Hi all, My wife and I have just come to the end of the first four weeks of puppy ownership, during which at least one of us was off all the time while we got Rory settled. This week we have return to normality, during which I work from home full-time. I was very worried that this would not go well, and that I would struggle to get any work done. Fortunately, it has thus far not gone as badly as I perhaps feared. However, with a couple of days under my belt, it has become clear that all runs very smoothly through the morning and early afternoon, before the puppy seems to become restless/bored later in the day. I want to figure out how to address this so that we can both be happier (pup) and more productive (me) towards the end of the day. The schedule has tended to look something like this (exact timing defined by when the pup settles/wakes 07:00-08:30: Wake, walk (15mins on lead + "snuffle time"), breakfast, short play/train 08:30-10:00: Pup sleeps in crate 10:00-10:30: Toilet, short play, short training session 10:30-12:30: Pup sleeps in crate 12:30-13:30: Toilet, short play, short training session, lunch, toilet 13:30-15:00: Pup sleeps in crate 15:00-15:30: Toilet, short play, short training session This all works very easily to this point, but from here onward things get less easy to manage. Typically after 30 minutes of tending to the pup from 15:00 I need to get back down to work. However the pup consistently is not settled enough to go back to sleep in his crate this time around - if put in there he chews/digs his bedding, but if left to roam ignores his toys and chews the table leg or rug. So I guess by this stage he is pretty bored of the way the day is going. This makes the couple of hours until my wife returns challenging to manage. So, does anyone else work at home with a puppy and have any hints or tips on how to manage this / create a schedule that works? Alternatively, any tips to maximize the impact of the interaction time we do have so that Rory will settle better later? Note that his meals are already "interactive" with scatter feeding, feeding from puzzle toys, etc. And that I have had to reject a couple of things that I would like to add into the schedule, namely taking him for a lunchtime walk (too much walking at such a young age) or opening the back door and letting him run free in the garden while I work (he is in a phase of eating EVERYTHING in the garden so needs to be supervised). Maybe there is a way to get more "bang for my buck" during the training sessions to really work his little mind? Thanks! Pete
Just to add: My wife also works at home on Fridays, meaning there is more potential for pup interaction and less for boredom. One plan I am contemplating is to have Rory go into doggy day care Monday and Wednesday - to give him some variety and me some peace. Perhaps then this would sandwich some of the less active days with high activity days for him? I know that some do it, but I have some troubles right now picturing him going to doggy day care so young (13 weeks) - he still needs to get used to dealing with bigger or more excitable dogs; and to spending time alone without us, for example.
It could be that he is bored with his toys. Are they the same toys that are available all the time? We bit the bullet and bought about 20 toys straight off the bat, but only two or three are available at any one time, and we swap some in/out daily. This means he always has something new and interesting to chew on. 20 toys is much cheaper than new furniture in the long run. Maybe toys for puppies is a bit like dating girls when we were younger. There's so much more interest if the object of desire isn't available all the time I also work from home sometimes and had the same issues getting the boy to settle down. I just tried to be stubborn and not react to every cry or whimper. After a while puppy realised that nothing was going to happen, and he went to sleep. They need a lot of sleep when younger, so it's good for them IMO. And welcome to this wonderful forum, it's been a real life-saver for me over the last year.
I work full time and a lot of that can be at home but I am also out and about. I must admit I found it a nightmare when my pup was small, I was so naive to the needs of a small pup, I just thought she'd settle by my feet and snooze! I spent many a mad moment wandering around the garden, collecting poo, kicking a ball all whilst trying to talk on the phone to my clients about their mental health (my own was none too good at the time, I can tell you!) If I left her to own devices she'd tear about like a whirling dervish creating havoc, pulling on curtains, chewing table legs, head and nose in everything. I used to work on my laptop standing up in the kitchen in between rushing off to rescue her from some kind of mishap. It was a nightmare and my work definitely suffered. One thing that kept her a bit occupied was a plastic bottle which she'd chase around the kitchen. And at one point I decided I'd relent and let her on the sofa so she could snuggle up to me whilst I worked on my laptop. That did result in a few interesting paragraphs when she lay her head across the keys! But it did allow for a bit more settle time (she was about 5 months then). She also spent a half day at daycare from 4 months building up to a whole day from 6 months and then two days. But I can't pretend I didn't find it very stressful and difficult and time wasting! I thank my lucky stars I had a very understanding boss.
How about getting a large puppy pen? Good things for keeping pups occupied - Big cardboard box to rip up. Kongs filled with soaked then frozen kibble (you could use of his meals off this). Kong wobbler. Plastic milk bottles.
My Wife and I are both semi retired, so we spent a lot of time with Cooper when she was a pup. Initially she was in a puppy pen in the kitchen and free to roam around the kitchen if we were there with her. Somewhere around 12 or 14 weeks we let her have the run of the house most of the time. We have a dog door so both dogs could go into the back yard any time they wanted. Most dogs don't play much by themselves, but when there are two of them they do play together some. I don't like using cardboard boxes for toys, because it may be hard for the dog to know which box he can destroy and which are off limits. We had that problem with Tilly, so we did not let Cooper have boxes to rip up. We are fortunate that while both of our dogs will destroy almost any stuffed toy, they don't eat the fabric, stuffing or squeaker. Pulling apart stuffed toys is one of their favorite distractions.
I work from home, too. With my latest pup, Luna, I thought I was well prepared as it’s not long ago I had two pups at the same time. I thought I remembered. I was wrong. Added to the general ridiculousness of puppyhood, I was in the UK alone ( my husband was back home in Europe while I spent those first weeks with the pup until she was old enough to travel) and I also had my two older dogs who hated the puppy so they had to be separated at all times and entertained separately. It was hard work. At one point, my sister asked me how much of my regular work I had got done. I guessed, quite generously, at about 3%. The good thing is, this doesn’t last forever. Your puppy will learn to settle for longer periods. Her bladder will mature so she doesn’t need to go outside seemingly every thirty seconds. Things only get better. I sympathise with your predicament right now, but in a few short months, you'll look back and see how far you’ve come.
My OH works from home, and found it next to impossible to get anything done while Merlin was a puppy. What helped was him being a lot more flexible about his work times, so he would do more work in the evenings once I was home from the office, and once the pup was crashed out for the evening.
Somebody already mentioned it above but we used a [suitable sized] bone for the bored times. At first, we let him have it with the filling it came with, and when that was acheived, we kept the bone and filled it with mushed up kibble, taken from his daily amount. we have moved on to other fillings now. but get that frozen overnight in prep for the next day, and when boredom sets in, if you havent got time to spend with him, give him the bone. it may not work but it worked for us, and still today, keeps him busy for between and hour and an hour an a half at a time. we do keep it for emergencies though, when we need him quiet for a bit and dont have the time to spend with him.
Yes, I have these for Keir and fill them with soaked kibble then freeze. But be careful, some dogs chomp too hard on bones. Tatze isn’t allowed any now as she broke her big back tooth right to the bottom of the root and had to have it removed. .
As you'll know from my own thread, I have had my pup in daycare last week. I had the same reservations as you given his age, however it has worked out pretty well. The daycare he goes to have a number of staff attending to the dogs at all times and the puppies and adults are all kept separate from each other (incidentally my pup is the most excitable dog there and its usually a case of keeping the other dogs separated from him rather than the other way round!). They even have webcams that you can watch while they're there and I have definitely noticed a massive improvement in how he interacts with the other dogs and he has certainly calmed down a lot. You mention not wanting to take him on a lunchtime walk. I'm no expert by any means but I would recommend one, even a shorter walk. I take my pup for 3 five minute walks on days hes not at daycare and this seems to work reasonably well for us.
Hey, Sorry for my delay coming back to this thread. My wife and I have just spent a really wonderful long weekend out exploring our local area with Rory (we all went to a farmers market, beach and country park!) which has really helped to alleviate the puppy blues and give an insight into the fun times we can have together. So, I decided to focus entirely on the positives for the weekend, and leave worrying about items like this until today. Anyhow, thank you all for your advice and for sharing your experiences – lots of useful information there! It sounds like I might actually be doing pretty well compared to some other experiences – perhaps because we took a month off between us at first so we could get through the most chaotic times! I have been calculating and it looks like I am getting around 7 hours of good work time in at present between 08:00 and 18:00 – so either a little more early/late work, or a few tweaks, and I should be able to get across the line (at least for periods where my workload is “normal”). To some of the specific ideas floated: Toys: This is a good idea to update the toy cupboard (and I very much enjoyed the analogy!). He has plenty of toys already, but I think that we have definitely honed in on his favourites and so the number in usual rotation is probably a little low. Pets @ Home here we come Kongs: I have to date typically been using Kongs as a minor addition to Rory’s main meals, but I think that there could really be something to be had from moving more of his meals into frozen Kong format, and deploying them throughout the day (and especially when I am on calls). I have done that this afternoon during calls and managed to obtain silence for a large number of calls, coupled with a contented munching dog (then a sleepy dog) for the price of 3 puppy kongs. Plastic Milk Bottles: I loved this one, as – no matter how much we spend on toys – there seems to be no joy in Rory’s life like chasing one of these up and down our hallway. Unfortunately, it is super loud against the wooden floors, so might not make it onto the “while working” playlist Day Care: I think that working up to 2 days a week of daycare is definitely on the agenda. I can see some local ones that look really good, and have separate puppy areas with enforced downtimes. I think that will definitely leave me feeling a little less “trapped on my own home” and also give me a few days a week to fit in exercise as well as work. For some reason I always focussed on how a dog would help me to get more exercise, without really realizing that at first this would be the opposite effect, given the short nature of puppy walks. Thank you all once again for your input – onwards and (hopefully) upwards! Pete
