Please give me the reality!

[Realitych3ck]

We are hoping to get a pup but don't know anyone with one so wondered if I could get a reality check please!

So what does a normal morning look like with a pup?! Would I need to be up super early or would say 6am toilet break and say an hr and half play mean it would then sleep for a bit. I work from home so would need to get on computer at some point!! And would I even be able to leave the house at all?! I hate being stuck in as it affects my mental health.

A day in the life from any puppy expert owners would be amazing!

Ps pup would be 8 weeks old min.

Thanks so much in advance.

[Ilovewillow]

We have a 5 month old cocker spaniel, we've had him since he was 12 weeks and I was expecting it to be a nightmare but he has been great. We were up earlier but now up at 6.00, he is crated but for the last week he has had the door left open at night and been great (we have a stair gate at the top of the stairs). At 6 he goes out for a wee in the garden then is fed and goes for a walk (about 20 mins - they shouldn't walk too far to start with). By then he's ready to relax. We leave the house at 8.30 so at the mo he crates and a dog walker comes in at 11.30 to walk him and feed him. I come home at 2.00 and walk him or play in the garden with him. He eats at 5.00. He goes for another walk in the evening and is fed again at 8.00. He usually settles to sleep in the evenings on the sofa. He's is pretty much clean now but in the early days we stayed at home with him and let him into the garden every hour or so and had puppy pads.

It has been easier than I thought and so rewarding. He's is like a reasonably well behaved toddler. To help you decide see pic for cuteness

[Realitych3ck]

Absolutely gorgeous! Thank you, that's really helpful!! It is all new to me so it's really helpful to hear. I work from home so can be at home but can't spend every single minute with pup as I do have to do some work! So just checking it is actually doable. Thanks again.

[ChilliMum]

We are at the other end now our pup is 14 but I remember the puppy days well.

Similar to the pp, I worked odd hours so would be home for chunks of the day and Pil lived nearby so would pop around. Less walking and more short play in the garden (I don't know if is normal for all dog's but ours is more likely to toilet when she is exercising) so regular short play in the garden meant we only had a handful of accidents in the house throughout the whole period of training.

She also loved to sleep near my feet so if you position her bed near where you use your computer you should get plenty of work done.

I think the trick is to be quite flexible at first and find your dog's groove. Ours was an excellent sleeper and no problem to get into her bed at night but also an early riser and would start crying in the kitchen from 4 am (although this was for company rather than toilet).

By day 5 we broke and took her to bed with us and she has slept on the bottom of my bed ever since which at least meant we got to sleep until about 6.

Having a dog is wonderful and so much fun. Enjoy

[BiteyShark]

The truth is all puppies are different and you won't know what 'things' are going to be hard work for you until they are here.

There have been numerous puppy survival threads on here. My dog is now 2 and I joined a few of them at the beginning. I would highly recommend taking a few hours and searching for a lot of the old ones and having a really good read to see whether you could cope with any of the issues you might encounter. That will give you a flavour of how some of our older lovely dogs were when they were a puppy or a teenager.

Common issues are 'lack of sleep' due to getting up to let them pee or the fact some of them cry a lot, mouthing (biting), jumping, random eating of things they shouldn't, demanding, anxiety being left amongst others.

The when you finally get to about 5-6 months of age and think phew that the hard bit over with they hit the teenage stage and become 'deaf' to all that lovely training you did especially recall. This period can last for several months as well.

I adore my dog and I wouldn't be without him but the first year was very hard.

The PP said it was far easier than expected which is great expect you don't know whether you will get an easy or hard puppy and even those that have the easy ones sometimes come on here saying they got another and found the second really hard work. Some people have said the puppy months were easy but then the teenage stage awful. Others say it's all been easy whilst lots of people unfortunately rehome when the going gets tough . That is why I recommend looking at the survival threads to get a broad idea of the differences people experience.

[BiteyShark]

Sorry about all the typos - multitasking badly

[Hisaishi]

I've never had a puppy, only rehomed dogs, but anyone who says it's easy has had good luck. Even taking an adult dog home is hard, it took six months for our boy to settle in. Like you, I have mh problems, and I DID feel stuck at home sometimes. If you have a reliable dog walker, your life is easier, but you do need to be able to get home to let them out every few hours, which isn't always easy.

Why not try fostering a dog for a bit to see how it is? I think it's more commitment than most people realise.

[Realitych3ck]

Thank you so much everyone. I will look at the survival threads now. I want to be prepared for the worst if that makes sense! Thank you again

[BiteyShark]

This is one of the first ones I joined

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/the_doghouse/2855343-Does-anyone-fancy-a-puppy-survival-thread

There have been lots before and lots after

There have been a few teenage survival ones as well

[Ethel80]

It's brilliant but it's not easy!

Mine wasn't toilet trained at all when we got him because his breeder was shit so we had to start from scratch but other friends have had puppies at 10 weeks that are pretty much trained with the odd accident.

Ours would loudly announce every time he'd had a poo on the mat which was mostly funny but not at 4am. I'm not sure I'd use puppy pads again tbh because it's another habit to break.

Teething was shit, he cried a lot and we had many sleepless nights.

Definitely focus loads on training, lots of recall and heel work. Go to classes and persevere. Then teach them some fun stuff. Then as someone else said, it will all go to shit for a while when they hit adolescence.

Get them used to teeth cleaning early and do it regularly. If they are raw fed then bones help keep teeth clean.

Do lots of research on food, some of it is awful but you can get some really well balanced diets but they're expensive. Raw food is really good for skin, improves behaviour and their poo doesn't stink as much. It's also much cheaper.

[Darkbaptism]

My puppy is 7 months old and at the start (we got her at 8 weeks) I did feel like I was stuck inside with her. Now she’s able to go for longer walks it’s fantastic, sometimes I feel like I have to drag myself out to walk her but I feel so much better once I’m out - she’s really had a positive impact on my MH.
She did wake a fair amount at the start, she sleeps in our room. Now she’s happy to wait for me to wake up.
It was a bit harder than expected at the start and I did frequently comment that she was an arsehole! Now she’s certainly the best thing ever and I get tearful at the thought she won’t be around forever. She’s really lifted up the whole family and brought us so much joy!

[Realitych3ck]

Thank you for all the fantastic advice. I am really heartened by it all. And by the clear love you have for your dogs!

[adaline]

Our puppy is now ten months old so we're through the tiny stage and into the terrible teens!

They are a lot of work at the beginning. We took a month off work with ours and then he went to doggy daycare. We had to take him out every 20-30 minutes for the first month or so and he still peed on the carpet! He only ever pooed inside once though, and that was they day we got him home at 12 weeks.

We were up two-three times a night at first and it was probably not until he was five months that he started to sleep through reliably. Now our alarm goes off at 7 and he doesn't want to get out of bed!

And he chewed. Everything. A lot. We never crate trained but as a result of that we could never leave him alone. Luckily we live in a very dog-friendly area and he came with us everywhere. We also have a fantastic daycare who will take him with 24 hours notice and who can have him overnight too. He loves going there and it's a relief to know we can leave him there if we need to.

However he's now mostly settled. He's amazing in the house, needs letting out maybe once during the day at lunch for a wee. He sleeps through from around 9pm-7am everyday, and sleeps a good few hours in the day too. However the key to this is regular, varied walks and brain games. In the evenings he's fed out of puzzle games, stuffed buffalo horns or snuffle mats - often frozen so it takes him an hour or so to eat his dinner. After that, he's normally shattered and will settle down with us. But it took me about 4 months of hyperactive evenings to figure this out!

He's worth all the hard work. He still pulls on the lead and today he growled and barked at a pile of rubble left outside someone's house for no real reason, but generally he's so much better than he was. He runs off on the beach with friends most weekends, will settle nicely while we eat a meal in a pub or restaurant and is generally a joy to have around.

[Realitych3ck]

Thank you. He sounds wonderful! I so want one but like everyone says its a huge commitment and I don't know if honestly I have the patience to take a puppy out every 20 minutes all day for months on end. Still giving it a lot of thought. Thanks again.

[rookiemere]

Our puppy is just about 6 months now.

DH slept downstairs with him for the first couple of nights and since then he has slept on his own through the night quite happily. We are generally up about 7 so thats when we let him out for his morning ablutions. Toilet training was not too bad at all - helped by getting him in the summer and having a fully dog enclosed garden.

He hadn't had his vaccinations so the hardest bit for the first few weeks was not being able to take him out or indeed leave him for more than about an hour. However by building time up gradually we can now leave him on his own quite happily ( walk beforehand and kong to play with) for a couple of hours.

I also signed up for borrowmydoggy and a lovely young couple have had him a couple of times at the weekend when we wanted to be out for longer than a couple of hours.

He's a very chilled out fellow even when very young so could work successfully at home from about week 3 after we got him. When its my day to work from home I take him for a walk prior to starting and at lunchtime then if he does get restless during the day I'll do a bit of training for a few minutes.

It's really been a lot easier than expected but we do have such a relaxed puppy .