Hi My puppy Otis is currently 9.5 weeks old and he's very active. We get about 7 hours of sleep at night before he needs a wee. We then normally nap for another 2 hours after. During the day it's all excitement though and he doesn't seem to nap too much? How much naptime should I be giving him?
Hi Tini, 7 hours of sleep in one go - I'm jealous! Our puppy, Harry is twelve weeks old and sleeps for four hours at night before waking at about 3 am and needing a wee. He goes back into his crate without a fuss and usually sleeps until 5.30 or so. During the day he has his brother, Loki to play with and they have at least two long naps, morning and afternoon. They tend to tire each other out.
Opinions on this will vary, but my opinion for "How much downtime for a puppy" would be LOTS. Most of the problems I see with puppies (biting, jumping, barking etc etc) are due to them being overstimulated.
Would agree with overstimulation. That is where a crate helps. Important to teach pups early i believe that they need to be calm and relaxed indoors
Im not sure who said it ...but recently someone said something along the lines ...You need to teach your dog to be lazy This really resonated with me for Maggie. She is def high energy, but after reading that I stepped back and realized My thought process of "wear her out to behave" was actually doing the opposite. Harder to settle down , expecting to go go go etc. Once I let her have more down time she began to relax more. She is now 6 months maybe it is a coincidence, but this has been my observation.
Puppies, like kids, can get very hyper and manic when over-tired. That's where crates come in - they are great at helping establish down times... Most pups will need to sleep about as much as they are awake...
