What's a 'normal' day with a dog like?

[Solo2]

Rollo (golden retriever) is now 8 months old. Family life still completely revolves around his needs and I need to see if there's 'light at the end of the tunnel' from dog owners beyond the puppy stage?

If you work - at least part-time - have DCs and either no partner (in my case) or one who might just as well not be there, how do you 'live' your days with your dog? What makes it fun? When do dogs get beyond the stage of bloody hard work?

Currently, I'm up at 5.30am, let Rollo out at 6am and feed him and give him his various medications (takes till 6.30am). He gets a walk from about 6.55am till 7.29am when I then take DCs to school. Rollo is sleeping when I return and I work till 11am when I let him out in the garden, interact with him, feed him lunch and then he naps again in the kitchen as I work from noon till 2pm. Then I take him on a 40mins walk, rush home, leave him to nap again and do school run from 3pm till 4.15pm.

4.15pm till Rollo's main and last walk at 6pm is Hell with Rollo! He naturally needs attention, more food at 4pm, playing, toileting and I'm doing all that at same time as supervising homework and making DCs meal.

6pm till 7pm we all go on dog walk. This is searingly difficult if it's raining/ the DCs are tired/ someone of us is ill.

8pm, Rollo goes to sleep in his crate but I can never ever predict if he'll wake me barking in the middle of the night (Rollo barking, not me!).

Recent typical struggles also include him squidging his face into some other dog's diarrhoea, so had to clean him up at home (and he did this through the muzzle he always wears on walks to prevent him eating anything as he gets recurrent diarrhoea)....him waking me 3 hrs after I went to sleep at night, for no reason (me in garden then with him at 1am)....stealing plastic/ cardboard/ paper from kitchen surfaces and tearing it apart in garden...digging endless, endless holes in the now destryed lawn and - worse - eating grass and mud, which he mustn't, cos of diarrhoea....

It's MUCH easier than it was when he was tiny - but it's still incredibly hard work and no real fun. We all love him but we find it almost impossible to live with him. There is still NO time whatsoever at all for me to do anything fun with the DCs since we got Rollo and absolutely no question of any time for me even to fulfill my own basic needs - like eat regularly, sleep enough, go to loo etc - since we got Rollo.

At times I feel as if I really really can't go on with him.

I know I've posted along these lines before but what would be really helpful now is some experiences of having a dog FURTHER down the line so I can look towards a future that's manageable with Rollo as part of our family.

Thank you everyone. MN is SO helpful! So it sounds like I'm still expecting to do too much for Rollo, rather than underdoing things. I'm always riven with guilt (RC upbringing maybe!) that I'm failing the DCs, the dog, the cats, my business, the housework!! I've never had a dog and have only been able to 'leanr on the job' and had got the impression that I should be doing far MORE with Rollo. One factor is that he's largely confined to the kitchen (medium large) and a fenced off part of the lawn/patio and hasn't got full run of the house. So I feel like I need to stimulate him more, when I can - hence the 3 walks a day plus play etc.

In the morning, I have to be on the school run by 7.30am and from the time I'm back (8.24am), am working. So I have to fit in the v early morning short walk at 6.45am or thereabouts. This means I need to get myself up and ready before letting Rollo out of his crate at 6am so I'm up around 5.00am to 5.30am. I usually find I'm waking Rollo in the morning and only very rarely will he bark before he's let out. More often, he's asleep and looks all dozy and blinky-eyed when I rush into the kitchen at 6am!

I've started to give him a food filled kong after his final walk, before I put him in the crate, in the hope that he'll focus on that rather than on digging up and eating the lawn. All his other meals are given in a food ball that he rolls around the lawn and this can take up to 30 mins of me re-filling it. I was told to feed little and often - hence the food ball and the 3 meals - because of his tummy problems. Also, he can't have any other food/ treats ever.

I put him in his crate at the time i head up for bedtime routine with DCs - from about 8.15pm. He usually is already lying on kitchen floor by then and when I gently shift his body in the direction of the crate, he ambles in and lies down there. After doing the DCs routine, I read for 10 to 15 mins in bed and then by 9pm, I too go to sleep (as I'm usually up from 5am). It's only occasionally that Rollo starts to bark in the middle of the night and he never ever needs the toilet - just seems to have been disturbed by something unknown and then wants to play at 1am! If I didn't worry about DCs waking or the possibility of Rollo having unexpected diarrhoea again, I'd just leave him.

He has to begin to withdraw from his medication over the next 2 months and this may bring back the diarrhoea plus therefore up all night with him in garden. Daren't even think about this. His poo has been fantastically firm for weeks now though!

I think in my mind, he's much more like having another child than say having our cats - who can be happily left to do their own thing. So I feel as if I should be doing more with him, more of the time. However, sometimes I've had to miss the afternoon, pre-school run walk and he's been fine. I think it's more that I'm worried he'll keep me awake at night if he hasn't had enough stimulation and exercise during the day.

DCs never interact with him, so he doesn't get the after-school play that other dogs might. Will try the kong with part of his supper too, at that time - 4pm. His last meal is at that time so that he has his last poo on the final walk between 6pm and 7pm and then isn't likely to need one overnight.

It's REALLY helpful to know that it may get easier, as I can usually tolerate things in life if I know there's an end in sight! My twins didn't sleep through the night for 5 yrs but got there in the end!

I wouldn't call 35 minutes+ a "short" walk. You could maybe buy yourself a bit more time in the mornings there, by making it only 10 - 15. You could then either get up later yourself or wake him later. As I said, as long as the main walk later is a longer more energetic one, you could get away with it. I don't know, what's the recommended amount of exercise for a retriever? I always head for other dogs on the moor so that Monty will charge round and round with them for a bit and use up some mileage! Have tried throwing balls/sticks for him but he's rubbish at it. Either point blank ignores it or lollops off in the general direction and forgets where it's landed. Chasing birds and squirrels is good too. He hasn't a hope in hell of catching any but he uses up a lot of energy trying.

Have you ever tried covering his crate at night,we always did this when they were tiny so they distinguished night from day(we used an old duvet cover),if the pup woke in the night it was taken out,allowed to go to the toilet and then put in the cage with as little eye contact as possible,good luck,hope things settle down soon.

You maybe need to start to fit him into your day, rather than you into his.

Our 3 get let out about 7.30 am. Breakfast (so dog 1 gets her meds), then a walk for an hour in the morning. They then get let out at lunch and again just before school run. Then fed about 6pm and I walk them again early eve and let them out before bed about 10pm. Apart from that they laze around all day, whilst I work from home and I make a point of mostly ignoring them apart from the odd head rub! I never get up to let them out at night, although I might look out the wondow if they are going mad as it probably means something (usually deer) is in the garden.

BTW in my experience dogs are hard work up to about 2 years then start to settle down. Apart from our dog 3, my rehomed dog darstadly, who is completely bonkers! She is getting better but she didnt get the best start and I dream of the day she grows up and stops causing trouble

We have collie dogs. I read somewhere that training is good exercise, and sometimes dogs can over-excite themselves by running around playing games too much. Instead of running themselves out, they wind themselves up.

Stick with it, he will get easier.

Eventually you will be able to feed him once a day.

Toileting - he should be house trained now and doing business on walks so this shouldn't take up any time really.

Cleaning his shitty face is just part of it. We have a lab and when weather is bad he is more time consuming and needs cleaning and drying when you get home.

Agree with ignoring barking at night.

Does ha have enough toys to occupy him?

Can you try and put him in crate for night time a bit later than 8pm?

Solo - I've read some of your other threads about Rolo and I think you are doing a great job - hopefully in time he will fit in around your life.

We have 2 dogs - LargeLaidBackDog and SmallFranticDog.

SFD has bladder issues as he came to us aged about 2 and he had not been house trained - he was rescued from the one bedroomed flat he had spent his entire life in and the whole place was full of faeces and urine.
When we got him he had the worst urine infection the vet had ever seen - it took weeks to clear and his control isn't great

Because of this our day tends to be structured around his need to go out.

7am SFD goes out in the garden. LLBD refuses to go out.

Sometime between 8am and 10am 25 minute walk

Sometime in the afternoon longer walk

6.30pm Food followed by 25 minute walk.

In between walks SFD will often ask to go out (if the weather is nice we leave the doors open) LLBD never needs to go out.

SFD will often wake us in the night as he needs to go out - he is the most high maintainance dog we have ever owned.

I try not to keep to too rigid a routine as if something happens to delay or change the time of a walk the dogs aren't bothered.

Any improvements, solo?

Thanks for asking, Clam. Rollo went to stay at his trainer's last night - what I call my 'respite care' but he adores her and her 2 dogs and the fact that she can revolve her whole life around her dogs. She's emailed me twice already to let me know he's having a brilliant time and is better at lead walking too this time.

So one factor that works for me is to have occasional time off from dog duty, daily - but knowing Rollo is happy. Additionally, I've been covering his crate completely at night. It used to be left open at the entrance end. This has helped as it means he's fully in the dark and so I'm hoping it'll stop him barking especially on moonlit nights.

I've also stopped feeling so guilty if his morning and post lunchtime walks are only 20 to 25 mins, as long as he gets the 45 to 50 min off lead romp walk in the evening.

Next week I can't do his 2pm walk on a few days because of work. I'm planning to arrange collecting DCs later from school and walking him at 3pm instead - otherwise Rollo will have to go from 11.45am till 4.15pm without a walk/ toilet break, which I think is too long. But it's a bit tricky fitting it in.

I keep trying to focus on the future and the expectation that after another 18 months he'll hopefully be infiniely easier - IF he doesn't have a return of the awful diarrhoea! I think this would break me if he did!

A couple of days and night dog free feels like Xmas! I lay in till about 6am today and returend to bed (after feeding the cats and checking DT2, who always wakes at 5am, was OK) till 7am which was bliss - although accompanied by DCs by then. Not having to feed/ walk/toilet and amuse Rollo is brilliant. The bit I miss is the sitting on the kitchen floor with his head/body on my knee (he thinks he's still a puppy who can fit entirely on my lap!), holding his nylabone whilst he chews it! He won't chew it unless I'm holding it for him! but it's very cute.

The things I'd like to resolve next would be how to stop him digging holes in the lawn and chewing and eating the soil and grass; how to stop him jumping up to kitchen counters and stealing knives, paper, plastic etc; how to get him to spend longer, independently, with his hundreds of toys or a stuffed kong instead of favouring anything and everything that he mustn't chew/destroy/play with?

My SIL's dog likes digging up her lawn, but he has a favoured spot under a Japanese Acer. She has placed an oven shelf over it - allows light in for the grass not to die, but means he can't get his teeth into bits of turf to pull at.

Solo In the kindest possible way, he sounds a bit over stimulated to me.

He's only 8 months old and working on the 5 minute exercise guideline should only be out for about 40 minutes a day. Not anywhere near as much exercise as he has currently. I'd never take an 8 month old large breed retriever out for any more than an hour a day for two reasons. Firstly and most importantly to minimise any possible damage to their joints and secondly because it makes them hideously over tired and demanding.

He's responding to the mammoth amount of attention you're giving him by demanding still more. And he'll continue to do it for as long as you allow it.

In the same way, dogs like yours and mine will take as much exercise as you can throw at them and still go out for more and more and more. Mine will quite happily work or run behind a quad bike all day if I let them - but if they do that regularly they start to demand that level of exercise and are hell to live with.

I am not advocating under-exercising dogs or ignoring them rather that they interact with you on your terms rather than theirs. My life is shaped to do the best for my dogs, but I am not at their beck and call.

I don't have DC, but I do have 4 labradors and work PT. The 3 adults have a walk at 0630 for about an hour and then are fed about an hour after they get back and left to entertain themselves for the day. I am at home with them and they fit in with what I'm doing - if I'm working they variously sit on my feet or in their beds or mooch around the garden - sometimes I take them out on errands in the car or have a quick game with them. I talk to them alot. They rarely get daisymade entertainment like kongs or bones during the day - they have learned to entertain themselves with toys and so on.

The adults and the 5 month old are exercised again in the afternoon - usually at about 5.00, but I vary the time so they don't queue up at the same time every day hassling me.

All of them get a little bit of one on one time with me - training usually. Sometimes no more than 5 minutes sometimes an hour depending on the mood of the dog and which dog's in the firing line!

They go to bed when we do - about 10.30 after a final poo and wee and are quiet for the night.

Why does it take half an hour to feed and medicate Rollo? Can you change the order a bit so that he eats just before you start working?

What's the reason that he still on 3 meals a day? Usually an 8 month old dog will be on 2 meals a day.

And don't get up to him in the night - it'll go on for a very long time indeed if you do. He is over stimulated and too dependant on you, so can't or hasn't learned to switch off and is demanding even more attention in the night.

He will chew a nylabone without you holding it - he just can't be bothered (mine hate them though - they won't touch them for love or money). Leave him to it. Praise him when he plays with something on his own. He's not a child so doesn't need constant managing or stimulation. Make sure your garden is secure and let him mooch around outside for a while.

He sounds like an adored, very bright dog who you're doing your absolute best for and I am not in any way criticising you, just trying to give you the confidence to let him get on with being a dog. Decide what sort of dog you want the adult to be and start working towards it.