Pup coming home tomorrow....

[DeliaRose]

I think I'm organised, and prepared, but has anyone got any last words of wisdom for me ?

Pup is a rescue terrier x ? and is 8 weeks exactly.

We are family of 5, DS's 6, 3 and 1, plus elderly cat

(p.s- I've never had a dog before )

In fact- one thing I still haven't got straight is when to start using collar/lead. I plan to put collar on straight away, and lead intermittently during the day (and when out for wee?). Does this sound Ok?

My plans for night time is last wee at 11pm then into crate. Cone down at 2.30am, out for wee, straight back in crate, then out again at 6am. I plan to gradually get later with the night time wee until she can stretch until 6. Does this sound Ok?

One thing I was not prepared for with first dog was how much they freak out when on a lead for first time. It took mine about a week to not freeze then roll around every time it went on. So have plenty of treats ready

I am by no means an expert (and there are many of them here that will come along soon) but we left our puppy in his crate from 11pm - 6am on the first night and have never had an accident in it. Even now, he can go 10pm-7:30 am and is fine. He wasn't freaked out by the lead but did try to catch/ bite it (still does sometimes). He is six months old now and totally house trained. I had never own a dog before either.

The best thing I did was have a dog trainer come to the house. She did a puppy start programme where she came once a week for the first four weeks. I have then kept her on and she visits once a fortnight and we are now going to move on to classes. She has just left actually and this week we did very little training but just talked over all of my questions. It's nice to have a very experienced dog owner that you can just ask anything at all!

Good luck!!

Good luck DeliaRose! There are several new puppy threads on here if you look through this board, loads of good advice. I really recommend Gwen Bailey's Perfect Puppy book, after seeing it mentioned a lot on here. Give the cat priority when the pup arrives, in other words make sure cat can come and go as usual and doesn't feel too stressed (we have a felliway plug-in for them too). Our cats are allowed upstairs so they have a little bit of peace but our pup isn't (he's 5 months now).

I know lots of people disapprove, but our pup was paper-trained by the breeder and although we took him out to wee, he quickly learned to wee on the puppy pad by the back door (v.useful if you have your hands full with DCs as well - pup always seems to need to go at the same time as the DCs have a minor crisis ). He's now bigger and doesn't use the pads anymore- he will whine at the back door so I know he wants to go out.

Be prepared for a bit of crying in the night - ours took a while to settle but after about 10 days at home he slept from 10.30pm - 5.45am and now sleeps from about 10pm till 6.30pm. It will be hard at first but it doesn't last long
Oh, and check if your local vets has a puppy socialisation session, or see if there is training locally once he's had his jabs

Oh I forgot about the lead and collar - our pup was fine with his collar straight away. I attached the lead in the house and he dragged it around a bit to get used to it (was a fine webbing one so not heavy).

Suburbandream- did you just leave him all night, in a crate? Did you put water in there? A puppy pad?

Getting such conflicting advice!! May see if I can download that book on kindle...

We put him in the crate in our bedroom on the first night, but he cried and pooed in there (all the books say they won't soil their crate!!), so the first night was pretty sleepless. After that we put him in the crate in the kitchen. Made sure he had an energetic play just before bed to tire him out and he slept till about 2am I think, then I took him out for a wee and settled him back till about 6am. The first few nights were a bit hit and miss, sometimes he settled well, other times not so good - one night I slept on the sofa with him sleeping on my lap . I had lots of advice to just invest in earplugs and leave him all night but I am too much of a softie and after the initial week or so things did calm down a lot. Once he'd had all his jabs and was allowed out for walks, he was much more tired in the evenings and slept really well.
I've never put water in the crate because I was worried he'd knock it over. During the day, the crate door is open and he chooses to sleep in there quite happily. I'm a SAHM so home most of the time, but I shut him in the crate when I do the school run/mop the floor etc.

Thank you for answering - she had her first night last night.... Last wee at 11, popped her in and she whined for 5mins, then settled. I came down at 3 and she was sound asleep, came down at 6.30 and she was sat patiently, let her out (very excited and all over me!) and went straight outside for wee/poo

She's a bit reluctant to get back in it now though

Aww, that's great . My pup is very fond of kongs - I put a bit of peanut butter in and freeze it, then when I'm going out I put it in his crate. He goes in quite happily and has something to keep him occupied for a while. Maybe try putting a few treats in there to lure her in.

congratulations deliarose. I got a little hook on water bowl a bit like for a bird cage for the crate so that it doesn't get knocked over. She probably wanted to be out for a bit after being in there all night!

She can't go out for walks until about 13 - 14 weeks old so no hurry to get her used to collar and lead.