puppy questions, its been so long!
ok so as u all know i am preparing my house to bring home our pup. for the first time i a buying an x pen and i have never owned one but now that i have a job i dont want to leave him in his crate for the hrs i am gone. so i want to put him in the x pen with dollar so she can keep him company or i might just put im in there by himself but one thing is certain. he will have accidents and i know this but i was thinking of putting puppy pads down so it will help with the accidents or i will buy the potty patch at petsmart. im leaning more towards the potty patch as its more like grass but will it defeat the purpose of potty training? at night he will be in his crate.
also i have seen multiple discussions on dog food. i feed my pets wellness and if he dosnt agree with it then thats ok but should i get the regular puppy food or the large breed puppy food?? i see that most lean towards getting the large breed puppy food but why is the reason for this?? i feed teddy the normal wellness puppy food and he did great on it.
* i know a lot of u dont agree with feeding corgi puppies puppy food but i want to for my pup for the DHA thats in it
thanks!
and thanks to those who answered my question on weather he will be a red headed tri, its very exciting!
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Rachael & Waffle on
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Large breed puppy food has a better amount of calcium than regular puppy food, to prevent safe and slow growth of the skeleton! If you go for puppy food, definitely go for large breed. I do have to add that Wellness does not have a particularly stellar amount of DHA in it. If you want your puppy to have more DHA, you can add oily fish like sardines or mackerel to his diet, or add fish oil!
As for the X-pen, I've never had a puppy so I will leave that up to others.
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Permalink Reply by Rebecca Marie O'Bryan on
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thank you, i will be sure to add fish oil to his diet:)
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Permalink Reply by Jane on
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I'd do the large breed puppy formula personally.
How long are you going to be gone at work? If it's just a few hours I would skip the pads. But if it's going to be quite a while I would probably put down some newspaper or something.
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since i work at an animal clinic and i work in the back doing kennels (boarding) it varies. like today it being monday after it being a big game weekend i was work from 7am until 11 but on slow days its from 7am to 9:30. i leave until 3pm and come back until 5:30 but my husband gets home at 4:00 so he will only be alone for an hr in the evening.
its perfect hrs for our pup:)
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Permalink Reply by Beth on
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Here's what I did with the x-pen. I put down newspapers over the entire bottom of the pen in the beginning. I'd come home at lunch, take out pup, then pick up the soiled papers and put down clean ones while pup ate his lunch.
When I came home from work at the end of the day, I took pup out, then came in and picked up the papers and did NOT put down new ones. The rule was, if we were home, there were no papers. We didn't want him thinking it was equally ok to go on papers or outside. We wanted him to think going outside was wonderful, and going on papers was just what you did when you had no choice. I'd put them down again in the morning before we left, or the night before to save time because he was locked in the crate at night and did not have access to them.
After about a week or so, I started papering only half the pen; we found he went in the farthest corner away from his crate and water bowl. And then awhile after that, we started leaving down papers that only were about the size of two unfolded sections; about a quarter of the pen.We hooked up the crate so it was attached and sat outside the x-pen. That gave him lots of room. The pen links nicely to the sides of the crate, so the doorway of his crate acted like a second gate to the pen, if you can picture that.
At night he was in his crate.
The reason I liked the papers instead of puppy pads is that it still left a puddle of sorts (paper isn't real absorbent) and so it made him try like heck to hold it til I got home. I knew he was getting the idea when instead of coming home to two or three tiny puddles, I came home to one big one, meaning he was waiting.
Once he had not left any puddle at all for about two weeks, I picked the papers up completely and did not put them down again. I'd say he was probably around 5 months old at that point.
It seemed to work well. He did pee whenever his feet hit carpet for the longest time, but he did that when we first brought him home too so I think it was a personal quirk and not the papers.
My fear with the puppy pads is they are absorbent enough to lock away the wet spot, which might make the pup disinclined to try so hard to hold it while you are gone. I was gone about 4.5 hours at a stretch which is why he was about 5 months old before he could make it that long.
As for the puppy food, I'd go with a large breed formula, since Corgis have a large bone structure.
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Oh, and I got a cheap sheet of vinyl flooring from Lowe's and put it under the pen so my good floor would not get ruined by either accidents or scratching puppy. Thanks to a breeder we know for the idea on the entire setup; it's what she does with all her pups and adolescents.
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Permalink Reply by Bev Levy on
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What Beth said! This is exciting and I know you will have lots of fun with the new puppy. Have you narrowed the name search down?
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we have decided to name him scout as when we were there he would play with us and then go off on his little adventure and he wasnt scared of anything lol
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but i am still open to names! just in case ;)
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thank you for all your info Beth, u have been a great help! u just saved me $40 from the potty patch/pee pads.
i never thought they would try to hold it longer if the paper wasnt as absorbent but it makes perfect sense. i also didnt think to connect to pen up to his kennel so thank u for that too. the pen/kennel will be on my kitchen tile so when he has an accident it will be an easy clean up.
i will be sure to get one of those doggie water bottles as i would hate for him to spill his water and lay in a wet mess all day
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Here's a picture of the setup we used. You do need some space, but it gives puppy a nice comfy place to sleep, and one that is well away from where he might have peed.
He almost never pooped in the pen, even when he was tiny.
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