A Life in the Day of Toby (an 18 week old pup)

This is a typical day for Toby:

 

6:30 am

He does not bark, but give a little “yap” or whimpers.  I rush downstairs and let him out of his crate and we race for the door so he can go outside.  He then has a monumental wee and poos.  Jumps up and down and tries to bite me.  I say nothing and put him back in his crate and return upstairs.  He is as quiet as a mouse and goes back to sleep.  On the weekend, so do I .  He then is ready to get up at about 8ish.  If it is a school day then I go upstairs, get dressed, showered etc and shout at my 2 teenage daughters to get out of bed and ready for school.  Downstairs, breakfast prepared and girls pushed out the house in time for school bus.  At abut 8ish I then take Toby for his first walk of the day.  This takes about 30-40 mins.  Back  home for breakfast.

8 -9 am

I then tidy up the kitchen, vacuum all the leaves, plants, mud that Toby has bought into the house – fight with him for shoes, leads, mud etc and generally mess about.

9-10:30

Toby put in his crate and left alone to sleep

11:00 -12:00

Toby outside for toilet and then plays for a while with various toys as he charges around like a lunatic biting, jumping and racing about.

12:00 – 1:00

Toby has a longer walk of about 45 mins across fields, around the farm and generally behaves like a super star.  Home for lunch and more playing around

1:30 – 3:30

Sleep – in his crate (hopefully)

4:00 – 7:00

This is when alien Toby arrives in the house.  He turns into a complete lunatic.  Racing up and down from room to room and wants to be with me all the time.  If I sit down for any length of time to read or watch TV, he jumps all over me, will not sit down, fetchs different toys from his box and goes into total mental mode.  He can now reach all of the kitchen surfaces and spends most of his time on two legs with his front paws on the work surfaces, much shouting of OFF has no effect whatsoever

I take him for a 30 min walk in the hope it will calm him down (it doesn’t) and he comes home and is still a total maniac.  This is compounded by girls arriving home from school at 5pm which winds him up further and then I start cooking followed by Husband arriving home at 6-6:30 (just as he is calming down and that sets him off again.  Put in his crate (against his wishes) at about 7pm and he promptly falls asleep

7:00 – 9:00

Sleeps in his crate (the door is open)

9:00

Desperate to come and watch TV and sit on my lap . Spend 20 minutes trying to force him to stay on the floor and not jump all over us, steal our slippers, try and get chococlate wrappers out of the bin (the girls ate them earlier, honest!). rushes about and will not sit still

10:30

Outside to go to toilet, give him a nibble and off to bed for the night – Do not hear another sound from him until6:30 next day and we start all over again!

 As you can see we operate on a 2 hour cycle roughly.  Regardless of variations to this plan (more exercise/less exercise), he is always totally mental at about 4pm – where am I going wrong? 

He is very funny to watch as he tries to run like a grown up and fails – he is all legs and not very elegant.  Also, when I put the lead on him he thinks this is a great game and tries to carry it in his mouth for the first 5 minutes of every walk.  He is most definately true to the breed and wants to be a Champion Velcro Vizsla he would be top of that class!

I am sure some of this he will grow out of and he is the best Viz in the World

Toby’s Trial and Tribulations

Toby is now nearly 18 weeks old and manages to be either a super hero or the most annoying bundle ever!.

For example, we went for a walk. This is on a quiet country road for about half-mile, then over fields full of sheep, then a farm track for another half-mile. We set out on the lead and he walked next to me without pulling at all. He was happy and lovely. We then put him over the stile and into the sheep field. He tugged and pulled (understandable) and then ate every bit of sheep poo he could lay his hands on – despite much time spent in kitchen telling him to DROP – he totally ignored this instruction. On the farm track he is off the lead and was lovely – he came rushing up to me when recalled and would sit and wait for his treat. Then he found half of a long-dead blackbird. He rushed off with it – then lay in the grass and rolled himself all over it. Once I caught up with him, he picked it up and rushed off and then tried to eat it and roll in it as much as possible. I managed to eventually distract him with a toy and treat but he really behaved as if I was not there, he was deaf, dumb and blind to me in every way. Grrr…

Then he was back on the lead on the road and he walked like a hero – he has been interested in chasing any car that passed, but this time he ignored them and walked lovely.

We then came home, he sat and as I try to take off his lead he just bites and bites my hand – put treat in other hand and finally removed his lead. He then decided that despite having just had a lovely walk, he would poo in the garden instead – despite having poo’ed on that walk on other ocassions.

I then put him in his bed for an hour and all was fine. When we went into the sitting room to watch tv he would not sit on his “blankey” but was determined to eat my shoes, bite my arm and race around like a lunatic. My husband then came home, Toby then jumped on him – he never tries to bite him. Husband told him to sit on his bed, which he duly did and not a peep out of him again. Sat there, no biting, no jumping good as gold.

When he has jumped up I put on my deepest growly voice but to no avail – Graham comes home, does the same and Toby behaves. Why does he bite at me and refuse to sit on his bed, but never with Graham. ?

Toby is the most loveable little chap and will be so beautiful, but boy is he hard work sometimes.

Will he ever stop eating sheep poo and rolling in unspeakable stuff?

My first (and probably my only!) Award

 

Rio Rocket has been kind enough to give me this award.  I think it will be the first of many awards, but my mum thinks that this is the ONLY award I will ever get.

I am pleased to have received this from my mentor across the pond. 

love to all

TOBY THE TODDLER

Week 17: Toby still in training..

Toby is very much still in training

He is walking on the lead much better than before – but we still have a very long way to go.  He is biting less (or am I just getting used to looking like a self-harming victim?).  He is excellent at not jumping up on the sofas and will now sit happily on his very large, very comfortable “blankey”. (His “blankey” is in fact a large old bean bag with a king size duvet inside it).

He is learning “drop” and will do that nicely in the kitchen with certain toys, but once outside, with the many distractions and lots of sheep poo he seems to go completely deaf and blind.  He is very good at going into his bed and will often run into his crate with his little yellow duck toy – aahh

He is growing fast and when we put his lead on for a walk he barks and barks and barks, steals my shoes, and tries to take himself for a walk by holding his own lead in his mouth which he is loath to return to me as that means he has to start walking by my side and not run ahead. 

He is eating his food well now and finishes every meal (instead of leaving half of it if something more interesting is going on).

Toby is a strong character and likes his own way (don’t we all?) and sometimes I return from a walk thinking he is wonder dog and the best dog ever and other times I return angry and frustrated with him leaping and biting and being the worst dog ever – a happy medium would be nice.

He has a puppy class again this week (did not have one last week) so hopefully he will be able to show them that he has improved with his walking to heel and will be a good boy

Graham is off the the USA next week (San Jose) so Toby will be the only male in the house – lets hope he does not try and be the alpha male and behaves

 

Week 16: Toby in Training

Toby is in training – as you can see from this pic he can do “SIT” very well

Question for all you other Viz owners – as you can see his feet are huge.  Everyone who meets him takes one look at his paws and says – what big feet you have – you are going to be one large dog.  Do all Viz have big feet or is it just Toby? 

He has been to 2 puppy classes and I am pleased to report that he was the star performer.  No major barking or chasing the other dogs, lots of sitting and “down” and super duper dog.  The car journey’s leave alot to be desired.  He wants to drive the car with me, so we had to use his crate and if you have read earlier posts you will remember that he has managed to force his way through 2 dog guards – both in use at the same time   He does not mind the journey – he is not sick or nervous – just barks for England and is determined to get in and drive.

We have started to get him to walk on the lead properly.  This is, how an i put this… proving to be a little more challenging, bit today he was a star and managed to “heal” whilst being offered a treat without taking my fingers off!  A major step forward.  My fingers are covered in teeth marks and scratched to bits – but he is learning to walk next to me and is not pulling as much as he was.

He is still eating fox and sheep poo (not his own thank goodness) and loves to chew on the stones  (the small ones you can see to the left in the photo above).  He is very keen on racing off with my welly boots just as I am about to put my feet in them

puppies eh!

 

Week 15

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Puppies!

Toby is such hard work:-( He has decided that he likes eating sheep poo and rabbit poo and other dogs poo. Thankfully he is not eating his own.:-( yuk.

He was a little better today and did not eat much of it but I am fed up with shouting “no Toby” or “leave” or “drop” – makes a walk exhausting.  He is brilliant and house trained BUT.. we have two walks, one across the wheat field – he is briliant and will poo in that field, and the other around the farm – he loves this walk, but waits until he comes home before he poos. Drat and darn it

He is jumping up everyone we meet and does not “come” when called as far too many distractions and interesting things going on  He pulls on the lead but thankfully does not run off.  Still puppy classes start this week so hopefully much of this will become a distant memory

In the kitchen he is golden – he will sit, down and stay beautifully – wish he would do the same when we go out.  Are all puppies like this? – YES I hear you say…

Toby already has several derivations of his name: Tobias; Toby-Wan Kenobi, Toblerone; No-Toby; Toby-No and of course Good-Boy Toby. –  He answers to them all

He is biting much less now which is a relief and the cuts and bruises on my arm are all healing nicely.� His teeth are razor sharp and still hurt when he gets it wrong.  I now have a Toby jumper – full of holes and covered in mud

He is a major part of the family now and is getting better every day. He is fast asleep in his crate and looks like a little angel.   He now has a very large bean-bag chair in the family room – he keeps falling off it when he is asleep   aahhh

 

 

Week 14

What a couple of weeks. Firstly as you can see from today’s photo we have had some snow!  Loads of it !Toby thinks its great fun and tried to eat it!

He really likes playing in the snow and he is very over excited!.

Anyway, we went to puppy classes this week.  Not too strenuous – more form filling and meeting other puppies.  He was fairly well behaved and did not bark at all the others, just puppy curiosity.  This was a relief as I really did not want to look like the one whose pup was out of control

The tricky bit was getting him there and back.  The Volvo has a built in dog guard – which he promptly evaded by nipping round the edge of it and onto the back seat!  I found an old dog guard in the garage and erected the 2 end pieces so that he could not go round the sides of the inbuilt dog guard

Toby foiled me again and this time went through the small gap in the middle of the dog guard !

Third short trip I really had him beat and erected the old dog guard from the garage.  The car was imprenetrable – it now had 2 dog guards in place….

The 20 minute trip (including the motorway) passed without incident – lots of barking and yapping and general unhappiness from Toby – he was desperate to sit on my nice leather seats .  He tried to break down the dog guard but to no avail..

Coming home he was much more determined and decided he would “go over the top”..  He forced himself over the top of the dog guard and at one point had his front legs and head through but was stuck trying to force his body and back legs through.  I stopped at the motorway services.  It was very scarey – he could have seriously hurt himself

We were both a tad distressed by the time we got home.  I hae never seen such determination to get what he wanted.  little minx

The next day I dismantled both dog guards and will use his crate to transport him – that should do the trick next week

He is doing well with the training – will do come; sit; down; shake hands; in your bed; stay and take brilliantly – but only in the kitchen.  Once in the great outdoors it all goes out the window and he will do none of these   I think we have quite a bit of work to do on him

We now have a large bean bag in the family room for Toby – he loves it and has almost stopped trying to get onto the sofa.  His bean bag is so large he slides off it when he is asleep

Still tired