How hard is having a puppy and WFH?

[BlueRaspberry7]

Would really like to hear experiences of this. Is it do-able having and training a puppy while wfh 4 days a week?

I'm in a role where there are fairly frequent zoom meetings and focused periods of writing. But there are also frequent breaks, lunch break, we have a garden with easy access.

Please can you share if this did / didn't work for you and your family and if it did - any tips. Did you crate train and does this help? Thanks

Could you do your job with a toddler there? It’s fairly similar for the first couple of months.

Except you rush outside instead of grabbing a potty.

Puppies need a lot of one on one time to ensure their future behaviour. It is a big commitment. Have you sufficient time to commit or are you expecting them to work around you - because that won't go well. As others have said think toddler with more teeth.

Honestly? It's not easy.

I took two months off work when I got my most recent puppy and I still struggled.

The problem with puppies is they need constant supervision. If you're not paying attention to them 100% of the time then you'll struggle to housetrain them as they need to go out every twenty-thirty minute as babies etc. They'll destroy your furniture/shoes/toys/walls (mine ate the bloody wooden beams in my house ffs). I've had a puppy get his jaws stuck around his crate when I turned away for half a second. Honestly, they are worse than a child.

I really want to stress you cannot just plonk them in a crate whilst you have work meetings or focus periods. It's really cruel but, more importantly, it either ends up with the puppy having some really traumatic experiences of being shoved into a create that is essentially for overnight safety and security OR developing severe behavioural issues. Crate training is so the dog learns to settle in the crate and wants to - it's not for sticking a puppy whilst you work.

They will not understand that you are working. They will not understand that you can't play with them. They will bark for attention (some breeds worse than others). They will scratch your legs. They might even 'nip' you to try and get you to play. What will you do with that when you're working? You can't just give them long-lasting chews every day - it's bad for their health - and you can't lock them in a crate.

I WFH four days a week and one day in the office. Tbh the last few months at work have been completely dead - it's been a case of mouse wigglers anonymous. I have three dogs and tbh, even with it being super quiet at work, it's a struggle sometimes - even with them entertaining each other (youngest now 18 months). It's not like children where you can stick them in front of the TV or they entertain themselves - dogs really want socialisation and fusses (and this is worse with certain 'velcro' breeds) and this will continue their entire lives until they reach old age. Even when they are settled...they'll still be ready for more. So, what I am trying to say, is it's not just the 'puppy' phase that is hard (and that lasts up to 18 months with some breeds) it's the entire ownership. It never stops.

Dogs don't really just 'slot' into your life. You have to make space for them to do it properly.

That said. It is entirely possible. But you have to recognise that it will be really hard and if you plan on crating your dog so you can get work done, then you shouldn't get a dog. And, if you have kids under the age of 12, I just wouldn't do it at all.

I worked with someone who got a doberman puppy while wfh. She nearly had a nervous breakdown.

Then she got made redundant and finding a job that was compatible with wfh with a puppy was very hard.

Puppies are quite labour intensive for a year or two, aren't they? It's not just a few weeks and they're settled.

Its not easy , I did it but my schedule was pretty flexible. Even so I was not as effcetive at work as pre puppy - once I was on a call and he was asleep under my desk but woke up and sunk his teeth into my big toe!!! Plus I was knackered due to lack of sleep.
I worked with a couple of people who got Covid puppies and they were alwyas having to break off from Zoom calls to sort them out.
it is doable OP but hard

Thanks everyone, this is helpful.

So essentially, it sounds like its only really possible to properly care for a puppy if you aren't working and have zero other commitments

On our second puppy here. I'm freelance, for which read, didn't earn much in the first puppy months. This one is harder work than the first puppy, or maybe I'm just older and more knackered.

I've always worked in the room with the puppy, and find that after a while they settle under the desk the moment I reach for the mouse. And then they wait till I'm truly absorbed and they go and chew something they shouldn't, like the skirting or the chair leg or the long-suffering cat.

You need to be able dedicate a lot of daily time. So most people I know who had puppies have someone at home, or got an older dog 🤷‍♀️.

I got mine when on my first maternity leave and my partner has shifts so between us the puppy was covered. Saying that I had fostered dogs with behavioural issues for ten years by then so a puppy and baby was easier than my usual commitments!

When old enough they went to doggy day care, which is a wonderful bonus for them to have and really helped with socialising.

my puppy chewed through Two of my laptop chargers!

I'd blanked that from my memory, but so did mine.

The hoover has an asthmatic wheeze and less suction power than it did before it was puppied, too.

If that were true, how would 1/3 of UK households own a dog? They wouldn't.

Are puppies hard work? Yes. But it's perfectly manageable when WFH. We've done it twice with large breed dogs and provided they're given regular walks, plenty of mental stimulation and you put aside the time to train and socialise them e.g. evening classes, it's fine.

I would definitely recommend a week or two annual leave when they first come home though, to ensure you have the time to help them acclimatise.

Sort of…

part of my work is done from home, but it’s not time sensitive - as long as it gets done, I can stop and start it as I want to.

If it was that sort of working from home you’d be fine, they do sleep a lot it’s just that while housetraining you kind of have to do it to their schedule not yours.

Have you thought of an older dog? That’d be easier to do, housetraining is quicker if even needed at all.

We got a puppy last year, DH works from home full time and I tend to work half the week from home so someone is usually in. DH does a lot of zoom calls and whilst our puppy was still being house trained it was hard work for him to do calls and watch him.

I don't have meetings/ calls so can watch him more but can still get frustrating when he whines or wants to play. From about 6 MTHS old it's been easier to WFH, our pup understands he needs to settle while we work. We tend to walk him first thing and again at lunchtime. If we really need puppy to behave we have a supply of high value long lasting chews that help!!

We did start taking our puppy to doggy daycare one day a week from 4 months old so we have at least one day to completely focus on work. It's been great for him, he has so much fun and has been brilliant at socialising him with other dogs.

As it's warmer I've been sitting downstairs more with the backdoor open so he can wander in and out the garden which he loves.

Honestly I almost had a breakdown. She went to daycare twice a week all day from 12 weeks old and I had to do essentially 5 days a week of work in those two days. I got nothing down the rest of the time, meetings were a nightmare. But I had no one else at home to help me at all - if you had a partner wfh too or family to come in for several hours at a time it would be easier

I adopted a 5 month old pup who was born to a stray dog and lived as a stray for the first few weeks of his life, then fended for himself when his mum died until he was found, so he was still very much a tiny puppy in terms of his socialisation and learning. He took a long time (about 3 months!) to get the hang of toilet training as he was frightened of toileting outside and would just hold it until he got back indoors. I was on nights at the time so it was pretty exhausting, but one day it just seemed to ‘click’ for him and he was toilet trained almost overnight. We took him to puppy training from the first week of having him home and he was hilariously huge next to the 12 week old pups in the class.

I appreciate he was a particularly difficult case due to his rough start in life and not all pups will be that hard! He is now very easy to leave at home if we’re going somewhere without him and has impeccable toilet manners!

Routine, training and games are your friend. If you’re WFH, take 5 mins every hour to take him outside and make a game of toilet training and make a fuss of him every time he toilets outside. He’ll get it quickly!

It’s doable.

Disagree with the crate thing. Our dog spent a good bit of time in the crate while WFH. At the beginning the barking was unrelenting. Fortunately our house is big enough that it wouldn’t be that loud when on meetings. Anyway, he loves his crate now, anytime we open the fridge he runs to his crate waiting for his treat and nap! He is a WCS so known for having SA issues, but I wouldn’t say it’s much of an issue for us. Now he will roam around the house and come up every so often for cuddles then just goes and plays with his toys or sleeps. Actually, besides excitement at times, he doesn’t have any behavioural issues and is a lovely dog.

The breeder actually advised to use the crate this way, she said when he is out of the crate you should be training him. No point to let him out if you aren’t watching as you are allowing him to carry out bad behaviour which he will repeat. When your eyes are on him, you can correct the behaviour.

To add to the others posts, if you work from home then the puppy will get used to you always being there.

So when you're not because you have a day in the office or an in person meeting, shopping to do etc, he will bark, bark, barkbark, bark,,,,,bark, bark, barkbarkbark, bark, bark, bark, bark,,,,,,,,,,,barkbark, bark, bark.

The whole time until you get back.

Fed up reading 'bark', welcome to my world. I'm fed up listening. Thats my life from my neighbours barky little dogs.

Last night they were out til after 11pm. No enjoying sitting outside chilling for me. They say there's nothing they can do. Sigh.

The council probably won't do anything as it's so rare they are out as it's not daily. Prob about 10 hours in a week. But it's barking the whole time when they are.

We have a camera we can use on ours when I go out. Yes, she barks... till I get past the drive, and she's sure I'm not listening and obeying her commands. Then she goes to sleep on the mat. At her current age, I don't leave her more than an hour.

So sorry that you have to put up with that, Elieza. It's what I was worried might be happening when I couldn't watch.

I worked from home full-time from 5 months with our first pup and from 9 weeks with our second. It was quite straightforward but my work at that point was fairly flexible and I had very few fixed meetings.

I worked from the kitchen initially which has doors straight to the garden and is fairly puppy proof. Lots of little bits of training throughout the day, i.e. 5 mins every hour whilst boiling a kettle or similar. Neither of mine were barkers at home so that was never an issue. They weren't crated in the day but they soon learned that I was very boring when sat at a computer so quickly settled.

My partner was also working from home so he also did stuff with pups on breaks too but his work ties him to his desk much more so less suited to keeping an eye on pups.

I took a bit of pup-ternity leave 🤣

It's hard, I wouldn't do it again. We got ours during lockdown as we figured this was a one off opportunity to do it as everyone was at home (me out PT) to get a puppy settled in. Dh wfh, me pt out of the home and teen at home all the time and we still found it hard, and Ddog wasn't a chewer either. My SIL didn't believe me when I said how much of a toll it took... until she got her own last year. They do settle down eventually and it is doable but it is hard going for a few months.

We did it but there were two of us WFH so we could flex our schedules and make sure he was watched at all times.

I got mine Jan 2021, took a couple of weeks leave and there were 2 of us to juggle the puppy between us. Never used a crate and mine is not a chewer or home destructive - we just had to keep her company and with things to do (like treats in a bottle on a string etc). As a pup you can't take them on long walks to tire out. We had to get up twice at night for toileting. Very lucky really with how easily she got home training (and work was quite flexible, I could make up time in the evening or weekend). (German Shepherd)

I am in the thick of this now. Honestly, it's not easy. I'm freelance, and my work is completely time flexible as long as I meet a deadline every couple of weeks or so, and I'm still finding it stressful. I think it would be very hard to have to attend meetings etc.
I took two weeks off work when we first got her to really focus on house and crate training. And I'm now working about 60-70% of my usual hours - I'm managing to do that by fitting it in when she's sleeping and at the weekends/after school when other members of the family can watch her. It's do-able, but not to be underestimated!

It’s definitely hard.
When ours was a pup I took 2 weeks off to get him ‘settled’ before going back to work. I WFH 4 out of 5 days at the time. Thankfully, it was school holidays so I didn’t have many ‘professional’ meetings as such and my employer / others were happy for me to inevitably have a puppy sitting on my lap when we did have teams meetings.

He’s a husky, so it became a little bit more difficult when he found his voice and decided to have a little singsong mid meeting 😂