Brought our Labradoodle puppy home yesterday... any pointers/tips?!

[mintymellons]

We are now the proud owners of a beautiful chocolate Labradoodle. He is almost 8 weeks old.

We are crate training (well, that's the plan). Have been taking him outside at least every hour to go to the loo and this has been pretty successful so far - 80% of wees/poos outside.

He isn't massively keen on the crate yet. Cried like a maniac when we put him in last night. DP ended up sleeping downstairs next to the crate! He went out to wee at 10pm, then woke around 1.30am and went outside again. He then did a poo inside just as he was coming in. He slept til 4am, did a wee outside then another poo outside at 5am. DP said that he (the dog) was signalling to go out when eating his breakfast and did a poo outside then.

Question is, if DP hadn't been next to him all night and we'd just set an alarm to get up at, say, three hourly intervals, would he have needed to toilet so much? Thinking about trying that strategy tonight.

When not in the crate he loves playing and snoozing at people's feet. So cute :)

Any advice gratefully received!

He'll soon be leaping about, chewing everything, nipping hands etc. Resist the urge to play exciting games or try to tire him out on walks as this'll make things worse. You'll end up with an over stimulated and hyper pup . Clicker training is calming, also stuffed Kongs. You can use some of his food allowance, or even give all of it in Kongs.

Hello,
We brought home our puppy yesterday too and didn't sleep near him or get him up...the breeder suggested it would be ok to take him out at midnight and then up at 7am. But I suspect the breeder has much better tolerance of poo than i do and I found it pretty horrific this morning as he had messed his crate twice and once was on his bed.
He had cried at 4 and we had left him and then again at 6.30 and dh went down and found some poop but took him out too. Then he left him for 30mins more and I was greeted by the two poops (don't think dh cleared up properly) and they had been trodden about the crate and were presumably on his paws. Not ideal when he greeted me jumping up!

He has been pretty good today though...two poops both done in the garden and in a good place for it that we are encouraging him to use (his two yesterday were there too). One wee accident inside.

Finding it quite hard and dreading tonight. Think i will sleep downstairs and take him out when he wakes as he clearly couldn't hold it on that long and isn't as paper trained as expected.

Any advice welcome!

Dogowner I think you just need to bear with him for a little while, have a few doggy blankets so you can rotate them, he won't want to mess in his bed but he's in a new scary place and everything, including his routine, has changed so he's likely to have an accident. Perhaps pop him out at midnight, again at 4 am then again 7am or maybe at or 3am and 630? It's very tiring/time consuming for a good few weeks but he'll soon get the hang of it. Also remember he can't hold his bladder very long and pups often get upset tummies with the stress of losing their mum and brothers and sisters.

Minty I don't think you are taking him out too much, as above at 8 weeks they won't be able to hold it in for very long and it's better to prevent them going in the house if you can so that once they can hold it they actually will hold it until they're let out.

To both of you, take LOTS of photos. I took loads but I still don't have enough of my boy from when he was really tiny! They get big very quickly :)

Eric is thirteen weeks, and has reliably been toilet trained since eleven weeks and pretty awesome for a week or so before then. We brought him home at 8 weeks 4 days.
We followed the advice by Lilcamper here to the letter and he picked it up in no time. He was paper trained by the breeder but we went cold turkey when we got him home and he got it in no time at all.
The first couple of nights we had the crate by our bed and took him out once overnight when he woke after that he slept alone and didn't mess between midnight and 6am. This morning we had a lie in, he went and woke our son at 9am (downstairs bedroom) to be let out then.

Lots & lots of patients and praise when they go in the correct place. Never punishment if they get it wrong they will get there.
I would also encourage all doodle owners to get their dog used to being alone too.
Good luck :-)

Congratultions on your new family member, doodles are awesome. Mine is 4 and we wouldnt be without her.

We left ours quite early for tiny amounts of time and built it up. She is now happy to snooze all day and has no problem being left. She will walk for hours or be quite happy playing hide the squeaky toy :)

If I had any advice it would be do lots and lots of socialising.

Stupid question but if they snooze all day do they sleep ok at night? It's not so much like a baby then?

Thank you all for your comments and advice and sorry for the delay in replying. Been run ragged by the pup!

Going to post a new thread about him crying and barking in his crate when we leave him