Leaving a puppy at home

[heidiwine]

Help!
We are going to pick up our pup in a couple of weeks. Five days after he arrives I have to go to an all day conference and will be out the house from 8:30-6:00. This is v unusual for me and I have no option but to go.
DP is going to work from home from 1:00.
So the puppy won't have either of us there from 8:30-1:00. Help - these are my options:

1. leave him alone
2. arrange for a friend/neighbour to stop by for half an hour a couple of times
3. arrange for someone to actually be in the house for most of the time.

What's the best thing to do?

Can he go and stay with someone for the day? Def not fair to leave him home alone. .

Arrange for someone to be in the house. Please don't even consider leaving a small pup alone for that time.

I have similar questions - how long can we leave our new (currently 12 week old but today is his first full day with us) alone? I need to take dd swimming which will involve me being out for 2 hours.. what do you think? Not until Tuesday.,,

Thank you so much!
I'll make sure someone can stay with him in the morning, till DP gets home. That was my instinct but being so new to it all I wasn't sure.
Thank you!!

@petradelphiki - you have to allow them to settle and build up time gradually, i.e. leave them in a room for a minute or two, then five, then 10-15 etc

You can't expect them to be ok, and not toilet or trash the place, at that age, in the first week of being with you

As above, without working up to getting them used to being on their own expect toilet accidents etc at that age.

And to start them off onto the path towards separation anxiety, which was more my point

I made that mistake with our first dog. Picked him up Saturday afternoon, went off to my part time job as normal on Monday. Luckily he suffered no lasting damage but it took us months to toilet train him because we weren't there to let him out and he got used to doing it indoors.

We were able to leave our 12 week old puppy for 2 hours but we'd built that up for three weeks. We started with half an hour and built it up. Our pup wasn't caged but left in a large secure room....she just went to sleep and never had an accident. But I think it depends on the dog!

You need to get someone to sit with him. Make sure he has met them before. He will still be toilet training and will be need to be taken out lots (make sure person is happy to clean up accidents!)

Ok how do I toilet train outside when he hasn't had all his jabs? I thought they can't go out at all until then?

They can't go out on a walk but can go out in your garden. There's a great FB group. Dog training advice and support. Lots of advice pages about toilet training and settling a pup etc. I found it really helpful.

Outside in the back garden every 20 minutes and praise praise praise! They get it really quickly.

There's a book called the Perfect Puppy (by Gwen Bailey I think?) which is really good

I spoke to the puppy training person today who gave me a fab tip...
She said that when you get out of the car with the pup for the first time take it straight to the place where you want it to toilet put it on the ground and wait. When it pees give it shed loads of praise and a treat and only then bring it inside - doesn't matter how long you're out. Makes sense that pup's first pee should be where you want it to end up peeing!

@petradelphiki

You just cannot take them to places where there may have been unvaccinated dogs e.g. footpaths/ parks

Your garden will be fine and you have to toilet train- no point teaching them to go on pads inside then saying actually, nope, changed my mind that's bad now, you must go outside...

And, if they're small enough to carry, carry them around outside until jabs kick in to get them used to things- there's a fairly short window for 'socialisation'

Definitely get someone to come for at least some/all of the time - a neighbour coming in for an hour 10-11am, playing with puppy, tiring it out might work, at a minimum. They do sleep a lot at this age - just hard to know when their playtime and sleeptime will be!

And the going out/socialisation, definitely agree with carrying for while. They meet people, experience smells, sights, sounds, trucks, cars, planes etc - a lot of things to adjust to without actually getting down and risk picking up viruses. As they get older and closer to fully vaccinated they do squirm and try to escape, which is obviously easier with smaller dog than larger type.

If you have any friends with fully vaccinated dogs, you can also have them over to your garden - it carries a slight risk, as they walk on paths/meet other dogs, but compared to risk of dog being poorly socialised our vet said it was more pros than cons.

@heidiwine
That is excellent advice. I did that with my pup. She immediately realised that outside was the place to go.
Useful tip. If you use the same phrase when dog goes then eventually dog will go on command. REALLY useful when you want them to wee before you go out in the car or at bedtime.

Great - 5 bed house and both dd and I are sleeping on the floor next to puppy!!! This cannot be right :-)

It is. For now!
I did it for three weeks. By then she was happy in her crate and sleeping through the night. It paid dividends. Good luck.

So he slept to 530, peed outside (wouldn't let him in until he had) then poo on the kitchen floor - he seems to have decided that's his poo spot! I wipe it with anti bac every time but obv it just smells right! Now chasing his tail round the room!

@PetraDelphiki
The anti bac won't stop that spot smelling to him. You need a special cleaner.

I know....at pet shop tomorrow...

Amazon is your friend! Was when my pup was little and I couldn't get out!

Second that, amazon next day delivery saved me during those first puppy weeks when getting out was impossible

Haha Bitey I'm still relying on it a fair bit and she's 7 months.