Lifestyle question: is this the right time for a dog?

my partner and I are looking at bringing a labrador into the family, but are getting scared by the number of people we talk to and things we read that say basically “oh no don’t do it, it’s so much hard work”, but given the number of labs I see out and about it can’t be THAT bad can it?

We live in a first floor flat (UK, ie. ground + 1) and have an enclosed communal front garden with plenty of space for a wonder and a good place for setting a toilet site when puppy first gets home. I am going to be working full time, but with time in the morning beforehand for a walk and generally plenty of time In the evening. My partner is going to be on a semi-flexible contract with the ability to work from home for the whole day several times a week. We have several friends and family members around who are also going to be free for most of the day and will probably be happy to let the puppy loose in the garden for a few minutes.

We are looking for breeders now, so that we can take the puppy home in the middle of August, as I won’t need to start at my new job until the middle of September. Are we being realistic enough to think that that’s enough time to train the puppy to be happy to be left alone for a while and almost fully house trained? Are we nuts?

Comments/ questions very much welcome!

 

In terms of the work, yes it is a LOT. My husband and I had twelve days off when we picked up the puppy at 8 wks old, and we were zombies! I work part time and my husband full time but both of us have jobs that allow us to come and go...So my husband's full time is not 9-5 and most of the time our hours do not overlap and there are only a couple of times in a week when the pup is home alone for 1-2 hours. But I found life near impossible those first months. Our pup is 5months old now and things are calming down - so extreme hard work at first but seemed to pass quickly.

We are both off for the summer so we have 8 weeks ish where we can devote more time to our dog and getting routines sorted.

In your shoes I would be more concerned that you will not find a puppy in the time frame you are looking for. Take-home at end of August means the pups would be expected to be born in the next week or two. Of course this is going to vary by location but I would not expect many good breeders to have pups available on such short notice. Good breeders where I live have ling wait lists well before the pups are born and a family often has to wait two or three litters before they get a puppy. The only breeders who were able to give us a puppy on short notice, we walked away from after we'd visited. Of course, this may not be the case everywhere, but is something to keep in mind in your search.

 

When I got my puppy I was not prepared for how hard it was going to be. It was HARD!

My puppy hated being alone, even for a few second and he barked and howled the house down - we ended up having to pay for a private trainer to come out. That lasted about 8 weeks.

Toilet training was fine, but realistically for a long long time they can’t be left unsupervised for very long without accidents.

We had parents that helped out, but it got old for them very quick. Giving up long periods of their days 5 days a week for a puppy they didn’t ask for caused some tension so we had to pay for doggy day care which cost around £250 per month.

The hardest part for me was the loss of my life. It’s not just the weekdays, your weekends go because your tied to the Puppy. You can’t go out for drinks, or tea, or the cinema. You can’t have a lie in (if you even get a full night sleep), you can’t even get an early night to catch up on the sleep. And holidays are few and far between.

BUT my dog is my world. I love him! He’s 2 now and if you can get through the first 8 months or so it gets much better. Now he just needs a walk through the day which people don’t mind doing - our families walk him and he has a dog walker a couple of days so the costs have reduced to about £60 a month.

He now sleeps as long as we do, we can go out anywhere we want again (within reason - 4 hours max unless someone looks after him).

I personally would say it’s all been worth it, but I’m definitely not in a hurry to do it again!

 

We picked Honey up at 10 weeks old (2 weeks ago).

Luckily from the word go she was very good toilet wise and crating on a night for bedtime wasn't very hard work.

We are in the same postion, I'm full time and my wife 3 days a week at work. Luckily my In Laws don't mind puppy sitting.

She's happy to be left alone a couple of hours.

I wasn't a "dog man" and we've been mulling it over for 6 years now, Honey just became available at the right time from a couple we've known for 23 years so it was a no brainer really!.

Have you thought about holidays?, we bought a caravan two years ago so again not an issue for us as we can just got to dog friendly sites but going abroad you'd need a good dog sitter.

They can be very demanding, stealing shoes / chewing everything in sight etc but all worth it in the end.

I have no regrets at all, would do it again in a heartbeat!.

 

I have one comment -

Puppies are much more exhausting than you could ever dream!

And welcome to you from Mags, Tatze and Keir from Manchester UK

Tatze is my pet dog, a black Lab and she's five years old. Tatze means 'paw' in German.

Keir is my sixth Guide Dog puppy, a yellow Golden Retriever/Flatcoat cross and he's twelve months old.

 

Puppies are hard work, and not just for a few weeks. As @JenBainbridge says it can take montgs before you can leave your pup having built up seperation by seconds and then minutes at a time. Then you have toilet training - both daytime and nights. Have you thought how you will get your pup up and diwn the stairs to your flat and in the early days we are talking every 20 - 30 minutes max between trips when awake. Also it is strongly recommended to avoid stairs as much as possible in large breed puppies to protect their vulnerable growing joints so you need to think how long you can carry your pup up and down stairs - you only get one chance to protect joints.
Again as @JenBainbridge says have you thought about your social life, or lack of with a puppy/young dog? Having a puppy is rather like having a baby but the pup will never become independent and will always depend upon you for everything.
Have you considered any potential cost of doggy day care and researched possible options. It is always great to have family who can help but sometimes those plans go awry. Future holidays? With or without pup?
The introduction of a puppy into your life should only be after a lot of long hard thought and what ifs, buts and maybes and lots of research into the breeder and the planned mating.

 

An "easy" option is adopting an older dog. That's the route we have gone down so far. Coco is our 3rd adult rescue - he was 16 months old when he joined us. The advantage is they usually come house trained, they don't usually chew stuff, they're fine with stairs being fully grown. Ours have been able to be left alone for a few hours after the initial settling in period. You miss out on the bitey croco-pup stage, which to be honest, frightens me silly!

I didn't really mean "easy". I meant a different option. Possibly more practical. And oh so rewarding.

Its great that you're considering the practicalities now, before jumping in. Good luck with what ever you decide. And do stick around - if you DO get a dog, there is so much support here.

 

I think a colic baby is easier. Lol.

 

I would add that, even though you have people who can help out in the day and your partner can be at home sometimes, a pup needs a lot of attention when it's awake, more than just a quick trip into the garden for a wee.

I was totally unprepared for the demands of my pup when she was tiny and my work, at home, really suffered.

And when they're able to go for walks you have to be careful not to over exercise them so you have to build up gradually (a common rule of thumb is 5 mins walk for each month of age).

I am in total agreement with @JenBainbridge's post in that it gets better and they become the love of your life but life certainly changes in untold ways.

 

Hey Plum, we have a couple of people advertising cross breed litters, which to be honest suits us just as well. We’re hoping to visit in the next couple of weeks and do our due diligence regarding health checks on the parents.

We are coming at this knowing that we might need to walk away, so no worries there.

 

I’ve read about this several places, I haven’t found for how long we would need to carry the dog up/down for toilet time. How long are we talking?

In an case one flight of stairs isn’t too much for me or my partner, even if it takes right up to pretty much full you grown

 

@Euan McGarvie the general advice is for the first year until the growth plates are fused. For practical purposes a dog may need to go up and down stairs before that age but for every toilet trip, walk, trip to the vet or general outing would be a definite no. Just the thought of carrying a 23kg+ pup up and downstairs, let alone the safety aspects, freezes my heart

 

I echo everything everyone else said in this thread. I've had my pup for nearly 3 months now and the initial weeks were so unbelievably physically and mentally demanding, in truth had I known how intense it would all be, I probably wouldn't have got a pup in the first place.
That said, I'm beginning to see the fruits of my labours now and am utterly devoted to the little guy!

Anyway, my main point for replying was to give some insight as someone who also lives in a first floor flat. Short answer, yes it can be done but you have to be prepared to carry your pup up and down the stairs every single time it goes outside (my pup is now 15kg and growing but I still intend to carry him as long as I'm safely able to do so). To be on the absolute safe side, you should really be doing this until the pup's joints are all fully formed (I believe this is after a year, perhaps a more experienced owner can confirm).

Incidentally, if you are not completely dead set on a lab, perhaps another breed could be an option? Or as others have suggested a lab who is already 1 yr+ old?

 

Much as I am the first to say that I really disliked the little puppy stage, I also have to reflect on that time and realise that I was grieving the loss of a parent (less than two weeks prior to Harley joining us) so my capacity to cope with a puppy was jaded significantly. However, both my husband and I are introverted by nature, and we have shamelessly benefited from having Harley at home to avoid attending social events. We still do. Last week when she went to day care and was tired afterwards we went to the movies in the evening. For us it didn't cause a disruption in our social lives because our lives are very focussed on our home. But we did think about that before we decided to get a puppy.

 

Having a puppy is genuinely harder than having a baby.

I say this as a mother of 2 children and an experienced dog owner.

Lab puppies are stunning, adorable, loving and playful - they are also determined, BITEY, energetic and frankly a teeny bit bonkers.

My living room backs onto my garden. It’s literally a 3 second movement and here we are at 12 weeks (so I’ve had him for a month) and his toileting rules my life. Play - toilet break. Food, toilet break.

We booked a reservation for a restaurant today, the suddenly realised that despite the children being old enough to stay at home.. we now are back to needing a ‘baby’ sitter as I’m not comfortable leaving him alone yet. The first 2 weeks were a constant source of waking up in the middle of the night and standing in the rain with a torch waiting for a wee... and Maslow was actually a super star and went through the night by 10 weeks.. women at my puppy classes are still waking up in the night at 17 weeks for some of the pups.

The idea of doing it all via stairs would just exhaust me. Plus labs aren’t little for long.

If you are prepared to change your whole lifestyle and in exchange have the more adorable being you have ever loved nibble your toes in the evening then I would say it’s the best idea ever

Just bear in mind that mine is now 12 weeks and with the exception of overnight... if I so much as go for a wee he cries.. my days are literally planned around the dog.

 

Oh god yes. The lie ins. He slept till 7 yesterday morning.. I woke up and was bouncing from excitement... then I realised it was Saturday and it was 7am. I used to wake up at like 10. Maslow is generous in that he waits till the birds start chirping. So anywhere from 5-7am we get the morning shuffle than starts as a chirpy yip and then evolves into a full on howl if he doesn’t hear us up and about.

 

PPs above have summed it up very well. And we planned for about a year before we got our puppy and searched and waited desperately...and there have been many teary nights where I have said it was a mistake because of the chaos it has put our life into.

We also have a kivung room backing out to the yard and it's literally in out in out in out All.Day.Long.

By 15 weeks our pup refused to be carried. He is not allowed upstairs anymore and we had to put a baby gate across to stop him from going up. He wont let us carry him no matter how desperate he is. He is able to go up and has made a run for it a few times and then we are stuck with fighting to get him down. If it was a necessity I am not sure how we would manage.
We have a ramp on the steps out to the back yard and he refuses to use it. Just does the stairs! I stand in his way to forve the ramp and he pushes me out of the way. It's so bad for his joints and really concerns me!

 

Maslow has taken to doing flying leaps off the sofa. Every single time he lands I wince. I’m training ‘off’ so that he jumps down calmly but in the middle of a zoomie he looks like a bat dog! Ears flying, tongue out..... joints still forming!

 

So I'm a bit different to those above. I was actually 7 weeks pregnant when we brought home our 8 week old puppy (not great timing - and not planned!) and I'd say that the puppy is much easier than the child!

Yes, the puppy was a bouncing tornado of teeth and what seemed like endless poo, wee and vomit but really, it was a brief period of craziness. Once you get them settled into some sort of routine, as long as they're not being left for too long, I think they a far easier than a child! I now have a three year old lab and a two and a half year old child and I wouldn't even begin to compare how hard the kid is compared to the dog! Maybe I'm just better at dog training that child training?

 

Oh yes, Plum did this and also used to launch herself on to the back of the sofa from the floor. Gave me kittens every time. I don't think I ever managed to stop her because, like Maslow, it was always during a zoomie session!

Fortunately she stopped doing it after a few months.