Buddy's first trip to the beach

Here is buddy on his first trip to the off-leash beach. He wasn't too keen on getting his feet wet today. But we are hoping that once he gets used to the surf that he will go in a bit further.

We try to give Buddy a good balance of off-leash and on-leash exercise. At most off-leash parks and beaches there are other dogs to play with so it is good chance to socialize too.

As you can see from the photo, Butterscotch really loves his ball!

Train your Dog in Five Minutes

The ABC website has a great new section, called Wagging School, which gives some excellent training tips.

Training doesn't take much time, you can use every interaction with your dog as an opportunity to train him. Having a dog that behaves nicely makes owning him so much less stressful.

In this photo we are practicing the comand "come". Buddy runs when he hears the command, he knows we will probably give him a liver treat.

Cody & Buddy give Pablo a birthday kiss

Hey Pablo, that tickles!

All my favourite relatives were there

Here is the whole gang, Cody with Pixie in the front and Buddy with Pablo in the back. All of these pups came from Annie, and you can see that they somehow realize that they are related.

Buddy can be a bit quiet around other dogs, but he took to these guys right away. It is like they recognise that they are a family . ..

All of these pups are good natured, affectionate and lovable. They are very good with people, including children and also socialize well with other dogs.

Happy Birthday Pablo!

Buddy takes a bath

We gave Buddy a bath today, he doesn't look very impressed, but at least he smells nice now. Because he is mainly an indoor dog he doesn't get very dirty or smelly. So far we have found that if we bath him properly about once month it is enough. Although if he has played in mud at the park we give him a quick wash in between times. We also have a professional groomer once every three months, so he gets a really thorough washing then.

Cavoodle Family Reunion

In the park today Butterscotch met up with his brother, half brother and cousin!

The dog in the top left photo is Pixie, Buddy's cousin (we are pretty sure their mums are sisters). On the bottom left is Cody, who is now 1 year old. Cody is a full brother to Buddy and they are very similar in colouring.

The black dog next to Cody is Pablo who is nearly 1 year old and a half brother to Buddy and Cody. Pablo, Cody and Buddy have the same dad and Pablo and Pixie have the same mum. (Which makes Pablo a cousin and a half brother to Buddy?)

The photo on the right has Buddy in front, Cody is standing behind and Ollie is the dog on the right. Ollie is a cavoodle too but no relation!

Puppy Preschool

Before we got Buddy our kids read a couple of excellent, simple books on how to train and care for a puppy. It was good to be prepared in advance and to educate the children on the best ways to interact with a dog.

Attending a Puppy Preschool was very helpful too, all three of our kids attended with Buddy and they learned lots about training and taking care of a dog.

Our vet, the Livingstone Road Animal Health Center, has a puppy preschool. They also have a great website with lots of articles and helpful information.

Loose Lead Walking

We are trying to teach Buddy how to walk on a loose lead, so that he doesn't pull at the lead as he walks. He is pretty good at it and a quick learner.

One of the best thing about walking the dog is that he gets to socialize with other dogs and people. He is a friendly puppy, especially with people. He is getting much more confident with other dogs too.

Grooming Butterscotch

Butterscotch is a pretty easy dog to care for. He doesn't shed at all but he does need grooming regularly. We have bathed him at home a couple of times and he seems to enjoy playing in the water. And we have also used a great mobile groomer called Your Critter Sitter.

Since grooming is something that we are not that good at keeping up with, we have decided to have Buddy's coat cropped short once the weather gets a bit warmer.

I have never owned a floppy eared dog before and I didn't realise that you need to clean inside their ears. Luckily Buddy is so placid he will let us do this without making a fuss.

Dog Toys

Making sure that Buddy had his own toys was a good idea. He has a little collection of about 6 things and we rotate which ones we leave out for him. Usually on any given day 5 toys will be lost under the couch. We also gave him a decoy shoe, an old sandal that belonged to the kids. But he prefers recently worn shoes, and can often be found asleep with his head inside an ugg boot.

We are encouraging the kids to play with toys with the dog, rather than play wrestling games, which can give dogs the wrong idea about acceptable ways of interacting with humans.

Buddy loves playing fetch, and will fetch a ball, his toy fire hydrant or his toy shoe. He is a very intelligent dog and learned to fetch and return in about 5 minutes! He also loves Mr Squeaky, and will sleep on his or play tug-of-war with him.

Chewing, Biting,Teething & Nibbling

We haven't really had any problems with Buddy chewing up things. He will rip up any paper that you leave on the ground though, but he has his own toys to play with, like Mr Squeaky here, which was a present from Cody.

When I was a kid we had a Labrador who chewed furniture, seriously chewed, turning chair legs in to match sticks. So I have been pleasantly surprised that Butterscotch has not been destructive at all. He will often drag our shoes around the house but he doesn't bite them, and we try to make sure that valuable things aren't left on the floor.

Is having a dog hard work?

Our kids have wanted a dog for years. We finally gave in, but only after extracting promises that they would all help us take care of the new puppy.

In our realistic moments we knew that it would be mainly the parents looking after the dog.

Two months later and it hasn't been so bad, the kids do help with some dog chores and Buddy is a pretty low maintenance dog. It hasn't been anywhere near as much work as we thought it would be.

There is a good article on the Pookinuk website about why pets are great for kids too.

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!