Hi Everyone! My husband and I are proud and happy owners of a beautiful golden Labrador. We love her to bits. I have a question: I work from home and Marula, our pup, stays with me home the whole day. She wakes us around 7h00 and once my husband leaves, we play a little in the garden, go for a walk, on the walk she plays with other dogs a bit. Then we come back and I maybe train with her a little, then it would be around 10h00. I then start working, she use to sleep basically the whole day until the afternoon when I would do something with her again but lately she doesn't sleep or looks tired. This is making me feel guilty for working when she is maybe bored, or under stimulated or want my attention, but I also like my work and want to focus on it. She is not being destructive and has a lot of toys (which I rotate, but she gets bored anyway, lol). The question is: Should i just get over myself and feeling guilty or is there a way I can read her or teach her that this is work time or keep her busy. She has loads to play with, but doesn't. Is it good for me not to engage her and then she lies down? I don't know, i find a lot of threads about people working away from home, but what is good when you work from home?
Following this thread with interest. I also work from home, and other than her nap times it's really tricky to get any work done because she gets very easily bored even when I'm working in the same room as her. She has chews and toys but wants interaction with us most of the time. Her chewing of toys and her wood chews is also really destructive so even if she does settle with them, I have to keep a very beady eye on her
Hi LoopyLuna...I haven't had any feedback here, but have spoken to someone at our puppy school who also works from home and he gave very good advice, which is also sort of obvious. He says he has a very specific routine with his puppy, they play or train in the morning and then he puts him in his crate and goes out of sight, where he works until lunch time. Then he spends an hour or so with him and then back in the crate until end of day. Although I only have 1 room and cannot be out of my Marula's sight, I have found a specific routine to be very useful. The trick is to not engage her at all when it's "quiet time". This has been very hard for me because you know...puppy eyes But I have armed myself with enough knowledge and stamina to know it's both good for her and me to have these focus times where I get to work and she gets some well needed rest. My routine is as follows: She wakes up around 6h30 and she is inside the house around us until about 7h30 when my husband leaves for work. I will then play, train, walk or cuddle her for an hour or so outside and then we come inside again where she can be awake but no playing or jumping or anything. She usually tries a couple of times but I don't engage her and she then lies on her favourite coach to rest until it's lunch time. I then play for about 30 minutes or so with her and then go back to work and she will either be on her own outside for a while and then come in to sleep or immediately sleep again after lunch. Once I am done with work we play and walk and train again until my husband get's home around 18h00 and then we have family time or he takes a playing shift :-D I hope this helps you. The key is routine and not to engage when it's not playtime. I never ignore her, but I keep my voice calm and low and say "rustig" which means "calm" in my language. She's starting to get that now and I get more work done :-D
Hi all, I would suggest a different regime. I would do training for 3 to 5 minutes every hour. And then play with your dog for say another 5 minutes. Do only one exercise in that training session. Your approach of doing one exercise after another exercise does not maximise the gains from training. My approach of short and focussed training sessions does. My approach also has the benefit of getting you to move from your desk each hour, which is beneficial to your health.
I think it kind of depends on what your end goal is: What do you want your daily routine to be, ultimately? That's what you should be working on gradually shaping your puppy into. I would recommend not allowing her to play with other dogs on walks or 'using' that to provide exercise or stimulation for her, though. Have a read of this article: https://totallydogtraining.com/over-friendly-dog/ I would suggest you focus on targeting new experiences or locations for your pup and don't just take her on the same walk every day. You need novelty for socialisation but also you will find the puppy is much more tired if you can provide them with a new place to go to or experience daily, instead of just walking the same route. I work mostly from home, and when I have a puppy, they sleep in a crate in the kitchen - which is also stair-gated. (The adult dogs sleep free-range in the rest of the house.) I would get up, toilet the pup, train the pup with her breakfast and then re-crate her. Then I would toilet and feed the older dogs. Then I would typically sit in the kitchen and do some work on my laptop whilst the pup plays with toys (me supervising in same room) - till I see she is getting sleepy. Then it would be toilet time and back into the crate. Then I would train or exercise the older dogs out of the house, which would probably take a couple hours and I would be in and out of the house but not interacting with the crated pup.... Then pup would get toileted again, and another training session with lunch. After lunch, is the pup's time in the afternoon and we would head out to a new location or experience every day. That usually involves hanging out in a dog friendly cafe, and visiting something - a skateboard park, a multi-storey car park - last time I visited a watermill (!), town, shops, pet shops, the police station.... Then it's back home and sleepy puppy sleeps in the crate until dinner time whilst I work in another room. Then more training with dinner. Then, in the evening, pup comes out of the kitchen on a house-line and we all hang out in the lounge together as the pup learns how to relate politely to the other dogs and is prevented from harassing them too much with the long-line. If pup is OTT - back in the crate. Oh - and not much work gets done - as you can see -
Thanks so much for posting this - it's kind of you to pass on the info that you've heard. We've got into a nice routine which works for us, although we do have to tip toe around a bit more than we used to when it's her nap time. Luna is 7 months old now and our routine is actually really similar to the one @Jo Laurens has outlined in her post. We have put some hard work into rewarding Luna for calm behaviour because she's very easily over excited, and so when she does achieve a calm state of her own accord, we find it best to leave her there for a few hours rather than do short interactions every hour. That's what works best for us and our schedule though.... it is probably different for others. You're quite right though @Michael A Brooks , we should probably be getting a break from our laptops every hour. Maybe I'll do some housework instead. Ugh So our little routine, if it's of interest/use to anyone is: 6.30 we go downstairs (aiming to pre-empt any barking). I'll unpack the dishwasher and potter about so she's not the first thing I go to when I come down. I'll then let her out of her crate and she'll potter about and eventually bring me a toy and sit on my feet to let me know she wants a stroke 7am we'll either go for a walk for 20 mins (if it's light enough) for her to run off some steam and do some recall practice while we're there, or we'll do some training in the garden using some of her brekkie, then its inside for whatever is left of her breakfast while we have ours. 8.30 We give her a small frozen Kong in her crate and she'll eat that and settle to sleep until about 11am. We can get a few hours work done upstairs. Sometimes she'll bark, but we completely ignore it and she eventually settles. Lunchtime - a few games in the kitchen (hiding treats or in old bits of recycling for her to find). Luna doesn't have free run of the house yet so it's pretty easy to supervise. Then she'll have lunch while I have mine (we stuff her lunch into several Kongs so I have time to finish my lunch without her thinking its a fun game to pester me). Then we'll go either to a new place (town centre, supermarket, new village for sniffs) or for a walk depending on her energy. Another 20 minutes training when we get back, then back in her crate at about 2.30 and sleeps until about 5.00. 5pm - potter about and a play, tea at the same time as us, another play or something to work her clever brain, and then she'll start getting sleepy about 7.30. As soon as she's settled in the kitchen, she's allowed to come into the lounge to sleep on her bed in there. Any nonsense jumping up at furniture on on the sofas then she goes back in her crate and sleeps in there. We're learning as we go, and it's certainly not a completely slick operation yet, but we're getting there. Trickiest bit is if I want to work in the kitchen while she's awake and playing. She likes to gnaw the leg of the chair I'm sitting on to get my attention. Whenever she does it I'll give her the wooden chew, stand up and walk away but she knows I react if she does it so as soon as I sit down again, she'll sneak under the chair, pretend to settle and then "gnaw gnaw gnaw". I can't keep her away from the chair because it's a kitchen diner and a massive table so I can't restrict her access without shutting her in her crate (bit tricky to describe) so maybe I just need to do a better job of ignoring her. Anyway, best of luck with your new routine @Isabel Rauch - maybe one day we'll get a full day's work done Until then, I don't think I'll be over delivering on any of my work objectives!!
