What’s your puppy routine?

[Toorahtoorahaye]

Have a just turned 12 week old with all injections now done and wondered what’s your puppy routine?

[ferretface]

Oh just realised I missed his dinner off, he has it at 7 before we have ours usually

[ferretface]

Hi, this is our border collie puppy (just coming up to 15 weeks) routine:

07.30 - wake up, toilet 5-10 mins training then free play (generally needs the toilet about 3 times within an hour of waking up)
08.30 breakfast, toilet, then a short sniffy walk round the neighbourhood (15 minutes)
09.00 toilet then in the crate with a small treat, chew toy etc
10.30 out of the crate, toilet, then mix of free play and short training sessions
12.00 an excursion or a 20 min walk- not too much walking but aimed at new experiences (seeing people, new smells and sights and sounds)
2.00 lunch, toilet
2-4 in the crate for a nap, possibly longer if we did a trip out and the excursion was very stimulating/tiring
4-7 out of the crate, toilet, mix of play and training, toilet
7-9 nap or quiet rest/chew time usually with a Kong while we eat dinner
9-10 toilet, free play and short training sessions
10 final toilet trips and in crate with his bedtime biscuit, he races into his crate when it's bedtime biscuit time!!

3.30am we get up for him to use the toilet (we set an alarm) - we are moving this back gradually each day as generally when we go down he is sleepy rather than busting for the loo.

So he gets about 9hrs a night of sleep and an additional 4-6 or so of 'enforced' rest (plus he can go into his crate for chew time or more sleep any time he wants). This has worked well for us as he settles very quickly and doesn't yell in his crate, he also rarely gets overtired. You know when they get overtired because your puppy will turn into an uncontrollable leaping piranha

I would also recommend playing a socialisation noises programme like Sounds Social from Dogs Trust in the background as it really helps them get used to unusual noises they may not have encountered before- fireworks etc.