Jax at 12 weeks

Jax has reached 12 weeks! Hooray! All sorts of things happen at 12 weeks. Last jab has already been and gone and he's now going on daily walks with us on the fen. He gets to enjoy new treats and toys that have 'not for puppies under 12 weeks' in the small print on the back of the packets and have been, until now, out of bounds. more become available at 4 months! And he will go to puppy classes - when we manage to get him into one! Fully booked so far.

He's enjoying his walks and gets excited when he sees his lead come out. He still needs to meet more dogs but he's still fearful of larger dogs. It'll come.

He's having mixed success with the car. He's fine on shorter runs, but on longer ones or runs which involve 15 mins each way he has been sick a couple of times. Practice should make perfect. We hope. Mind you, the fen roads are so bloody lumpy they're enough to make me feel sick sometimes!

Our biggest problem has been synching his routine with ours and I think we are just about getting there. Until a few nights ago he was spending most of the evening asleep and waking at 10pm as we were winding down and readying for bed! With night-time training nearly complete (fingers crossed) it looks like we're getting in to a better routine from morning to night.

Toileting is generally OK. He's still having the occasional mishap, but he's getting better at letting us know when he wants to go outside. A couple of times he's toileted outside his toilet pen even when he's had access and we guess he's beginning to treat his pen as part of his crate and he will pee and poo in it as a last resort (i.e. when he's crated). So, winding down the pen is the next thing one we are confident he doesn't need it at night-time. We're just so impressed with him though. He's only been with us for five weeks and he's getting on brilliantly and is far more advanced on the toilet training than we cared to dream.

He seems just fine on his food which is Orijen puppy (2/3) and Burns mini bites (1/3). We've been trying him on new chews and treats but nothing comes close to natures:menu treats - he just loves 'em! The Pets@Home 'mini bone' things were completely dismissed and I think he only eats the P@H thin straw-like chews reluctantly. The Kong things and some other younger puppy biscuits are a dead loss. He'll eat them but wont do anything for them! We purposely don't allow him to eat what we eat so it doesn't encourage him to beg for food from us or pester us at meal times, and this seems to be working fine. He likes to chomp on a lump of carrot and we'll maybe try him on some other crunchy fruit and veg.