First time dog owner seeks your very wisest pearls

[OhChristFENTON]

We haven't got him yet but very soon we will have a lab cross puppy. DH comes from generations of dog breeders and had a dog of his own from a puppy but my family never had dogs.

I'm not completely clueless but would really like your best "if I could give one piece of advice" tips for settling in and raising this puppy.

When starting to leave them do it for increasing lengths of time. So out the house for 5 mins, then 15 mins the next time, etc.

Also don't make a fuss of the dog when leaving the house or when coming back. I don't tell my dog when I'm going, I don't want her wound up, thinking its a big deal, etc when I go. Nor do I want her bounding up when I come home.

Make sure everyone is consistent - something we're struggling with here at the moment! (A little secret - it's actually been easier than I thought, although I won't mention this to those who bullied me into getting our puppy).

chew toys!

Thank you, - making notes.

What did you do about initial night time arrangements? Long term we want him to sleep upstairs but not in our room preferably, but perhaps we'll have to start him off in there - I'm guessing were going to have some sleepless nights ahead..

I think start as you mean to go on and be firm. My opinion is if you go when they cry then they will keep crying to get you to come. My dog only cried for about an hour the first night and then gave up....she doesn't seem scarred by it.

What are you going to call it?!

I would look into crate training, especially for night time. We left an old blanket with the breeders for a week before we picked our puppy up and then put that in his bed so it would smell of his mum and litter mates. We had the crate in our room for the first week or so until we were confident that he didn't need to go out in the night (he only went out at night once, the first night!) and then moved him to another room. I don't know whether we were lucky that we never had any sleepless nights, but I have read that crate training does help.

I honestly really really want to call it Fenton - but DH is not convinced

(Pet insurance: don't use E&L, they are charlatans who never pay)

We found when our old boy was a pup, we had to let him cry out one night (the whole night) and then the next night he was fine. Controlled puppy crying!!

I wish that when I was toilet training my puppy by taking her out into the garden frequently that I had chosen a special spot or corner of the garden - now she just poos anywhere on the lawn.

Never ever ever leave your puppy alone for even five minutes with other people - they will feed him, and allow him to jump up, and you will spend the next 5 years trying to deal with a dog hooligan that jumps up and begs for food (voice of bitter experience after getting a puppy when the house was full of builders).

Similarly do not allow total strangers in the street to come over and fuss your pup. A surprising number will want to. Be firm, say 'I'm sorry but we are doing a training walk' . If you are a wuss like me, your pup will learn that all strangers are there to make a fuss of him, and the second you let him off his lead in public he will leg it after them, and not come back.

PS almost forgot the most important one of all. Unless you particularly like wandering round the garden at midnight watching your pup chase leaves, teach him to pee on command. It's very easy, and cuts the whole midnight wees thing down to approx 45 secs.

yy to fenton

my one tip - training classes

i honestly believe these can make the difference between dogs being rehomed or kept

When you take your puppy outside for a wee, choose a word/phrase to use (we use "Go wee"). Then when the pup does actually wee, say the phrase WHILE she's doing it, and make sure everyone in the family does the same. Persevere with this, then when you need the dog to wee when it's older, you open the door with the phrase and the dog (usually) happily goes out an obliges. Also crate training is the way to go. My dog loves his crate and still sleeps in it at 10 months, and is happy to be shut up in it when dog phobics visit, or when he needs to be out of the way for a short period of time.

dont let him approach on lead dogs, especially if the owner has just told you that her dog really doesnt like puppies, singing to your dog afterwards that it serves them right does not make it better.
oh and crate and training classes.

lots of newspaper

I wish I had taught my dog how to walk properly on the lead as at almost 2 years old, he will happily drag me through the streets and he is a big dog.

I agree that you should start as you mean to go on with sleeping arrangements.
My previous puppy cried and cried and cried during the night. After 5 minutes, I went downstairs to him and he stopped so I ended up sleeping on the settee in the same room as him. On the 4th night, he slept in my bedroom with us and if he wanted to, he some how climbed onto the bed with us. He was so cute though, we really didn't mind.

Its also a good idea to teach recall as soon as you can as puppies tend to stay near by. We got a training line so although our current dog felt like he was offlead, I felt happy that he had a 20ft lead trailing behind him for me to grab if I needed to.

Thank you all for the fabulous advice, - very kind