Adopting a 9 month old Cavapoo, advice needed

[Deebo007]

The initial message was deleted from this topic on 07 November 2018 at 10:43

[Deebo007]

We collected Buster on Saturday afternoon and he's been a star so far. The journey home was no issue, he sat in the rear footwell next to my wife for the whole journey enjoying lots of fuss. My daughter adores him and they've been inseparable since first meeting, he's very gentle and loves to be fussed at every opportunity. He sits on command and is jumping up less following some treat based training. He seems to be house trained although he couldn't help himself from peeing against the sofa and dining table within 30 mins of being home . There's a few things that we need to spend time on with the training, all advice is gratefully received:

- When out walking he goes crazy when he sees other dogs, he barks uncontrollably and gets very agitated. To me, I think that he's not been well socialised and does not know what to do when he meets another dog. I bumped into a neighbour and his dog when walking and Buster kept barking and chasing after the other dog. I wasn't really sure what to do so I tried calming him down by getting down on his level and stroking him. After some feedback from a friend I was probably rewarding his poor behaviour. Since then I've been changing direction to move away from other dogs, which seems to help in the short term but is not a solution to the issue. I'm thinking that some controlled meets with other dogs maybe in order to calm down this behaviour. Any advice/better ideas?

- He pulls quite a bit on the lead, so I'm thinking of getting a suitable harness. Any suggestions? He's currently 10Kg and has a bit of growing to do.

- He came with a bag of AVA dog food (Pets at Home own brand) which can't be helping matters as it is full of sugar. Any recommendations that are not going to break the bank? I was thinking something from Millies Wolfheart may do the trick after reading www.allaboutdogfood.co.uk?

- He gets very excited (if you know what I mean!!) when he meets new people, or when we come home after being away for a short while. We have him booked in with the vets (15th Sept) for a checkup and possible castration if deemed viable at his age (10 months). Any thoughts on this? I know it's not a guaranteed fix, but should calm him down after a while. My daughter (6yo) is getting the brunt of this, so any advice is greatly received.

Having re-read the above it sounds like he's a basket case! He's not - he's fantastic! When in the house he's very calm and loves to snuggle on his bed or on top of my feet .

Here he is just after pickup:

[Deebo007]

Thanks everyone for the great advice, I'll keep you all posted on our progress.