Re: Leaving puppy at home alone - advice needed Hi Robbie, Here is the post I wrote a while back on my options when I got my puppy: [quote author=JulieT link=topic=4636.msg56873#msg56873 date=1393259028] I managed to find a dog walker that was willing to pop by for 15minutes to an hour depending on what I needed. It turned out terrifically well. I got someone who roped in a young mum with young kids, and she would turn up with her babies - which was amazing for Charlie, and they all sat and played in the garden in a big baby/puppy heap. I know that this is said not to be ideal (excitable pups and kids), but she clearly knew what she was doing - I could watch her on CCTV - and it was always a happy, calm, time, and good for puppy and kids (bar the odd puppy run round with a nicked nappy). If I was really stuck for all day, the dog walker (not the young mum) would take my boy for the day, and he'd have a few short walks, go with her on her "rounds", then spend the rest of the time snoozing under the desk of her OH who worked at home. I also called in favours from family and friends, and also had the option of small puppy day care (pups up to six months), which was just a warm room with a stable door off the offices of the local pet training company - I could buy 10 days and book when I needed to use a day. They only took 3 puppies at a time, and it was a great set up. The other option, which I didn't use, was people at puppy class suggested a puppy pop in swap - like baby sitting circles. Which I thought was a great idea, as the people I met were great and still keep in touch with some, but this wasn't great for me - it suited other people though. [/quote] You need to start investigating options like these if you can't stay at home with your puppy. In the book I recommended (Ian Dunbar) he recommends 2 different set ups, the second for if you have to leave a puppy for longer than it could hold between going to the loo (it is not ideal to do this at all, but this is better than leaving a puppy in a crate when you know it won't be able to last). 1) A crate - he calls this short term confinement, the place you put puppy between toilet breaks to encourage puppy to learn to hold on. 2) The same crate, within a pen - this he calls long term confinement. Inside the pen is the crate, water, chew toys and at the far end away from the crate, newspapers for puppy to pee and poo on. I used both of these arrangements and still use a crate inside a pen now when my boy is 1 year old. The crate and pen are much bigger though. This is the pen I started with: http://dogpen-margothedog.deal-net.co.uk/dog-pens/dog-pen-extended-2.html The other thing that is in Ian Dunbar's book is tips on how to get your dog addicted to safe chew toys and kongs for when you have to leave them alone. Basically, if you have to leave a puppy, don't feed it in a bowl. Feed all its food in kongs. You need to make sure a very young puppy works out how to get the food out of the kong, but once this is done it's a great technique. Puppy kongs are here: http://www.viovet.co.uk/Kong_Puppy_Toy/c4728/?quick_find=114779&gclid=CNjQpoqcn70CFeXLtAodhwEALQ Best of luck
Re: Leaving puppy at home alone - advice needed Hi Robbie and welcome to the forum it's such an exciting time waiting for puppy to arrive. I love the name Zulu I have Harley who is now 7.5 months old and both myself and my husband work and our daughter is in university so us only home during holidays. I am lucky that I work locally and flexible hours (29 hours a week). When we got Harley I worked part-time for the first week and a bit. Since then I generally work 3-4 hours in the morning then 3-4 hours in the afternoon. When I was at work (full hours) my neighbour kindly popped in every 2 hours to let her out. This was done for the first month. After this, it has been me popping back every lunch time for an hour. My neighbour kept an ear out and told me when she looked through the back window Harley was either munching on her kong, or asleep. She does not bark or whine when we are not home (I videoed her ) She is in her crate during this time. On the odd day (like today) she went to my friends house as I needed to be in meetings all day and wouldn't have a chance to get home. The other thing I use occasionally is a dog walking company. They pop in twice a day for 30 mins at a time to let pup out, play, toilet etc. I arrange this around the times I work so she has 2 visits a day from them and an hour with me. We met them several times before they started popping in and I generally only use them once a week. I spend every night and spare moment with Harley, weekends revolve around doing things together, going new places and now on walks in the woods, on beaches etc. my holiday is also her holiday and she comes with us if I have half day, we got out somewhere nice. I would leave a kong of two and some toys for pup to play with Is there any possibility of you or your wife working reduced hours for the first week or two? If not, I would recommend the dog walkers......they will happily pop in for short periods initially, then help with their socialisation as they get older. Anyway, good luck and please let us know how you are getting on
Re: Leaving puppy at home alone - advice needed Well, as you can see, Robbie, there are a few different views out there about this! I described earlier what we do with our dog Obi when we're at work. We had another dog before him, Nicolae, who we got as a puppy at 10 weeks old. When we got him my hubby took 4 weeks off work to stay at home with him (gradually getting him used to being by himself for short periods of time). For a few months after that we had an arrangement with our neighbours who took him in during the day (where he spent most of the day staring, fascinated, at their chickens). One day a week he spent the day with a puppy of the same age at another friends' house. But by the time he was about a year old he was by himself most days (in the house) when we were at work and it was like that till he passed away at 14. Outside work time we did a lot with him - obedience classes, dog sports (first half of his life), taking him as many places as possible. He coped just fine. We did have to juggle things and make arrangements while he was a pup, but, with a bit of planning, it was absolutely manageable. As Julie said, you can work full time and have a happy well adjusted dog. It's not the preserve of the non-working. I know many dog owning people who work (members of our dog club who both work and are dedicated to their dogs) and to me it is a normal state of affairs.
Re: Leaving puppy at home alone - advice needed Echo everyone's comments especially around preparation and planning, otherwise it could end up being quite a stressful time. I am very new to dog keeping, and we both work full-time, but with some flexibility, OH can work at home a couple of days a week. I am just back to work after taking 4 months off and now part-time for 6 weeks, so ideal time to give Benson the best possible start, and to give us time to get used to Benson and his needs both physically and emotionally, we want to get it right, so we spend loads of time on training, having fun to develop the best possible bond between us. I really don't think dog owning should be the domain of people who don't work. or maybe have retired, but appreciate the dogs needs must come first, training now prevents problems later down the road, if it goes wrong somewhere we only have ourselves to blame. I know of lots of people who have time, but just don't bother with their dogs for various reasons. I spent a long time researching dog walkers in the area, and although don't need one yet have got one on board already. They have paired Benson up with a similar dog, and their own dogs both labradors, which I found very reassuring. They are phasing Benson in with comfort breaks just now working up to longer walks when he is able, based on 5 mins per month of life so 5 months = 25 minutes of exercise per day. Benson has always had more, but mainly strolling around fields and walks, not intensive tearing around! The dog walkers are a godsend as this means that Benson will have the best of both worlds, other dogs to play with and people who love the breed and have loads of experience! We got Benson at 10 weeks old..he is now 20 weeks old and it has been exhausting! I just didn't appreciate how much work looking after a puppy entailed!! This forum has been my lifeline, always people on line to help, sometimes just by sharing experiences. We started straight off with a crate..helped along by the fact the breeder had also crate trained Benson. We kept Benson in the kitchen, our choice as didn't want him to get used to going upstairs and were worried about attachment anxiety. Whenever he wanted to sleep, it was straight back to his crate, he associates this with his "safe" and "quiet" area, pretty essential I would imagine with children around. Toileting was pretty straightforward for us, every 2 hours outside with the command "wee wee". Toileting was after every meal, bought of exercise or a snooze, lots of praise too! He got that pretty sorted after about 2 weeks, with the odd accident, until he was about 13 weeks old. Good luck with your pup, try and get a bit more time off if you can, it will certainly help!
Re: Leaving puppy at home alone - advice needed Hi Robbie, don't be downhearted. We planned Lilly's arrival to coincide with school holidays so my son and daughter (14 and 11 at the time) had her home for the first 4-5 weeks. She was a little older when we picked her up as the breeder had kept her longer until after our holiday - around 11 weeks. When the kids went back to school, Lilly was home alone from 8.30am to 12.30 when OH popped home at lunch for half an hour, and then until 3.15 when Sophie got home from school. By that stage we rarely had accidents, and the lunchtime visits only lasted about a fortnight as she was more interested in playing than popping out for a pit stop. A friend took her for a short walk if we were unable to get home. She was happy in her crate, and loved stuffed kongs. Personally we didn't use puppy pads or an inside toileting area. She was a little older than Zulu though. Wouldn't it be nice if you got Paternity Leave for pets ;D Lilly adapted really well and she is a contented inside dog. Perhaps her problems, which include a "selective hearing recall" stem from getting her a little older, and lack of structured training in the early weeks - in retrospect, leaving it to the kids, keen though they were, might not have been in her favour. Overall things have worked out fine for us. I am glad you have found the forum. You are giving this a lot of thought. And have good plans in place. All dogs are different and I don't see why this shouldn't work for you, based on my limited experience. I do hope you stick around with us, there are lots of people on here who are willing and happy to give you advice and the benefit of their experience. Good luck with Zulu - let us know how you get on
Re: Leaving puppy at home alone - advice needed HI All, Thanks you all for the sounds advice. Initially I planned to reply to each one of your posts, but due to the overwhelming responses, I thought I would give a more “general” reply. My initial posting was more of the “total worst case” scenario, which involved my wife coming home to puppy on her lunch break. As Tillydyes said, their dogs turned out dandy. Before now, I didn’t know about “dog walkers” so this is certainly something I will look into. Unfortunately, being new to the city we living in, we dont have any fmaily or close freinds (nearby who dont work) who would be able to pop in. At this stage, we dont even know our neighbours well enough to help out. My step son (13) is also going on school holidays for 3 weeks soon, so he will be at home with puppy, which is also going to help us. Just because I work full time, please don’t assume that I am not going to shower my little Zulu with all the love in the world. The whole family is totally in love with Zulu already.. and he hasn’t even arrived yet. Us getting a puppy is by no means meant to be for selfish reasons, but he will be part of the family to love and grow up with. On the social side of things, we I have signed up Zulu for “puppy kindergarten” and once completed, we will keep him with the dog training as there are various grades for him (1-5). We also have a dog park down the road from us, which I plan to take him for walks and socializing every evening. I also plan to walk him every morning. We live in the hills and very close to the beach, so on weekends we will go for nice long walks on the beach and the footpaths in the hills. Once again, thanks for all the advice. Regards, Robbie
Re: Leaving puppy at home alone - advice needed Mmmmm beach, Labrador heaven! looking forward to pictures
Re: Leaving puppy at home alone - advice needed Yep, my dog says to tell you that he is jealous ;D Your dog park may have a 'puppy and small dog' area which you can take Zulu into so he doesn't get bowled over by bigger dogs. That's just something to keep an eye on in a dog park - watch for any signs of stress (cringing, snapping, weeing) and don't hesitate to step in to remove your puppy from an overly boisterous situation. Also don't hesitate to reward Zulu for calm and happy behaviour The puppy classes are a wonderful option to be able to use prior to Zulu having his final vaccinations (when he will be able to interact with older dogs). Is there a dog club in your area? They can also run classes for dogs older than 12 weeks. We go to a dog club to do obedience and Flyball classes and our dog loves it
Re: Leaving puppy at home alone - advice needed Yes, we have a dog park within walking distance and a dog club about 5min drive from home, which starts from puppy ages right through to more advanced levels
Re: Leaving puppy at home alone - advice needed Sounds like you are thinking this through very carefully Robbie, good on you. Please don't hesitate to ask us any questions, no matter what. Looking forward to the photos!
Re: Leaving puppy at home alone - advice needed I also feel very strongly about leaving a dog, let alone a puppy alone for more than a short time. We have re organised our working routine so that this doesn't happen. When my wife is working, I'm home and vice versa.
Re: Leaving puppy at home alone - advice needed [quote author=Robbiep link=topic=4950.msg62363#msg62363 date=1395351774] I have found a dog walker in our area [/quote] Good for you! And you might find more options as you start going to puppy school and meeting other owners. Before you know it, Zulu will have a social life that you need a dedicated calendar for! Charlie's appointments book rules our life! ;D ;D ;D You know though, that pup doesn't need walks at first? You just need the dog walker to pop in to do play session at first. Walks come later (sorry if you know this, but thought it might be helpful to say just in case not).
Re: Leaving puppy at home alone - advice needed Congrats Robbie , Bringing up a puppy can be a challenge . We were in a similar situation a couple of months ago when we got Bruno from the breeder . It was exciting times for us as we have never brought up a puppy before and nor do we have kids . My Wife stayed home/worked from home for 2 weeks and then i did the same for 1 week , Then a friend who also got a yellow male lab puppy from a different breeder home agreed to help us . But having to look after 2 puppies was too much to ask , they always keep playing forever and never wanna stop . So then we came back to our old routine of working from home one at a time . Alongside with this we always wanted another as we knew they would keep each other company etc . We found Simba on a Lab Rescue site . He seems very good . We drove 300kms one way to get him and boy i tell u its totally worth it . Simba is like a Role model for Bruno . Bruno follows him everywhere , except when we are around . I think its worth if u can think of another dog if u like one . We have a doggy door for the dogs to get in and out to the backyard . We havent had a single incident since then , its been 2 months now Simba is home . Bruno is confident to go out even in the dark as he knows his brother is watching. We took Bruno for his puppy preschool and now both go to their obedience club sessions every Saturday , Both get walked by me twice a day . I watched them on CCTV from work . We get some furniture bitten , some muddy legs etc , But i guess thats all a part of being a puppy . We have restricted them to the kitchen and dining area which is tiled , so we just need to mop or vacuum it. Let us know how it goes Cheers Vish
Re: Leaving puppy at home alone - advice needed Just finished reading "before you get a puppy" by Ian Dunbar I have stocked up on a few recommended chew toys, treats and my puppy crate arrived today. I'm fetching Zulu in 3 hours time... SUPER EXCITED!
