Am I mad?

[LittleMilla]

Today we have said yes to a yellow lab puppy, little boy.

I have got two sons (3 & 10mo) and work 4 days a week. DH has very flexible work and will be working from home early in then taking him to work. We also have a nanny who will be around with boys every day but don't want to rely on her. She'll just be the backup.

We've spoken for ages about getting a dog but this has literally all happened in the last five days. A breeder friend of my aunt was let down last min and so we've decided to go for it!

DH and I just joked that we're trying to cram 9 months of prep in to four days! DH grown up with dogs so feeling very relaxed but I'm nervous!

[littlewhitebag]

In word: Yes

We got our Lab pup 2 years ago and it almost broke me, DH and our 2 teenage DD's. She was very, very hard work and needed a lot of attention and training. She is fab now though so it all paid off in the end.

Make sure you know exactly what you are letting yourself in for before actually collecting the dog. I could never have done it with very young children. I have no idea how your DH will get any work done if he takes a puppy in with him.

[Ilovemydogandmydoglovesme]

Yep, you are bonkers, but in a nice way.

Lab puppies are bloody hard work for about, oh, two years or so. They need a lot of attention and work and then they turn into big strong bouncey dogs. If you haven't invested the time and energy when they're puppies you will have a hooligan on your hands so be prepared for some time-consuming hard work.

[LittleMilla]

Little - our rationale is that life with two small boys is already hectic. They sleep well (bar illness) but love to be outdoors and our life is pretty active. We're out the house by 9am most days and we've got a garden for wees/poos for first thing.

Plan is that DH'll stay here more whilst puppy is small plus nanny will be here with boys a lot anyway. Then once he's bigger and trained, DH will take him to the small relaxed office and walk/run him at lunchtime. Which is completely realistic.

Got a stair gate for him to stay in utility room and house is already fairly baby-proofed!

I know we're batty though...

[littlewhitebag]

Okay. Don't say I didn't warn you though!

I look forward to your updates. Or your SOS cries for help!

[LittleMilla]

Ha ha, we're already looking around at everything that's going to get nailed.

I'm under no illusions that this isn't going to be hard bloody work. Just made sure that DH knows that he's driving this decision, not me . He's the boss, I'm the deputy.

[GobblersKnob]

I can't possibly comment, I finished the second year of my incredibly demanding degree course a week last Saturday, then went and collected a new rescue dog the next day on the rationale that I have a four and a half month break to settle her down, she is 18 months and I had forgotten how much hard work they are at this age (I have another dog and have always had dogs). I have young children too, but nowhere near as young as yours, I am shattered .

My only warning having got my last puppy when I had a two and a five year old would be that you have to realise that the children will get mouthed a lot by the puppy and its going to hurt and that they will also get knocked over. There are other threads on here atm with people worrying about how much their children are being bitten by their puppies, but that's what puppies do. Not trying to put you off, but do work out how you will deal with it.

[LittleMilla]

Thanks Gobblers.

Yes, we need to think about biting. My 3 yo is very sensible and is used to being licked/nibbled by friends' puppies. But he doesn't like it.

I will carry on reading methods for dealing with it on here.

The little one is going to be too slow for a while to be interesting. He tends to get ignored by friends' dogs but ds1 gets licked etc non stop. He absolutely adores the dogs though so I'm hopeful that he'll be ok.

[clam]

Of course you're bonkers, but how exciting!! LOVE labs!

Word of warning: they're notorious chewers. My sister's chocolate lab destroyed her kitchen cabinets. And skirting boards - God knows how he got his teeth round them but he did. It's not as if he was left alone much, either, and he had every chew toy known to mankind to no avail. He grew out of it eventually, and is the loveliest dog you could meet.

[clam]

Just to put it into context - my sister was about to replace her kitchen anyway, so possibly she didn't make quite as much effort to stop him as she would have done otherwise.

[RoseyHope]

I second the mad chewing! Our Lab puppy is 8 months old and he is blimmin' gorgeous. But we aim to have 3 toys for him in each room that he spends time in (kitchen, living room etc) to save the skirting boards!

He is very very sweet, a nice medium level energy pup with a very nice nature. Swimming helps with burning out their energy; ours had about an hour chasing sticks and balls into a lake today and slept for 4 hours in the afternoon. Bliss!

[LEMmingaround]

that is all

[NCISaddict]

You are completely mad but I'm a fine one to talk, I got an 8 week old border collie puppy 12 weeks before my first baby was born. Yes it was hard work but not to the point of wishing I hadn't done it. Good Luck.

[Buttercup27]

No I don't think so. I've got a 3 yr old lab a 2.3 yr old and a 6 month old. My husband works full time and I'm about to go back to work term time only. Watching the amazing relationship between the dog and the boys is fantastic. They play, cuddle and look after each other. It will be hard work but so rewarding.

[ender]

No, you're not mad, because you don't know what you're in for yet, when you realise it'll be too late .Good luck, I love my grown up yellow lab but he put me off having another puppy for life!
At 3 months he was strong enough to knock toddlers flying, bit everything that moved and seemed intent on self destruction - swallowed drawing pins, large plastic bags, chewed through electric flexes…your DH is in for a rude awakening if he thinks he's going to get any "work from home" done.

[Booboostoo]

Sorry this is a very bad idea and by the time you realise it, it will be too late; the DCs will be heart broken, you will be fed up and the puppy will be struggling to fit into its new home.

Essentially your nanny will have to take over the puppy and unless she is fully committed to doing toilet training, general training, etc. you should not consider a puppy with two adults working full time and two very young children.

[Eastpoint]

Get a cupboard in the hall to keep all your shoes in. You'll need an easily openable & closeable box for toys in any room used by your children & the puppy so your son can put his toys away every time. Our dogs don't go upstairs so some rooms are free from chewing, accidents etc. I recommend no dogs upstairs, no dogs on sofas, no dogs on chairs when you have a puppy or everything gets chewed.

Who will walk the dog each day? Labs need between 1 and 2 hours at least a day, they are working dogs and need the mental stimulation as well as the physical side of walks.

[Ilovemydogandmydoglovesme]

Saying that, my friend has got a lovely red lab that's about a year old and she doesn't seem to have chewed much at all. Perhaps there's hope?

[insanityscatching]

I think you must be mad however the early puppy days haven't faded from my mind yet because Eric's only five months so I might be biased. I do know that I did say at the time that I was delighted our youngest was 11 because it would have been hell with little ones. The first few weeks without walks drove me stir crazy so much so that I started going to the cinema on dh's afternoon off just to get away.
Now of course he's lovely and I'd never want to be without him. I suppose if you set your expectations as it being hell on earth for a while you won't be too disappointed although I wouldn't think dh will get any work done at home between toilet breaks, training and limiting the destruction and kamikaze suicide attempts that Eric seemed intent on enjoying.

[muttynutty]

Making a rush decision over something that will have an impact on your life for over 13 years is mad. Say no to this puppy and take time to consider all the implications.

literally all happened in the last five days this is mad!

[tabulahrasa]

You need to give some serious thought about how you're going to manage a probably bitey puppy and a 10 month old tbh because they'll be at puppy teeth level a lot of the time.

Puppy mouthing is not gentle nibbles, they have needle sharp teeth and it is pretty full on.

[littlewhitebag]

We spent the first few months of out life with our pup with puncture marks on us and our clothes full of holes. They have very sharp teeth and they nip sore. I was actually a bit terrified of ours as she used to have mad lunging at my face episodes when she was tired and over wrought.

[PurpleFrog]

Yes, you are mad!

Our lab "puppy" will be 4 years old in a couple of weeks. Dd would love another puppy but the memories haven't faded sufficiently for us to consider it! I was really glad dd was 12 when we got him. Lab pups are big, bouncy, boisterous and very, very bitey! And ours got up between 4.30am and 6.00am for at least the first 6 months we had him [yawn].

He is lovely now, though!

[fanoftheinvisibleman]

I'd think long and hard about the biting. Puppies don't 'nibble' they bite. And it isn't bad puppies who bite, they all have to be taught.

Our dog is such a careful gentle soul now but often had my then 6 year old in tears. And he wrecked so many items of clothing I gave up replacing them, we just embraced the holes.

But the only times I genuinely couldn't cope where when my friend visitedwith her 2 year old. Everyones nerves were in shreds after an hour. I couldn't have done it 24hours a day...it wasn't an 'Ohh you can't take your eyes off them' eye rolling thing. You literally had to have a physical barrier between them at all times or else puppy was hurting child or child was hurting puppy. Bearing in mind to instense time consuming needs of both puppy and child it was a nightmare.

[LadyTurmoil]

I also think you're a bit bonkers. Puppies, esp Lab puppies look gorgeous on the Andrex ads, but it's a hell of a commitment. Training and housetraining really require you to be on the ball 24/7. If your DH thinks he will fit in work and a new puppy, he may be surprised, at the very least. How will he take an un-housetrained puppy into work - will it be a safe environment, will pup be able to pee/poop in the workplace?

Also, is it fair to expect the nanny to look after a puppy - is that what she signed up for when she came to nanny your children? She may resent the extra workload (and there will be) and it could upset the relationship you have with her, when she must be pretty busy looking after two small children already.

Puppies bite! They really do, they don't mean to hurt but that's they way they play and interact (as they would with their puppy siblings). Look at the other thread on here about puppies and you'll see what it's really like. There's a good reason why many rescues don't rehome to homes with children under 5...