We recently had to put my dear old girl Daisy to sleep but we have made the decision to get another lovely lab in the New Year - originally early spring..... but the breeder we signed up with is having a litter that will be ready to go home beginning of January! Where I live in Toronto ONTARIO Canada we get cold and snow, so I am looking for advice on the fun of housebreaking in winter. When Daisy was a pup we brought her home at end of April, so the weather was very agreeable. I am wondering if with labs being cold weather dogs the only one in any discomfort will be me!
Hi,firstly so sorry to hear about the loss of your lab. Our first girl was potty training in the winter months here in Britain and i can say it's not nice standing shivering in the cold and dark waiting for her to perform! We even had snow! I think your right as she didn't mind one bit,we were the ones suffering, lol. Good luck and what a lovely thing to look forward to in the new year.
I live in the southern half of England so we don't have winters like you describe but when my pup arrived in November it was raining solidly for what felt like ages. Having to get booted up and put on the cagoule and sometimes even take out a brolly coz it was raining so hard, was no fun for me. I do remember thinking I'd not considered time of year when I chose her and wish I'd got her in the summer! It wasn't my most favourite time and if I was to get a puppy again I might try to get one in potentially more clement weather. But the flip side was, when the weather started improving she was able to go out for longer walks so we were able to enjoy it that way round.
We got buddy late summer and I remember thinking it would be difficult in winter. Being able to just sit outside with him and wait made things very easy. However, I’m sure many people have done it, and if you find the right pup it wouldn’t be a deal breaker that it came in winter, hope you get sorted, I’m sure you’ll be fine...
I’m in Toronto also and brought home our puppy in mid January. It was very cold, and really hard to stand outside at 3am waiting for her to pee but it passed by very quickly. I don’t think it had any impact on house training for her...it was just harder on us getting boots and coat on quickly to get the pup outside! I actually think there are some pros to a winter puppy as there is less junk on the ground to pick up/eat. We had a little sweater for her for the extreme cold days. Good luck!
Thanks for the advice all. QuinnM15 you make a good point about there being less junk on the ground to eat in winter! I guess its not forever. For Daisy's last two years of her life, I took her out to do her business on leash every time - she was sprayed by a skunk in February 2016 and after that I never let her out in backyard for her first business of the day as that is when she was sprayed..... then she went blind the following year and had to be helped out to yard so you think I would be used to it ! It's just the middle of the night I'm really not looking forward to
I was going to talk about getting Chewie in winter, but then I read that you are in Toronto and we are in Sydney, so the experiences really aren't comparable. If you do go ahead, I would have the stuff you need to get out the door ready at all times, close to the door and always in the same place so you can get ready to go asap. You might end up with a few more accidents but it will be over eventually!
No winter pups are NOTmy first choice but sometimes this happens. I am in Minnesota and Zeke's first year was one of the coldest ones in a while. I admit I cheated a bit. I hate winter and I hate being cold and I felt so sorry for my baby... We have a heated garage and some nights we just went into the garage. We used boot trays filled with wood shavings in the garage and in the kennel. Our breeder puppy trained his litters this way so we just continued the trays a bit longer due to winter. Good luck!
Toilet training is definitely harder AT FIRST in bad weather, but there is a knack to it: If you allow the pup to come inside without having toileted, then you reinforce 'not toileting' by coming inside into the nice warm house. If you stick it out and really wait until the pup has toileted, THEN you come indoors, you are reinforcing toileting outside - by coming inside into the nice warm house. Once the pup learns that the faster they toilet, the faster they get to go back inside again, you can actually end up with great toilet training in winter! But the trick is at first really waiting it out... Secondly, socialisation is a lot harder in the winter, because people tend not to go out so much or to spend so much time outdoors. I'd be more concerned by that, than by toilet training... It's why we try to have our puppies in the summers always.
