on my kitchen floor (foolish of me!). Drove two and a half hours to another town, and then back again, and managed to buy the last replacement dress of this kind left in Ireland.

There's probably more, but that's all I can think of right now.

So, I'm a bit peeved, and am barring the doggies from the house today, while I revaluate clothing procedures and recover from my disappointment. I have bought these green overalls, to put over clothes, but that doesn't stop them from grabbing onto hems.

Am I forever condemned to wearing jeans and tracksuits around my home?

We BADLY need to build an extension, with both a utility room, and a separate dog room.

Awww now come on, you can't blame the dogs they are only pups. They didn't put Milton on your clothes either did they?

I never wear decent stuff round the house, I live in jeans and t-shirts or jumpers because I have dogs.

My dogs have the run of the house and if they get me dirty so what, I just change my clothes. Our whole house has been gutted in the 3 years since we moved in and it has been totally geared up to the dogs. the only thing I wish I'd done differently is to buy muddy paw coloured bedding as my white ones are only on the bed a matter of minutes before they are covered in paw prints :lol:

Incidentally, my house is clean and not a filth tip! I just think that my dogs should enjoy their lives and I should enjoy having them around me :lotsaluv:

Yes it's older stuff worn when home with the dogs...keep the good stuff for outs etc. It's a lesson that we all learn I think... saying that though I have never had any damage dome...unlike when I had my cat she loved the legs and tights bit, ouch!

Donna will tell you that you can eat of my floors :lol: :lol: :lol: ...the house is clean and tidy with 3/4 dogs roaming around, it's just getting a routine that helps. They have their own beds etc but like the couch in the living areas best of all when allowed!

So ditch the dress and live in your scruffs!....lots more comfy :lol:

Alison, wilts, U.K.

you're banning them from the house entirely?Puppies require taking preventative measures to ensure that damage is minimal They don't understand any of what you're so upset about and won't for many many months.

Alison_Leighfield said:

Donna will tell you that you can eat of my floors :lol: :lol: :lol:

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Alison, your floors are cleaner than a lot of peoples crockery :lol: :lol: :lol:

Have you let them back in yet, Cockerspaniel? I can't believe you'd ban them for damaging stuff :roll: Send them to me, I'll have them and they won't get banned from the house.

Be honest with yourself, if it was a child and it damaged something, would you ban it? No? well the same should go for your dogs - neither are the sort of dogs who can be left outside.

IThings will get better after the puppies are grown. Then they won't be so tempted to ruin your stuff. But you took on a big big challenge by having two puppies at once. You have twice the love, but also twice the stress, I think.

think you need to spend some time training them about acceptable and unacceptable behaviors and limits. You need to teach them to no jump up.

As soon as I get home, I have 3 dogs greeting me at the door, all between the ages 2 to 4 years old. And after saying hello to them, I bend down and say "DOWN" (about a thousand times it seems like), as I make sure that none of them jump on me. Two of them never learn. But they know what I mean. I put my hand out, with the palm down and say "Down" at the dog that is starting to jump at me.

But I am with the rest of the folks. I do not wear good clothes at home. As soon as I get home from work, the coat goes in the closet and I change out of my work (good) clothes and into clothes I don't mind getting muddy or covered in hair.

If you haven't lived with dogs for a while, it is a matter of changing your routines to accommodate the puppies and to PUPPY PROOF your house. You can't have things that they can ruin within their reaching distance. Puppy's are fast and can have something they shouldn't have in a wink of any eye.

You could try getting some expandable gates, to keep them out of an area, if you can't get the stuff out of their reach.

I can remember many many moons ago getting upset when something got chewed or destroyed etc....then one day I realized how much more important my sweet pups who love me no matter what are then any material thing I can own. In the scheme of things 40 years from now...what will I remember a fancy dress or expensive furniture or that sweet warm little furry bundle of love...you got it! I will take the fur any day.

I wear casual clothes most of the time, so I don't have to worry about any damage to clothing. At work we wear 'business casual' so I never wear nylons or fragile fabrics.

Things like what you're describing are either entirely accidental or entirely your responsibility, so please don't blame your pups. Puppies need lots of patience, and it takes a long time to train them and for them to mature.

As far as jumping goes, when I took my pups to obedience training, our trainer was kind enough to modify her class for those of us who actually want our dogs to show us their enthusiasm and affection. For me there is no better greeting when arriving home after a hard day's work than to kneel down and invite my doglets to hug me in their own ways and cover me in kisses! :flwr:

Cathy, you sound just like me - my dogs go nuts when I walk through the door. I popped out to get them some dog treats earlier & must have only been gone 20 minutes. The greeting I got when I walked through the front door was wonderful - you'd have thought I'd been away for a week!!!!

It is especially hard to have two puppies at the same time and you are expriencing one of the reasons -- they will chew because they are puppies, and play because they are puppies, and can be hard to watch two at the time just as it would be hard to have two toddlers at once. I know it is one for the 'in future' dept but you're seeing why most breeders and trainers say don't ever get two puppies at once. :shock:

The best rule of thumb is not to have anything that you wouldn't want damaged in reach of puppies, ever, whether that be something you are wearing or might leave within reach. Even pups that never chew -- like Jaspar as a pup -- can suddenly find it interesting months later, like at 10 months, so you need to use caution until they are adults and you are sure they aren't chewers as adults (through judicious training and management). But it is their nature to chew and you cannot change this; but you can make sure they have items to chew which are acceptable and aren;t ever put into the situation of having the opportunity to do things you don;t want them to do. Jaspar and Leo did in a couple of pairs of my nicer shoes as I was so used to not having to be extra careful with just Jaspar. Two dogs, or two puppies, can spur each other on. It was annoying but I knew it was my fault for not having put things safely away and allowing them too much responsibility when both were still in chewing phase. They've never touched a thing as adults.

Regarding punishments: outside isn't the place for a cavalier, especially not a puppy. This is a breed that is a housedog first and foremost, and because it has hundreds of years of breeding to make it want to be as close to you as possible (they were specifically bred to be lapwarmers), they can have very serious problems with separation anxiety develop from being left outside. Cavaliers are not necessarily the right breed for everyone because of this (nor toy breeds generally).

If the two together is seriously proving overwhelming, I'd consider choosing one puppy and rehoming the other through rescue (I can give you contacts for doing this). Almost everyone I know who has opted for two has found this a fairly difficult challenge and there are some sacrifices to be made that don;t always become clear or make sense at the outset, until you are in the midst of dealing with the situation.

Or, I'd recommend getting in a good trainer who might help with solutions that are better than banning the dogs from the house at this young age. If you PM TKC on this board or LisaW, they can perhaps recommend someone in your area (they are both certified trainers/behaviouralists and great at offering coping strategies!).

Before I even got Sabrina my house was puppy proofed. It was kitty proof before that but puppy proofing i had to go to more of an extent. Its not the puppy's fault those things got chewed up. My husband or I know where Sabrina is 99% of the time. The occasional time we don't is when she gets up and wanders in the living room. I don't even have my lamps, tv or anything else electrical plugged in until I am using it, because that 1% means that Sabrina being a puppy she could get ahold of a cord and chew it and I would hate for her to get shocked. Never has happened but I would rather have to take that extra minute to plug something in than have anything happen to her. As for dirty laundry well she doesn' t really ever wander in our closet, sometimes but I take her back out immediately and tell her a firm no. We went thru a period of about 3 weeks of grabbing onto my hems and I gave her a firm no, I was advised of this by a great person on this board and I stuck to it and along with the firm no I would then ignore her. It took about 3 weeks and she doesn't grab hems at all anymore and as far as biting it only happens occassionally, and a firm no is all it takes now. It didn't happen over night but constant work with her and she is doing very well. A puppy is like having a baby and patience, patience, patience is all I can say.

Just wanted to share what we did with electrical cords - sprayed bitter apple on all cords, and resprayed every 1-2 weeks. We also used cardboard boxes to block our pups from all electrical outlets.

Hmm, good idea. I will get some of that and try it on some items. Anything you can't spray it on?

I sprayed it on wood furniture legs and the fringes of rugs, when they were teething. I didn't spray it on curtains or upholstery fabric, though.

:lol: :lol: I also had to spray the corners of the cardboard boxes that were blocking the electrical outlets!

Maxxs_Mummy said:

..the only thing I wish I'd done differently is to buy muddy paw coloured bedding as my white ones are only on the bed a matter of minutes before they are covered in paw prints :lol:

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:lol: I can't think of any clothes that were destroyed, but i think that's more a matter of blocking it out of my mind than that it hasn't happened. The house is pretty much set up to be safe for and from zack. Long before i got him, i prefer jeans and T shirts so it's no big thing. As far as chewing goes, he's only damaged two things since I've had him, a laptop AC adapter cord which still works fine but was brand new, days old, when he put teeth marks through it. And he demolished a small camera lens brush that had belonged to my father before he died. my bad. i should've had it put away.

About jumping up and tearing hems, sounds like something that needs to be addressed with some kind of training. They can learn not to do that, and they must learn, so that you can be free to wear what you enjoy wearing. You might contact a trainer that could come out and work individually with them. I dont' think it would take them long to learn not to do that at all. I haven't trained Zack not to jump up yet. I should. It's the only behavior that is socially inept that he has. But i haven't gotten to it yet.

Incidentally, my house is clean and not a filth tip! I just think that my dogs should enjoy their lives and I should enjoy having them around me :lotsaluv:

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Actually i think Zack has made me a better housekeeper. He leaves me no choice but to wash my floor when he poops on it, for example, which happened after i gave him Program and it gave him diarrhea, whereas without poop or pee, i would not wash the floor since it doesn't get very dirty otherwise. Because of zack's fleas, i have vacuumed more in the past few weeks than i've vacuumed in the previous years! (i have a woman that cleans my place every two weeks so it does get vacuumed, but not by me, and not in between her visits).

I'm shocked to think that you would put the pups outside rather than train them and have your house puppy proofed to start with. :yikes :yikes

I'm sorry, I know you're receiving a bit of a backlash here, but when I saw the title of the thread I thought it was going to be a "fun" what have your pups ruined sort of thread....

When Rupert was a pup, the naughiest thing he did was to pull over a vase of flowers - he was a very keen gardener, great at deadheading :badgrin: - and break the vase...it was MY FAULT, I had popped upstais and left him in the sitting room on his own.

As others have said, pups are like babies/toddlers, they need a lot of TIME, PATIENCE and ATTENTION - Cavaliers NEED to be with you and involved in what you are doing, otherwise it is cruel to have one.

Please think seriously about whether you are the right home for these babies...

Maaxs Mum, Karlin, Alison, Charleen, Cathy Moon, mlc, Judy, thanks for the tips on what to wear around one's puppies and for the other tips re. gates, training, etc.

Er, Nancy, I never said I was banning them from the house entirely. :yikes They were brought in at the end of the afternoon, after I had implemented a few changes in procedure within. In fact, they had quite a nice time outside, as we had someone outside - a doglover- tidying up the garden for three hours of the afternoon. And Nicky, while I certainly didn't ADEQUATELY puppy-proof my LAUNDRY in the kitchen, I'm afraid you jumped to some erroneous conclusions when you deduced I don't train my puppies at all and didn't puppy-proof my house at all to start with. That said, Nancy and Nicky, your hearts are in the right place and I appreciate that you want the best for my two little fur-babies, so that's good.

Karlin, there are both advantages and disadvantages to obtaining two puppies simultaneously. Both my husband and I are very happy that we got the two, for several reasons. They get on famously, and clearly love each other. They love to play with each other too. They keep each other company at night, and will keep each other company during those times we both have to be out. For anyone who has been following my toilet-training saga, I'm pleased to report that both puppies are now largely house-trained, following a week and a half of the "salary hike regime"(i.e. I massively increased their reward for business done). This now means that I am able to give them increased access to other rooms in the house. Even had them up on our bed last night for a few hours.

I'm so pleased this is working out - thank you for being brave enough to respond, I guess maybe we are very quick to assume sometimes...you are right in thinking that the dogs' welfare is our number one concern though.

It really sounds like you have the potty training well under way, which makes life very much easier.

Please keep us posted, it's a huge adjustment having two puppies and we really want you all to be happy.

I'm glad it's working out OK now but tbh you did say

Cockerspaniel said:

So, I'm a bit peeved, and am barring the doggies from the house today, while I revaluate clothing procedures and recover from my disappointment. I have bought these green overalls, to put over clothes, but that doesn't stop them from grabbing onto hems.

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Which may have led others to believe that you had left them in the garden alone.

We are after all, only thinking of the pups :flwr: