Today's a pretty big day for our puppy.
Euchre it is her very first vet visit.
And this can be a pretty stressful thing for a lot of new puppy owners.
So today we're going to show you a little bit about what the first vet visit
looks like with your puppy.
We're also going to give you some tips and tricks on things that you can do to
prepare your puppy for the first vet visit. So that things go a lot smoother.
I'm Kayl McCann, I'm Ken Steepe. Welcome back to McCann Dogs.
Typically when you take your puppy to a vet,
you're going to start off by doing a little bit of a recap or give them some
history on how things have been going.
So a couple of things that you might want to take note of in the weeks prior to
the vet visit,
that's fun to chew would be things like how are they eating?
How are, is their energy level you know,
anything to do physically with their coat type or anything like that or their
ears,
or we've noticed something a bit funky with one of her eyes that nothing big,
but that I'm going to mention how they go to the bathroom.
We brought a stool sample, as I mentioned before.
So things like that are a good,
good thing to sort of take note of the other thing that's important about this
is that you want to be able to know any changes that could happen, you know,
after this, you know, it's good to sort of get a baseline and then that way,
if something comes up, it's a little bit more noticeable to you.
This vet visit is a little different than ones that I've done with puppies in
the past.
And the fact that I actually can't go in with her and I will admit it's
a little bit stressful for me because I really want to go in,
but I don't want this to be a stressful experience for her.
So take a look at some of the things that we've done with her all throughout the
week to help prepare her for today's visit. So hopefully she's happy,
she's confident and everything goes well at the start of every vet appointment
that your puppy goes to. They're going to need to get weighed.
One of the things that we'd like to do with our puppies in the beginning is
actually teach them how to get on top of the weight scale and sit almost like a
bit of a trick. So you can use any item in your house to train this.
It just needs to be a bit of a different texture.
I actually have the lid of a big Tupperware container that I'm going to use
today.
And what I'm going to do is just start off with taking some treats she's already
heading in that direction and I'm just going to lure her on top of it.
And then into a sitting position. Yes. Good girl.
And I'm going to reward her several times for holding a sit on a loose leash on
this little lid. Okay.
And then I'm going to encourage her off and we're going to repeat this process a
few times. Okay. Sit. Yes.
Good girl. Good sit. Yes. Good. Okay.
Good girl. We'll try it again. Okay. Yeah.
Good girl.
So she's already starting to figure out that adding a sit on this lid is
something that's really good. Hey, put this pop up.
Yeah, there we go. Okay. One more time. Okay.
Okay. Yeah. That's good. Great.
You got to get all your paws on there. There we go. Yes. Good girl.
This just makes this experience a little more.
User-Friendly now something to get your coffee to look forward to because you
should really likes to do this.
That's going to make that experience a little bit more interesting and fun at
the vet visit. Now I'm hoping that when I take her there,
I can pass the vet tech,
a couple of treats and have the vet tech actually do this with her so that the
experience is going to be a little bit more enjoyable for everybody.
Some puppies are quite nervous for their exams and a little skeptical of us.
Other puppies are very exuberant and jumping all over us.
This puppy seems to be very good. So I'm going to check her bite.
We want to make sure that her teeth line up. Well, good girl.
Your puppy goes to the vet. The vet is going to check inside their mouth.
They're going to look at their teeth. They're going to look all over.
This can be a pretty difficult thing for a young puppy to stay still for.
So I'm gonna show you a couple of exercises that we do to condition the puppies,
to accept this type of thing. Now,
the first thing that I'm going to do is I'm just going to start off with just
placing my hand underneath her chin, to stabilize her head a little bit.
You can even take your fingers and tuck them underneath the collar as well.
And I'm just going to brace her chin. And with my other hand,
if she would stop kissing me, I'm simply going to place my hand over her snout.
I'm just going to lift her lips for a moment.
I'm not going to open the mouth and go right in there to begin with.
I'm going to start off easy. So I'm going to brace her chin. I'm going to lift.
Yes. Good girl.
And if she is still and comfortable, I'm going to say yes,
and then I'm going to reward. Good girl. That was excellent.
Now remember when we're dog training,
we have to have great timing and need to say yes,
as I'm doing the particular exercise and then I can reach for food from there.
It would be really difficult for me to be holding food in my hand at this point.
So I have my cookie bin off to the side.
She's going to work for it a little bit. So going to try that again. Yes.
Good girl. So I held a little bit longer that time. Good girl.
Now the significance of me holding her in the way that I'm doing is I want her
to be secure. I want her to feel like I kind of have control,
but I also want to make sure that she's comfortable being held in that way,
because when the vet or the vet tech holds your dog,
they need to kind of get their job done and they're not going to sort of like,
you know, pussyfoot around it. They're going to actually get in there.
And I don't want that experience to be something that surprises for the very
first time. All right.
I'm going to move to opening her mouth a little bit and brace her mouth.
And I'm just going to put my fingers in her mouth there to open. Yes. Good girl.
So I lifted up with some fingers. I pushed her, her bottom down with my other.
Yes. Good girly. Excellent. Again,
I'm not going for a long time and keeping it very short and sweet.
And as I practice this for a few more sessions, I can build on it.
I don't want to push it past the point where she's going to make an error.
I want to keep it short and sweet.
I mentioned it that the fact that the vet or vet tech is going to have to
restrain your dog in some way.
And right now we can't necessarily go in with our puppies.
We need to make sure that they've experienced that type of thing before.
So it's really.
Having someone like Sherry.
Who's really good with holding to give the puppies a sense of security.
Good gentleness. Also,
these first exams are so important.
Now I would venture to say that you probably held and hugged your puppy a
million times at this point.
But the type of hold that I'm talking about is more of a restraint.
It's less sort of snugly and more of a type of you know,
secure hold. So I'm going to practice that with her right now.
And I'm only going to do it for a moment. If she is calm and relaxed,
I'm going to yes. And reward where'd, your bone go?
We're not going to do the bone thing right now though.
So this is actually really good. I actually get to take it.
The fact that she wants this bone as a bit of a, an example,
because there could, you know, when he take her into the vet,
she might not be wanting to deal with that. At this point,
she wants to chew on this bone right now.
So I'm going to work a little bit on the restraint and I'm just going to pick
her up. My one hand is going to go over top of her side here. My other hand,
I'm going to secure underneath her collar, underneath her chin here.
And I'm just going to hold her against my body. Good girl. Well done.
I'm holding her pretty securely. Now she is being a rockstar.
So I need to quit while I'm ahead. Oops. I waited too long.
So I'm just going to wait until she settles. Yes. Excellent,
good girl. And then I'm going to reward her. Excellent. Now,
if you ever had a second person to help you with this,
they could actually reward as you were holding,
if you're on your own you're just going to do exactly what I did. I said yes,
as I was holding and then I could place her down gently to rewards. I mean,
they're trying to get in to lift her up again and in a holder nice and tight
against my body. Yes. Good
girl Missy mood. That was so good. And as you practice it,
you can just hold for a little bit longer at a time, but again,
watch your technique.
You're holding in a specific way so that they can't turn it nip at you and they
feel secure and comfortable in your arms. Oh, what a good girl.
I want her to sort of be like a limp noodle. Yes.
We can call this the limp noodle test. Yes. Good girl.
She was so great with that so I can keep building on it.
And hopefully that will be more of a comfortable situation for her when the vet
does it. You like to teach all of our puppies is how to take the food gently.
And this is going to be especially helpful for your vet visits,
because it's likely that your puppy could be a little bit stressed for their
first time. And sometimes when they're stressed,
they will take the food a little bit more rough. So, you know,
I want her very comfortable taking the food from me so that I can work on the
training for her for her vet visits.
But it's likely that the vet or the vet tech could be giving her some treats as
well. And I would want her to be gentle with them too.
So here's how we're going to work on that.
You're going to take some food and you can see she is super keen on it.
Right now. I have some pretty high value treats.
I'm going to put a piece of food in my hand and I'm going to cover it. Whoops.
Before I give it to her here, I'm going to cover it with my thumb.
And I'm just going to offer my hand to her. And if she snips and licks,
she was not very gentle there. And she tried to buy it from my hand.
I just gave a light verbal, took my hand away and I'm going to try it again.
Yeah, good girl. She was a little bit more gentle that time. Yeah,
but I'm getting licking now. Oops.
Yeah. Good girl. Oops.
Yes. Good girl. So you can use whatever verbal that you want.
You could use something light like, oops.
And you're going to take your hand away and then you're going to try it again.
And I want you to,
just to make sure that you're only rewarding behaviors that you liked sniffing
licking. Did they try to take it from you gently? All of that is acceptable,
but if they start to jump at you or use their teeth a little bit too rough,
maybe they start to pot. You, you can remove the food.
It does not take the puppies very long to figure out what types of behavior you
ask.
A girl earns the rewards and what types of paper behaviors cause the rewards to
disappear and having your dog be able to take the food gently is going to really
allow you to practice the different exercises.
And it's going to help you with all of your training. In general.
Next I'm going to work a little bit on conditioning.
You could to be comfortable with her ears being examined.
And one of the tricks that I like to do when I'm first starting this to keep
both of my hands free is get her chewing on some type of bone.
Now she normally likes to chew on this bone,
but I'm going to make an extra appealing by just rubbing a little piece of
chicken or hot dog wiener here on this. So that keeps her even more engaged.
Hey babe, what's this? Oh, check that out.
This is going to give me both my hands free.
And while she sort of investigating and she's distracted,
I can practice just flipping her ears back and taking a good look inside.
Now we pet our puppy's ears all of the time that's normal,
but what the vet's going to do is they're going to really examine it.
So I'm touching gently, but I'm also being quite deliberate.
So I'm going to flip it back to when I get the dog very comfortable with
somebody leaning over top of them when they practice this, you know,
the is going to look right inside and make sure it's nice and clean.
The other thing they're going to do is use a tool to look inside your dog's ear
as well, and a really good item to practice this. It's just like a metal spoon.
It's not going to hurt your dog in any way,
but he's just sort of feels a little bit funny so I can flip her ear back and I
could just literally touch her ear with that metal spoon. Again,
she's so focused on this bone that she could really care less about what's
happening now. As your dog starts to get more comfortable,
you could make more progression. So, you know,
you could ask your vet to use some type of distraction during that time,
but sometimes they just want to get things done.
So I'm going to remove this bone from her hair,
and I'm going to see if she'll allow me to do this without a bit of a
distraction.
I'm going to go back to that brace that I talked about by just holding your head
nice and comfortable and still I'm just going to take her ear and flip it back.
Yes. Excellent. Wow. That was so good, sweetheart.
I want to just get a dog that's comfortable and still,
you can see as I flip it back, not only is she being comfortable and okay.
With me doing it, she's also being still and this is really important.
Good girl. Yes. Excellent.
Good girl. Now I'm going to try holding the spoon up to it. Good Girl.
Yes. Excellent. And I'm just pausing for a second.
Cause I'm looking for her to be calm.
If at any time she starts to get uncomfortable or she starts to get a little bit
silly. I could calm her by holding her once again.
Or I could go back to a step that she is, you know,
more confident with and then work my way up from there.
[Inaudible].
I think overall Euchre did very well in her very first vet visit.
But as I was watching the footage back,
I started to realize that she's still struggling a little bit with other people
holding her. I noticed that she was still a little bit wiggly.
She wasn't afraid she was just being a bit of a wild child.
So I know I'm going to need to put in some extra effort in getting her
comfortable, being calm and still when somebody else is holding her.
So that's definitely going to be part of our homework handling is one of those
things that looks really easy.
So a lot of people don't put a lot of work and effort into it and it's actually
something that you're going to utilize with your puppy throughout their entire
life.
So if you want to learn a little bit more about how to improve your handling
with your puppy. Check out that video right there.
Now I know sometimes we make things look pretty easy here with our puppies,
but it's because we put a lot of training and we follow a specific program.
So if you want to get a little bit more information on how to do things with
your puppy,
make sure you check out our Puppy Essentials online puppy training program.
The link for that is in the description below. And on that note, I'm Kayl.
This is puppy Euchre, Happy Training.