While I am positive this topic has been addressed time and time again on this forum, I thought I'd start a new thread to seek the advice from all of you pro's out there! My yellow lab pup, Jax, will finally be coming home in a couple of weeks’ time - I'm crazy excited but nervous all at the same time. I've found the info on this site to be a great resource but I guess I am looking for a bit of reassurance that I am on the right track. (Or, helpful feedback if I'm out to lunch!) My partner and I both work full-time (everyone take a deep breath, I know that's a sensitive subject in these parts, but I am confident that we've got a solid plan). Luckily for us both, we have very flexible schedules and each just work a few minutes from home. We've initially re-arranged our work lives so one of us will be able to be periodically home throughout the day so that Jax is never alone for more than 1 - 1.5 hours. We'll monitor how he does for the first few days via CCTV and if he's having a rough go, we can change gears (work from home, dog walker, family etc.). Ultimately though, the reality is that he will be on his own for short periods of time for the foreseeable future and we'd rather he get accustomed to that sooner rather than later. I believe that even an hour is going to be too long for him in the first few weeks in regards to needing to use the bathroom. (Side note: I love that all of you British folk say "wee". It makes it sound so civilized! Here in Canada we tend to be a bit more colorful). So, I am planning on going with the crate/pen set up - so, his crate (open) in a pen with access to water and a bathroom area. What I'd like to know is have others used this set up (if so, do you have pics?) how it worked and if you felt like it sent your pup mixed messages when it comes to housetraining? For those of you who have used this set up, did you find that after awhile, you pup treated the entire pen as he would his crate? Feedback would be appreciated - thanks in advance!
Here is mine (I have a pup every year as I'm a puppy walker for Guide Dogs ) They are house trained no quicker or slower than crated pups. They hold their wee in overnight when their bladders are mature enough and this differs for every pup. Daytime house training is no different at all.
Hello there. We like wee (and poo, or poop - that's fine too). No colourful descriptions required on this forum! I work full time and not as much from home as I do now when I got my puppy and coped. It's not about whether you work or not, it's about what care you can provide for your puppy, and there are endless forms this can take. Several short drops ins during the day are not the same as constant attention and interaction that puppies need - I'm sure you know that, just thought I'd mention it though. I used a pen arrangement, yes. It worked fine and while my puppy wasn't super fast at house training, he was about average I'd say, and it all turned out fine. I can't really say whether my puppy viewed his pen as his crate - I'd say not, no, not really. He was just trained not to wee inside, I don't think he was ever less likely to wee in his pen as in the kitchen for example. Here is my set up: image by julieandcharlie julieandcharlie, on Flickr I still have a pen even now my dog is all grown up (but he no longer wees in his pen!) - because I prefer him to be in a pen when I leave him.
Boy, both the pen setups are NICE. I managed to arrange a week of vacation, then my work schedule so puppy was only alone from 1:30 pm to 5:15 pm 5 days a week, and the OH worked close enough to zip home at 3:00 on his coffee break. The OH built a pen 4 x 8 feet, very sturdy but not as fancy looking as the ones above. It had a floor in it to protect our hardwood. IN the pen we placed the crate with the door open. The odd time puppy needed an extra PEE or we were late she chose a spot at the far end of the pen and away from the door to the crate. WE put newspaper down on the floor of the pen to soak up any of those odd PEEs and they really were few and far between. This did not seem to have any adverse affect on potty training. With Oban I worked from home and the setup was similar except he was gated in the kitchen. High, sturdy homemade gates. The biggest drawback to this was how hard it was for me to get work done. Puppy was far more fun and he did need out a lot at first, sometimes every 10 minutes if a bout of play got him all stimulated. And, lucky for us, he did not wreck the kitchen as they can do. When you zip home how long can you stay with your puppy? Your plans seem reasonable to me but puppies, like babies, have a way of establishing their own timetables. You are probably going to find a quickie for pee or POOP might not be what puppy has in mind. You say puppy will not be alone for more than a 1.5 hour stretch, but how long will he be WITH you? PS Pee and wee are the same colour. Disturbingly like chicken broth as you'll notice that time that probably will come when you need to take a pee sample to the vet and if you use your soup ladle, like I do, to collect it.
Thanks for the Pee vs. Wee clarification, Snowshoe! LOL! I'll be sure to have my soup ladle on hand (I did wonder how I was going to cope with that when the time came). Between my OH and I we have a great deal of flexiability in our schedules so we are planning on more than just "fly-by" bathroom breaks. Truthfully, I doubt either one of us humans will be satisfied with a quickie bathroom break, never mind what Jax wants! Your set up sounds exactly as I am invisioning mine - I want to be sure that if he needed to go and couldn't wait for us, or something unexpected made us late, he wasn't forced to make a mess in his crate. When his bladder is stronger, we'll move to just his crate.
Hello @Jasehoek - at first, my pup spent his nights in the pen with a puppy pen and no separate crate. I crated trained him later, and took my time over it. But I wouldn't do this again with a new pup - for the first few nights, I'd have him in a box/crate next to my bed and move him to sleep on his own gradually.
