Please help a novice owner of puppies

[tellnoone]

So here's the situation, I wanted a dog, a small one, but I work 3 days a week so in my wisdom I got 2 puppies to keep each other company. I now realise that 2 puppies means double the trouble! They are brothers, yorkie cross - small but not miniature, very cute and adorable of course.

I got the pups just before I came down with an illness that meant I could only feed, clean and water them for their first week, they got no attention or training, it was really bad luck. DH isn't interested in them, he said if I got dogs it was down to me to look after them , I was hoping they will become part of family and he will love them in the end!

I've had them for about month now (so they are about 3 months old) but I'm struggling with routines. They need to use puppy pads for toileting when I'm at work but I don't seem to be able to get it right on the 4 days a week I'm at home. I realise it must be confusing for them being alone 3 days and then with me 4 days.

My questions are:

1. In the future, for the days they are alone would it be a good idea to get a dog flap (for when they are a little older)? we have a secure garden and they could then do toileting outside and play outside etc.

2. For right now, can anyone give me an idea of a good daily puppy routine or point me to a website that will spoon feed me an minute-by-minute daily puppy routine? for the 4 days I am at home.

Any help at all would be much appreciated.

There are no routines or websites for puppies left alone while the owner goes out to work.

Really young puppies should not be left while you are at work. They are like babies and need routine in order to be house trained. Puppies also need company and stimultion from humans not just other puppies. They need this in order to grow into sociable adult dogs.

To be honest you need to rethink the whole situation. Whilst they are small you need someone to come in and spend time with them and continue house training them while you are out. They are not able to jump from one set of expectations while you are there to another when you are out.

You need to arrange proper care for them while you are at work. If you want well trained, well behaved dogs you need to put in the commitment now.

To be frank, leaving young puppies alone for long periods of time is not on!

Please try and sort something out.

Thanks so much for your advice. I was very naive when I got them and agree it's not good. I will get something sorted out, you've both given me a wake up call, thank you. I can probably arrange to come home at lunchtimes and will explore puppy sitters.

(before Bella explodes)

the short answer is, you can't. It's not going to work with puppy pads three days a week, and the back door for the other four days. Even if you spent your four days diligently putting the dogs outside every twenty minutes, rewarding every outdoor wee, showing them where to go, etc, the moment you go back to work and leave them alone, they'll be trying to do what you want, and not being able to. Dog flaps might be a solution but is your garden completely safe from chew hazards/poisonous plants/potential dog thieves?

This is the basic time table I had to follow to house train my puppy:

7am up - outside to wee, reward
7.15am - breakfast
7.17am - outside to wee again, reward
7.30 am - post breakfast snooze in crate (dog, not me)
8.30am - outside to wee/poo, reward
8.45am - sit training, playing
9am - outside to wee, reward
9.15am - snooze
10am - outside to wee/poor, reward,

etc, etc, etc all DAY. Wee opportunities on the hour until he was reliable enough to tell me when he wanted to go - it took nearly four months and I was home all day, carpet spray in hand, and he had an adult dog to copy.

Sorry to sound critical, but I think you're heading into a minefield. Two puppies is a handful even for experienced owners, because each puppy needs their own training/socialisation time to stop them bonding with each other, not you. Also, they're going to take longer to house train if you're not there all the time to reinforce the routine, and if your DH isn't keen now he'll be even less keen when they start chewing out of boredom, as well as smearing the house in dog poo. Terriers need masses of stimulation as well as firm boundaries.

Can you get someone to come in during the day, or is there a puppy daycare facility near you where you can drop them off? It's not going to be a cheap option, but it might be cheaper than coming home to find your kitchen shredded!

feeling grumpy - rehome your circumstances show you can't cope.

If I got everything sorted out with sitters and I came home from work at lunch etc, is it always going to be impossible for a novice with 2 puppies? Should I rehome at least one now while they're still only young?

Puppies need to be taken out at least hourly if you are going to housetrain them. Having 2 makes it more difficult, and will often lead to behavioural issues, but the major issue is leaving them alone.

This is exactly the reason I don't home puppies to families where one person isn't at home all day. And I wouldn't dream of homing two puppies together, sorry.

Unless you can arrange to have somene sit with the puppies for pretty much all the time you are at work, you are going to get realy problems. If you have two puppies together you really need to make sure they spend twice as much time with you as they do with each other, and that also means seperate training classes. Otherwise they will get bonded so strongly to each other they won't need you at all.

These puppies are also going to be impossible to toilet tran in this situation.

I think your only solution here is to either giv eup your job, find a different job where you are only out of the house a few hours at a time (not ideal at all, but do-able) or get someone to sit with the puppies when you are at work. Or rehome them both.

I am not sure that any breeder who homes two puppies together is responsible at all, but your first port of call is to contact the breeder to ask them to take the puppies back. If she won't then you'd be best to rehome them seperately.

Please don't seek advice on caring for your puppy from this board if you work; as you've experienced there are people on here who believe very strongly that dog ownership can't be combined with working. Not suggesting that they're not entitled to that view, but there are plenty of us who manage to combine work and caring for our dogs very well. Please don't rehome your dogs just on the basis of the advice you've received on here, there are plenty of other things you can try.

I work 3 days a week and have managed to raise a wonderful 10 month old springer spaniel who (the vet has just confirmed) is in top mental and physical health! My friend has two very happy 14 month old cocker spaniels she had from puppies and she works full time.

There are some golden rules, as others have said you really can't leave them alone all day, you must get someone to come in frequently to play with them and let them out, or send them to daycare. It isn't cheap but I knew when I got the dog it was an expense I'd just have to bear, like buying his food or paying vets bills. I'd also highly recommend crate training as well it really helps with toilet training and gives them a safe place for when they're on their own. My puppy was fully toilet trained at 14 weeks old and has been since. I never found the change between days I was at home and days I wasn't any problem but I think as he had his puppy carer coming in when I was at work he kept pretty much the same routine whatever which probably helped.

There are lots of books and things that might help you, I've had dogs all my life so didn't get any for mine but if you have a look online/in the pet store I'm sure you'll find something helpful.

Henrysmum - you are absolutely right. The OP shouldn't take our advice - I suggest she checks with the RSPCA, Dogs Trust, Kennel Club, Battersea Dogs Home, a qualified behaviourist or any reputable breeder if she wants to make absolutely sure that her situation is all wrong for having a puppy, dog or even two puppies....

Fantastic news re your 10 month pup! So your vet is a fully qualified behaviourist too? Not many of them about, are there? And he/she has observed your pup in all sorts of situations to come to the conclusion that he is in 'top mental and physical health!'. Last time I looked, vets checked heart and lungs and temperature, but yours clearly goes a good few extra miles. And certainly no question of your vet failing to point out how crap your pup's life is, just because you are a paying client

Let's just assume that your vet does actually have the power of second sight and can tell your pup is in top mental health - he is 10 months old! Not even an adult. Your ignorance is quite astounding, but then it takes an extremely ignorant person ot do that to a dog. Some would say cruel, even.

Carry on henrysmum - I am sure you are convincing yourself that you are doing the right thing,even if the rest of us (oh and the posters above include a very highly qualified behaviourist and a reputable breeder) can see you're talking poop.

you got 2 puppys when they were 8weeks old, thats seems really young to be taken away from their mim

i thought puppys werde meant to be 12 weeks or so when left their mum?

agree you need someone in, prob all day for the first few weeks/months till trained and then even then shouldnt be left alone for more than 3/4hrs tops

our now 19mth puppy drove me INSANE with wees on floor (as sure bella and others on here will remember)

would take him out and he would wee, 2mins later would wee in the house

I'm not going to dignify this with more than a very brief post before heading off because I've witnessed the level of scathing (and unwarranted) sarcasm aimed at people who try to express a view which is not aligned to those held by others on here.

I am certainly not going to take any kind of advice, or even pay any attention, to someone who brings the enormous level of prejudice which you have to everything they say on here. This is clearly borne out by the fact that the sources you cite don't even agree with you: the Dogs Trust says "we do not recommend that a dog should be left alone for more than four hours at a time" - well my dog isn't and never has been. Likewise the Kennel Club advises that dogs shouldn't be left alone for long periods of time - not "they shouldn't be left alone at all". I can only assume that your dogs go everywhere with you, if that is how you interpret these statements. All I was trying to do, rather than just tell the OP to rehome her dogs, which seems rather drastic to me, was offer some alternative, practical suggestions which working dog owners can, and do, employ and which are suggested by the likes of the Dogs Trust, RSPCA, etc. It's a shame that an attempt to help has provoked such a vitriolic response but then it was not unexpected.

If you read my post you will see that I refer the OP to the Dogs Trust and other sites which yes, you are right, say no longer than 4 hours etc. At the moment the OP is not even doing that. That's why I referred her to those sites - not you.

As for 'prejudice' - perhaps you may want to consider your won opening statement:

'Please don't seek advice on caring for your puppy from this board if you work'

The rest of my post was concerned with showing how utterly nonsensical it is to claim that a vet can pronounce a puppy to be in perfect mental health. You did make me laugh though.

I know lots of people who work and have very well cared for dogs. I have never said the two were incompatible. Two puppies left alone all day is an entirely different matter, and I challenge you to find anyone who knows anything about dogs who would disagree with that.

tellnoone I have to say I do agree that your situation is not ideal and I am surprised that your breeder allowed it to happen however you were a little less clued up than you should have been and you realise that now. TBH that is great, you are aware it is not working and you want ot sort the issue out, well done. Far too many people end up with dogs at 2 or 3 years old who are totally out of control and shrug their shoulders saying "I don't understand where it went wrong". You are already a long step ahead of those people! Bella, I believe we know someone very like that with their dogs, I suggest this op is a bit different to them.

tellnoone, there are some good suggestions here, doggydaycare is a good one if introduced carefully, a dog sitter is a good one, if you come home at lunch and have someone come in mid morning for 30 mins and mid afternoon for an hour say then you may be looking at a more tolerable situation for your pups. I know our local dog walkers charge 4.50 for 30 mins and 10 for an hour plus do water etc, this is for a solo walk (ie without other dogs) and I suspect they would be open to helping you with house training etc rather than taking the pups out if they know it will become a walking job later on IYSWIM.
Having said that local day care is £8 per day - I do think this may be one for the future more than right now though as you need to get their home behaviour in line before you introduce new places and routines.

Again, good on your for facing the problem head on, best of luck finding a good solution!

I really must change my name - for the record I am not bellasformerfriend I am bellas current friend

Henrysmum, that doesn't mean though that it is OK to leave a dog for four hours, pop back, give it half an hours attention and then leave it again. It's not like puppies can be tired out by long walks either, and two puppies together is extremely different to one.

I am the person to suggest anyone rehome a dog, thye are a respnsibility for life, not just until it is no longer convenient for us. However, sometimes rehoming is what is best for the dog.

Another point to make is that having litter brothers means in order to properly socialise and train them they need regular separating and training apart from each other.
Otherwise they simply bond to each other which makes training them fecking near impossible and then you end up with yappy dogs which you are unable to take anywhere.

Try your vets noticeboard for people who offer help training/dogwalking/puppysitting

The issue with using puppy pads is that it teaches them to pee /soil in the house.
I have 2 bitches 12 mths and 4 mths and neither have EVER wet or soiled inside as I am there and they were out the door regularly as young pups.

Also if you were to crate them when away from the home you would need to get back every 2-3 hrs at least to feed/play and toilet them, preferably separately.
Sibling puppies are not TWICE the work, they are FIVE x the work and you get back what you put in.

All the breeders I know would never home siblings together unless it was a very experienced knowledgeable home.