It's home!

[puppypalavas]

Got our puppy today.
Been about 8 hours since we’ve had her and I’ve got puppy blues already!
She’s doing ok toilet wise. Maybe 3 inside, 3 outside and a poo outside.
Got her confined to the kitchen at the mo and she’s got a playpen in here.
We’ve got a deep sided box for her for our room tonight.
We’ve put her in her playpen probably 5 times, for short durations, 15 mins or so.
Then we went to the shop to find a box for her for tonight, so we were out for 40 minutes.
She’s howls and cries and barks solidly in her playpen.
As soon as she’s quiet we go in and praise her. Sometimes getting her out and sometimes leaving her in there.
Every single time though she has barked and howled in her playpen until she’s vomited. She’ll be losing weight at this rate.
Am I doing the playpen thing right?

And if it's a Labrador please also join
Labradorforums on the internet for some fantastic and not judgemental advice.

Overnight is a bit different. You will find people saying that is fine- presumably because the puppy is asleep! It wouldn’t have worked for mine, and I was still obsessively taking him out to avoid accidents, although he was very good and we had very few to deal with. I prioritised that over the crate/playpen thing, though I can’t take credit as he was good from day one.

The best behaved dog in our training class is a lab. He will do anything for food which helps, and provided he’s had a lot of exercise before class he’s amazing and puts the rest of us to shame. So hopefully you will find the same.

puppypalavas you need to find your own way to be honest. I know lots of people and we have all bought our puppies up differently.

For example on the puppy pads. I never used them as I never wanted my dog to think toileting inside was ever ok. Others have found they worked whilst some have found they confuse their dogs.

Some people find their puppies go through the night without needing the toilet. Mine didn't so I had to do night visits for toileting.

Puppy books do not prepare you for how horrific this is?
The thing is, they kind of do. I’ve attached a few photos of some advice one puppy book gives on travelling in the car. Does it not make it sound like bloody hard work?

And I second @Namechangeforthiscancershit on the food advice! Our lab will do ANYTHING for steamed chicken so it's a great reward for good behaviour

I’m not a dog person but this op makes me sad. You call your puppy an “it” and have no empathy for her at all. How could anyone leave a tiny baby animal all alone in a pen for 40 minutes on their first day away from her mum? Your friend who advises just abandoning and shouting sounds lovely too. Training a puppy is not about breaking its spirit through callous treatment, why do you want a dog if you don’t want to show it affection?

Op it will get so much better ... just take one day at a time and stop worrying.
I'm sure you dog will grow up fine .
It's so overwhelming when they are young .
My one word of advice is don't use puppy pads they encourage dogs to pee inside in my opinion.
As you will be home just take pup out every 30 minutes or so and encourage them with a word they will associate with poo/wee
We have always used Hurry up which is also handy when out and you want them to do a poo just saying the word always makes ours get on and do it .

I feel for you OP. We’ve (well more me) has been considering a puppy. We have two children with autism and I’ve thought that a dog might be good for them but having a puppy scares the hell out of me. We had a lab a few years back, gorgeous boy and very docile (never did any damage) but he was highly nervous. He now lives the life of Riley with my auntie who also has another lab. We got him when he was two so never experienced the puppy blues. From what I’ve read it’s a steep learning curve. Tiny baby steps.

A professional breeder. So someone who breeds for money. Like a farmer you mean?
Lots of friends have pups from them? So they breed exceedingly frequently then?
So not a good breeder.

What the bloody hell am I meant to do?

Go with what decent professionals recommend. As I said the FB group I linked to is run by trainers and behaviourists who are all accredited with at least one (and often more) of the professional bodies which require their members to only use and promote training and behaviour modification techniques which are science based and force free.

If you post in the group you can also get recommendations for suitably qualified trainers who run puppy classes in your area which you'll be able to attend once your pup is fully vaccinated.

Another vote for the group that Whoseranium referred to. Fabulous advice on everything from toilet training to settling a pup to lead walking and recall. All free but modern and positive/ force free.

Puppies are not a nightmare and it is not difficult to look after a puppy BUT you have to give your puppy time often 100% of you time start with and do very little else.

The puppy will take a lot (nearly all your time) in the early days and that is what doing your research means. How are you going to manage this, what will you have to change, set up in place before the puppy arrives.

How are you going to manage socialisation of the puppy alongside your "normal" life etc?

Can I also ask why you chose to have a winter puppy if you did your reasearch - way harder than a summer or spring puppy ?

Threads like this throw me into the pits of despair poor dog

Also as this thread has made me grumpy!

What sort of breeder would give the OP a puppy.

A good breeder would have interviewed at length and asked questions on how the puppy was to be looked after to start with and what strategies had been set up. What training classes they were going to , what socialisation plan they would recommend.

They would have given a basic day timetable, they would have advised the puppy would be sick on the first car journey

This whole situation is just too depressing.

I know, I feel the same

I agree completely.

The word IT says far more than it needs to for me.

We got our lab at ten weeks 14 years ago, she became an instant priority for our family (and she still is today).

You don’t get a puppy and then cobble together a half baked plan of how to care for it.

You do need to start as you mean to go on. Our ddog was left overnight straight away and was just fine - left him next day for work (normally 3 hours but ran home after 2 and dh had gone in an hour late so just one hour) was fine. Maybe it depends on breed but farmers don't mollycoddle their dogs and they have some of the best trained dogs in the country! (My dog is from a working farm, he got lucky - rather than a barn he's curled up on the sofa with me)

@anniehm that’s very old advice. This dog is a baby. It’s been taken from the only home and family it has ever known. It’s clearly extremely distressed at being left. Leaving it to get upset just teaches it that being alone is scary.

Responsible dog breeders do not let puppies leave their home over the Christmas period, as people are too busy to give the puppy the attention it needs.

I don't know where you done your research, but to me you obviously didn't do enough!!

This puppy is a BABY!! You can not leave the puppy for at a few weeks.
These next few weeks are crucial!!!!
Posts like this make me so bloody 😡

This is it, all that OP has said does not indicate a 'proper breeder' and what anyone would believe constitutes that.

First of all congratulations on your new puppy. I’ve had 3 - all labs. They are hard work and you have to be ready to look after them and have them under 24 hour surveillance when they are not crated when you first take them home . I crated all as puppies at night. I have never used puppy pads and never would. You don’t want your puppy to ever think toilet should be done inside. They need to be taken outside every 20 minutes after sleeping after playing after eating. A command should be taught when they go and heaps of praise. It’s relentless but needs must. Labs are highly intelligent and easily trained but they are hard work and energetic. It will take anything from a couple of weeks to few months to have them completely house trained. Once that’s done only worry is their chewing of anything they can get their mouths on. Also be warned that they can be very mouthy and are like little crocs. Still adorable. But defo not easy

I have left mine for 2 hours maximum as puppies from about 12 weeks. Separation anxiety has not been a problem.

They don’t all take 3 months off work to sit with their dogs?

I tend to think this the is one of those 'self selecting' things. Those people with older dogs that they had from puppies fit into 1 of 4 scenarios:

1. They planned and so were able to be home or arrange suitable cover care for when they were out
2. They got lucky and got a dog that was relatively ok with being left
3. They got a dog that hated being left, was very distressed BUT got lucky that the distress did not last into adulthood. Maybe they never even realised HOW distressed the pup was and eventually it just got used to being left.
4. They got a dog that hated being left, was very distressed and never got used to it, they got rid of the dog because they couldn't cope with the problem.

What that means is that a large % of people feel able to say 'I got a dog and left it alone for 2 hours a day and it was fine'. As you're finding out, that's not guaranteed (or typical).

Slow and steady is the way. If you try to push the dog quicker than she can cope with you risk setting up lifelong behavioural problems. Before she can be left for any length of time, she needs to know:

a) she is home. After just a day or two she will not recognise that where she is as home. That takes time.
b) she is safe. That means she needs more time to get used to her environment plus needs to have outgrown the baby phase in which her instinct is telling her that being left alone = unsafe. As it would in the wild. She needs her mum. Her mum isn't here so she needs you.
c) you will come back. For her to learn this you need to break being left into tiny increments, a few seconds in the next room, building up to a minute in the toilet, building up to 5 ins in the garden, to 10 mins popping to the shop, to 20 minutes going for a run - and so on. This could take weeks/months.
d) that being left alone is not scary - going too fast will teach her the opposite, that being left alone is awful and results in her being so distressed she vomits (something she has started to learn already).

Brace yourself, OP - it is going to be a long and bumpy ride! In my experience, once you crack one behaviour thing, another thing appears and you have to work on that. This continues until the dog is fully mature (18 months / 2 years).

It doesn't stop when they are 2! You have 10-16 years of having to put your dogs needs first

You have 10-16 years of having to put your dogs needs first

You absolutely do - but the 'long and bumpy road of puppyhood' slows down/stops about then. By 2 their behaviour tends to be a bit more stable - though, of course, they are living beings so nothing is guaranteed

Right sorry I’m back.
I only put “it” in the title as I didn’t want to out myself by putting him or her. But then I messed that up in my first post.
The breeder breeds working dogs for farms mainly.
Most of the dogs live in outdoor kennels in their new homes, which is why their advice may be different to normal advice.
I’m really really worried I’m doing this wrong and have taken everyone’s advice on board.
We have dog sitters coming in so for at least a week she won’t even be left for 10 minutes, then the school runs will stop for a couple of weeks and we will have 2 adults on hand 24/7 for the dog.
She is currently in her box next to our bed.
She’s settled for now, and every time she whimpers I lie next to her and stroke her and she goes back off.
My husband was in the shower earlier and I was desperate for the loo and even in that 5 minutes in her playpen she barked so much she was sick.
I’m worried that she can’t continue throwing up 5 times a day as she’ll get dehydrated and lose weight. But then again I have nappies to change and kids to put down for naps so she will have to be alone for 5 minutes.
Husband is setting up a floor bed next to her box so he can stroke her when she wakes.

I’d get her checked by a vet if the vomiting continues , that is not normal at all .