thinking about getting a puppy

[emilybradley891]

Considering a puppy- we've decided on a cavapoo/cavoodle. Only thing holding me back is I'm concerned about leaving it alone. I'll take a week off work when we get the pup and start on housetraining. I work 3 days a week, so tues and thurs aren't a problem but on mon, wed and fri, I work all day and the girls (14 and 15 yrs) leave for school at 8:10 and are back at 3:00, so are out for about 6 hours, however, I would hire a dog walker/sitter to be around for 1-2 hours and feed and walk it. So, the pup would be left for 2 hours, then someone home for 2, then left for another 2- girls will walk it again as soon as they get home and it will get plenty of love and attention for the rest of the day. I don't want to commit to one unless I'm sure it will be happy and healthy with being alone like this 3 days a week.
Any opinions really appreciated!
Emily

Personally I wouldn't leave such a young puppy alone that long after just a week with you. I would (in fact I did) at least wait until the school summer holidays.

I took 2 weeks off work when we got our pup, then between me, DH and DD we were all off for another 6 weeks.

Even now I won't leave him alone for more than 2 hours maximum.

I took time off for just over a month when I got my puppy and worked very hard every day to get him used to being on his own. I was going to have someone to pop in on the days I worked but realised he needed more company than that so at around 14-15 weeks of age he was left for around 3 hours before going to day care. However, he did have access to a secure outside area to pee and poo during that time because at that age he could not hold it for long.

I am hoping to move to dog walking when he is older but whilst he is still in puppy mode day care suits him better even though he is left for a few hours either side.

If you are only planning on taking 1 week off work for an 8 week old puppy you need to be prepared for accidents during the time you have left them and toilet training to take longer than if you were at home.

You can't do that with a puppy that age, it can't go for walks yet as it won't be fully vaccinated and 2 lots of 2 hours is ages for a tiny unhousetrained puppy.

Puppies need a lot of supervision and active care at that age, leaving them for that sort of time regularly is highly likely to hold up house training as they're not physically capable of reliably holding their bladder/bowel for that long. A week also isn't very long to settle a pup and get them happy being left, it's something you need to build up gradually and if the pup isn't happy when the time comes that you have to leave them you run the risk of them developing separation anxiety.

I would also be extremely careful getting a CKCS cross puppy, it's nigh on impossible to find reputable breeders of them who perform all the necessary health testing. As a breed the CKCS is riddled with health problems, not all of which can be avoided by crossing them with another breed.

At the very least you need to be looking for a breeder who follows the CKCS club heart scheme (dogs shouldn't be bred from unless they've been scanned clear of heart murmurs at 2.5 years old AND their parents have been scanned clear at 5 years old) and has had an MRI done on the CKCS parent, has had a BVA eye test done on both the CKCS and the poodle and has had the poodle parent DNA tested for vWD I. That's the absolute minimum you should be looking for, ideally there should also have been a number of other DNA tests done as well.

Also have a look at the puppy survival thread on here. We all have our own issues as all puppies and homes are different. This will give you an idea of some of the things you may encounter and you can then decide whether you would be able to deal with them.

Leaving for 2 hours or so at a time sounds OK. Puppies sleep a lot. My Cavalier puppy is 12 weeks and sleeps far more than she's awake, but plays manically for short periods.

Be aware that the puppy won't be able to walked in public until after her second inoculations, mine had 1st at 9 weeks, 2nd coming up at 13 weeks and then a week or so (might be longer, I can't remember, but will check before she gives out!) for them to give protection.

Could you maybe get the pup in the summer holidays so that someone is around more? Not too long to wait but would give you much more time to devote to it. A week won't really be enough I don't think - we had a month off all together and can now leave our pup three hours at a time. I could have left him at 9 weeks as he cried when I left the room.

I had around 6 months off when we got our dog!!
Not entirely necessary I know but I was taking some time off for a few reasons so took advantage of it to get a puppy.

We were off for 2 to 3 weeks with our puppy. We started leaving her for a small amount of time straight away. She was in our snug rather than in a cage and was absolutely fine. I work five hours, so have a dog walker take her out for two hours during that time. She now has run of the house when we are out and I can leave her for 3 to 4 hours on rare occasions. We have been lucky she has never had any accident

*Accidents

I watch her via an app and she mostly just sleeps or moves to another sleeping spot.

Having the dog walker from a young age has been great for socialising.

I would certainly second what Cornflake said about satisfying yourself that the parents are health checked.