To not take excited 4 year old to his first lesson

[JustSaltPlease]

Arggg help me out. Meant to take son to first swimming lesson today, he's been asking about it for a while.

Problem number 1 is I have a heavy period, although this isn't a massive bother.

Problem 2 is my puppy sitter has let me down and my little pup isn't used to being alone yet, between school pick up and lesson I'd be gone around 1.5 to 2 hours. So please confirm that I have to let my son down!

Dp saying to leave puppy in kitchen but God knows what stress he will be under and subsequently what damage he will do!

@sunsetsandboardwalks because a 13 week old puppy really knows when it's humans are upstairs or out of the house.... seriously?

Im a real dog lover, but this is just too much. If the dog is crate trained especially, it can be left at home.

I think puppy should be able to do 2 hours at 15 weeks.

What on earth do you do with the puppy at night if it can’t be left alone for two hours?!

My point exactly! This is so weird

Of course they know!

This is a puppy who has only been with OP for three weeks and who has never been left for longer than 10 minutes - to suddenly go from that to two hours with zero preparation is an awful idea.

Yes, the puppy might be okay but it could also bark and cry for two hours solid, pee and poo all over the floor and get genuinely distressed. This isn't an emergency where OP has no choice - it's a swimming lesson - it can wait.

Lots of young puppies sleep in the same room as their owners for company and to help with toilet training.

There's also a huge difference between being upstairs and able to get to the puppy, reassure it and let it out to the toilet, and just disappearing with no warning or preparation for it.

What do you do on a night with the puppy? I think this is where most dog owners go wrong - they don’t ever leave their puppy alone. If we needed to pop out then we have always crated and left - from day one and the same overnight. Lots of dogs over the years and never had any separation issues, they always make a bit of a fuss the first night or two but that’s all. No way would I prioritise a dog over my child in this situation.

Did yours? Mine didn't. We were still toilet training at that point.

@sunsetsandboardwalks so what do you reckon they do when they go to sleep? Most new dog owners don't sleep with their dog in the same room.

And I definitely disagree with you saying of course they know when their humans are gone, the puppy is only 13 weeks old.

Yes they could.

I refused to vote because it's a difficult decision and I back whatever you decide.

Good grief - people are posting as if the Op has a choice who to save from a life threatening situation, her child or her puppy.

In reality it's a short delay (hours in this case) to going to a swimming pool.

When they're asleep, they're still in the same house to provide reassurance if necessary, to take the puppy out if needed and to generally be around in case there's a problem.

A puppy who has never been left alone with no humans available for company or reassurance is unlikely to just go "oh okay" and settle.

The people trying to say you're neglecting your child for your puppy are insane. Obviously, you can't leave a puppy for that long when they aren't used to it, and your child who wanted the puppy will understand if you explain it to him. I do think you need to ramp up the training on leaving your puppy for longer periods though.

I´m very glad you have sorted this to everyone´s benefit. For those posters who appear happy to leave the puppy, the issue with this (apart from being cruel) is the OP could have set herself up for a long road ahead with separation anxiety which is truly awful to deal with and could even mean her having to part with the dog. Which I would imagine would be far more distressing than missing one swimming lesson for the child involved.

It doesn't really matter what posters think a young puppy 'should' be able to do, or get nosy about its sleeping arrangements- the OP knows her pup and where they're up to with training and settling.

It'd probably help if people would read her updates even if they CBA to RTFT before posting their opinions - she's taking her DS to a fun pool session later on so he's not losing out on even a 'want', and certainly nothing he needs.

when my dog was a pup, he used to climb into the washing basket when we left and climb out when we arrived home. Bless him. He was so lovely. Absolute idiot now he's a full grown adult!

So pleased to read you haven't left the puppy to experience potentially extreme distress and panic for a couple of hours. It is wholly unnatural for a puppy of that age to be alone at all, and doing this can cause very difficult to resolve behaviour issues well into adulthood.

Shocked to learn so many people would have done so!

(I am sure I'll get a load of people telling me they did it and their dog was fine, well first most average dog owners interpretation of 'fine' is not fine at all, and secondly bully for you, tell that to the owner whose puppy wasn't fine, and is suffering long term from that trauma. Some times folks get lucky, and when it comes to dogs... when they don't, it is the dog that really suffers!)

No, don’t leave the puppy as it could cause serious issues with socialisation further down the line. It’s not about choosing the dog over the child, it’s about raising a dog that’s calm and good with children and doesn’t cause you problems further down the line. Of course your son will get over it and you can go next week.

Ffs well try having a dog with separation anxiety and see how fun that is for the son compared to a calm and happy dog that enriches his life. He is missing one swimming session and being taught a good lesson - that being a responsible pet owner means potentially missing out on things like this.

Well done OP, for being a responsible dog owner and a lovely mum and finding a compromise!

This is why crate training is a good idea. Puppy would sleep for two hours with no problem if it had a crate that it was used to

This is what I was thinking. We crate trained from day 1, and by 15 weeks (we got ours at 8 weeks) she could happily be left alone for 1-2 hours. We still built it up gradually.

I put cbeebies on for mine. 🤭

I really cannot believe people saying just to leave the puppy. Anyone who knows anything about puppies and Training them will know that absolutely isn't the right thing to do. I have 2 dogs, one who had severe separation anxiety and one who was more than happy to be on his own. It took 2 years for me to train my puppy to leave him, he had to take anti anxiety meds and everything. He is brilliant now so it was worth it but in an emergency I left him for 20 mins too early on and it set us back so much I couldn't even move off the sofa without causing him extreme stress.

Glad you managed to sort an alternative @JustSaltPlease