Training : "Settle Buddy, Settle"

At dog training we were told that it is good to have a word that you use to calm your dog down when they are getting a bit carried away or if they get upset.

Some people use the word "gentle" but we say "settle". You can train your dog every time you stroke him. We use long gentle strokes and say in a calm voice "settle Buddy settle".

Toilet training (part 2)

Buddy is an inside dog (he is allowed on the couch) and toilet training was something we were a bit worried about. It was a lot easier that we thought! Dogs pretty much toilet train themselves because they have a natural instinct to want to keep their den clean. This means that they actually prefer to go outside to the toilet.

At this age (3 months in this photo) Buddy mainly had accidents when no one was home to let him out. Or sometimes when he was heading for the door but didn't quite get there on time.

PS at 4 months he was almost totally reliable with going outside. Now (at 6 months) he knocks at the door to be let out when he needs to go to the toilet. (smart dog!)

Training Buddy

The dog trainer at the Dog Training Club that we belong to says that every dog should have one good trick. Buddy's trick is to dance on his back legs. But in this photo he got a bit too excited by the training treats (bits of cheese) - he loves cheese so much that is actually air borne here!

These dogs are very smart. It took about half an hour to teach Buddy to fetch a ball and return it. It took him about 5 minutes to learn to sit. I have had other dogs that never learned to do these simple tasks.

So we think Buddy is a pure genius!

Getting along with humans

What is Buddy's temperament like? Well as you can see, he is quite a placid and tolerant pet. He is easy going and puts up with a lot, including the children carrying him around like a teddy bear at times and then ignoring him at other times.

Our Vet's website has some good articles that you can read about introducing a dog into your family.

Buddy's personality so far is lovely, he is cheeky and playful and fits right in with in our family. When there is a lot of activity in the house he is always happy to get involved and when no body is home or the house is quiet he is happy to chill out and sleep.

Toilet training (part 1)

When Buddy first came home, we just made sure that we took him outside each time he woke up from a nap and after food. When we make the effort to do that he is very good. Realistically puppies don't gain full control of their bladders until around 6 months or age, sometimes older.

Cody's owners bought a special dog loo, a piece of synthetic grass that you can leave inside for your dog to go on. They live in a fully carpeted apartment and work longer days, so this was a good solution for them. For Pet Loo and other products you can check out the Pookinuk website, they have some good news items and videos too.

Sleeping like a baby

We were concerned about whether Buddy would cry at night. We didn't want him to be distressed and wanted him to have a smooth transition into our family, to bond with us and to feel loved. So he wouldn't feel lonely we put his bed in the kids room at night. In this photo he has decided to sleep behind a suitcase in the office ...

One website (K9Web) had some really good advice about Crying at Night-

Your puppy wants to be with the rest of the "pack" at bedtime. This behavior is highly adaptive from the standpoint of dog behavior. When a puppy becomes separated from its pack it will whine, thereby allowing it to be found and returned to the rest of the group.

This is why so many books on puppies and dog behavior strongly recommend that you allow your puppy/dog to sleep with you in your room to reduce the likelihood of crying at night.

First day at home (part 2.)

Before they went to school the kids took some old socks that they had been wearing and stuffed a small teddy into each one. We put these in Buddy's bed so that he would feel snug, like he did sleeping surrounded by his mum and littermates. He would also get used to the smells of our family.

This seemed to work, and he didn't wake us up at all the first night. He didn't really wake us during the night with crying at all. The first few nights he was a bit fretful when we put him to bed, and he took a while to settle. But once he got to sleep he stayed in his bed until about 6am.

First day at home (part 1)

Butterscotch was sent to us by plane and Annie had packed a cloth in the crate with him. This was so he could have something with his mum's scent on it. We put the cloth in his bed so that he could be surrounded by familiar smells.

When I brought Butterscotch home the kids were all at school and it was good to bring him home to a quiet house, as he was a bit stunned and confused by the new environment (you can see in the photo he looks a little sad).

Designer dogs - are they good value?

Designer dogs aren't free but a good dog breeder puts in lots of hard work long before you adopt your puppy. It is important to find out from the breeder what your pup's parents are like and also how your puppy will be raised in the 8 weeks before you adopt him or her.

As you can see from the photo, Annie and her family also handled the pups a lot, so they were able to get used to people from birth.

We think that Annie's dogs are excellent value, especially considering how much time and care she takes with them. Some designer dogs can sell for up to $3000 - according to a recent SMH article!

Butterscotch at 6 weeks of age

This is Buddy when he was about 6 weeks of age. He was a bit bigger when he came to live with us, about 8 weeks of age.

Some places will sell dogs this young, as little as 6 weeks of age. But that is one of the things we liked about Annie, that she keeps her pups a little longer, giving them extra time with their mum.

Being with their mum and littermates longer helps a pup to learn how to be a dog and helps them to learn social skills. Annie usually keeps the puppies with their mum until about 8 weeks.

What kind of food do cavoodles like best?

A couple of weeks before we picked up Buddy, the breeder, Annie sent us a good summary of how to feed and care for our new puppy. This was a great help so that we could start buying in the supplies that we would need.

Annie uses the "Evolutionary Diet" or "BARF" diet with her dogs. Dr Ian Billinghurst developed this diet, believing that processed diets are just as bad for dogs as they are for people.

You can read the Barf Philosophy or Dr Billinghurt's website. We decided it was a good idea to follow this approach.

PS Buddy loves the Barf dog food, he also enjoys left-overs, especially roast dinners, but chicken necks are his very favorite. He wont eat canned dog food, probably because he is so clever he knows it isn't good for him.

Where's my mum?

He looks a bit lost without his mum and littermates around him. This photo is taken about 2 weeks before Buddy came to live with us.

At this stage we were preparing ourselves by reading lots of info about dogs. We found a great book at the school jumble sale (for only $2) called "The Perfect Puppy: How to Raise a Problem-Free Dog". The author is Gwen Bailey, a very well known dog trainer, who has lots of great on-line articles about dog behavior and socialization, including "Ingredients for the Perfect Puppy".

(our puppy is already perfect - just look as his little face!)

Peppy the poodle

This is Butterscotch's dad, Peppy. Buddy looks heaps more like his dad than his mum.

Annie told us that Peppy and Peggy's pups are usually about 8 kg when fully grown, although sometimes one ends up a little smaller. Annie wondered if the smaller pups could mean that Peppy might have some toy poodle in his background somewhere.

When we picked up Buddy at the airport, his sister Lucy was also being picked up. She was very much smaller than Buddy, and very sweet too. She obviously takes after the poodle side of the family.

The pick of the litter

Butterscotch is one month old in this photo. He has that look on his face like he is just about to speak ...

You can see he is a really robust and healthy little guy. He is slightly bigger than his siblings, but Annie told us that they usually all grow to about the same size as adult, around 8 kg although Buddy might be slightly bigger.

The cavoodles are a great sized dog for our family. They aren't so small that they would get trampled on by our very active kids, and they aren't too big either.

Big dogs make bigger messes, I remember the Labrador and the Alsatians that our family had when I was a kid, they were much harder work to take care of.

Butterscotch - 10 days old

This is Buddy at about 10 days of age, he hasn't opened his eyes yet but you can see how big and strong he is.

It was great that Annie sent us regular photos of our new pup, so that the kids could follow his progress.

We also felt like we bonded to him and got to know him through the photos. And of course we started to notice that our puppy was the cutest one :)

Butterscotch's first photo

14th January 2007

One day old Butterscotch with his siblings Jack, Toby and Lucy. Butterscotch, or Buddy for short, is the one on the left of the photo with the cute white stripe.

Buddy was a bit bigger than the others at first, but Annie the breeder told us that usually they grow to roughly the same size. Most of them will be around 8 kg as adults.

Why get a "designer" or hybrid dog?

There was a great article in the Sydney Morning Herald recently about designer dogs, A Bit of Ruff , which says "Cute pet or unwelcome mongrel? The rise of the hybrid pooch has rocked the dog world."

A great article which debunks some of the arguments that have been put forward against designer dogs, also known as hybrid dogs or purpose-bred dogs. So yes, we do understand that a cavoodle isn't a real breed of dog, really it is just a glorified mutt.

However, in choosing a hybrid dog we were hoping for a pet that had the best qualities of two dog breeds, without some of the hereditary problems of a pure breed dog.

PS - 6 months later we are very happy to report that Buddy seems to be the ideal cross-breed, he has the gentle, loving nature of the cavalier, he is smart and he doesn't shed at all!

Meeting a cavoodle

September 2006

At a Cafe one Saturday morning we noticed this adorable little guy. By the look of him, we thought he might be a cavoodle, so of course we had to say hello.

The kids fell in love with this gorgeous, friendly pup, and his owners put us in contact with Annie, the breeder.

Cody was so sweet, he was the best advertising a dog breeder could hope for! But I still wanted to check Annie out for myself. I emailed her many times and also phoned her several times. I wanted to feel confident that she was an ethical, responsible dog breeder.

I was more than happy when I spoke to her and felt that she had genuine a love for her dogs and would take good care of our puppy.

Choosing the right dog for us (part 2)

We did a few on-line surveys, including the one on Pet Net, to help us decide which kind of dog would be best for our family. The select a pet questionnaires kept telling us that a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel would be a good dog for us. And this lead us to consider getting a cavoodle.

In this photo you can see Butterscotch with his mum, Peggy, who is a cavalier. We think Buddy is the one closest to his mum's head in this picture. You can already see he is a beauty!

Choosing the right dog for us (part 1)

It took us a long time to decide we were ready for a dog. And while we were thinking it over we spent a lot of time researching what kind of dog would be best for our family.

We wanted a dog that was going to be good with children but that would happy inside most of the time and didn't need a lot of exercise. My hubby was also pretty keen on a low-shedding kind of dog, so we were attracted to the idea of a poodle-cross.

This photo is Peppy the poodle, he is Butterscotch's dad. We liked the idea of a poodle because they are so smart and the new poodle crosses (hybrid dogs) are supposed to be great with kids.

See Burke's Backyard website for his road test of various dog types:
Top Ten Dogs (both cavaliers and poodles get a mention)
Cavoodles (a dog that combines the best of two breeds ... we think so!)