Puppy arrives next week, please give me your best Always and Never rules!

[Tankflybosswalkjam]

She is a miniature schnauzer. I am a single mum with 3 boys, 10,11,12. I had planned to have her in a crate in our kitchen diner, so she can be among us but not interfered with, IYSWIM.

How big a crate do I get? Do I stay up with her all night or put puppy pads down?

We have a quiet, enclosed garden and live in a quiet enclosed close, in the countryside.

Best thing I ever did was join the Facebook group 'dog training advice and support', fantastic advice for preparing for a new puppy and coping with a new puppy.

One piece of advice is that puppies need naps just like babies. They sometimes get overtired so need to go somewhere quiet to have a nap. A lot of problems with puppies are when they are overtired and can't rest.

We got a big enough crate for moving around but not too big.

We slept downstairs with our puppy fir the first week or two and now he has no problems sleeping alone

They say puppy pads can confuse puppies. The best plan is very frequent toilet trips to outside and limited opportunity to toilet inside.

Our puppy arrives this weekend! So excited. Yes that FB group is fab, I’ve been avidly reading it

Do not use puppy pads.
As soon as it arrives at your house take it out in the garden, do not put it down in the house, and do not let it into the house until it has wee’d.
Then take it out every hour to wee, if it wee’s within that hour take it out more frequently.
Set your alarm to get up in the middle of the night to take it out. If it’s dirtied it’s crate you need to get up sooner.
If the puppy has an accident that is your fault for not watching puppy well enough and seeing the signs.
Learn the signs that your puppy is going to toilet. I read that they sniff in circles, but for mine it’s sniffing In zig-zag lines.

Be consistent.

Sit your family down and explain how important is the you all follow the same rules.

Start as you mean to go on.

If you don't want the puppy in your bed, don't let it in the bed.
Don't feed puppy from the table unless you want to be pestered at the table for the rest of your life (looking at you, DH!)
No puppy pads - they just encourage the puppy to toilet inside the house. The vast majority of owners who have issues with toilet training have used pads - they're totally unnecessary.

If you get a crate then you'll need to crate train. Have a look online at how to make the crate a good place for your puppy.

Think about getting the puppy used to being alone even through lockdown - so go out without him or her, even if it's just to sit in the car for half an hour.

Do you have plans to use a dog walker or anything going forward? If so, it might be a good idea to find someone now - they can come and get to know your puppy from a young age (I've had puppies come to me from 8 weeks old) and do home visits and toilet breaks - even if you just go and sit in another room while it happens. It's good to have your puppy used to being walked and cared for by someone else in case you get injured or sick.

Most importantly - enjoy your puppy! And show us photos

Clean her teeth every day!

Puppyhood is when it's easiest to get a dog to accept a toothbrush (and liver flavoured toothpaste - yum!) and it will get teeth cleaner than dental chews.

Buy good insurance straight away. Ddog is almost 3 and so far the insurance has paid out more than the premiums every year. Now he has a torn cruciate ligament which would cost about £2k to fix. Make sure you have lifetime cover.

Yep insure straight away and I’d suggest take to your vet for a check even if had breeder vet check. You need to know everything is covered so the insurance co need to know no problems when the insurance starts

Don’t use puppy pads, just take puppy out frequently. Do plan to sleep near puppy for a little while - don’t forget that puppy will be a baby who has never slept without mum and siblings before so is likely to get distressed at being left alone.

Always remember that puppy doesn’t know the difference between your expensive shoes and puppy toys so remove anything you don’t want chewed. Just like kids, a quiet puppy is ones that’s getting into trouble so install eyes in the back of your head.

Start training immediately, they do catch on really quickly and it sets the expectation that you expect to be listened to.

Be aware of the puppy fear stages, especially the imprint stage at 8-12 weeks, and of the need for socialisation and desensitisation.

There is a lot of good advice online.

Good luck and I hope you enjoy your pup. We're getting our new one next week, too! 😀

Build a solid bond with play and cuddles and praise.

Start recall training in the house, initially with meals (I never got the chance with our current puppy, as she hung around the bigger dogs who know every mealtime cue and materialise underfoot at once).

Get her habituated to the collar and lead indoors -just let her drag the lead.

Handle her - get her used to having her ears checked and her nails clipped etc.

Let her sleep, but have lots of fun.

Socialisation is so important but what we had not realised is that means taking the puppy to lots of different places (carrying them initially until they have had their jabs). We found a list on the internet of all different experiences puppies should have - I am afraid I can't remember where from!

Our main mistake was allowing our dog to play with every dog we met. In reality we should have taught him to ignore other dogs we met.

Never used puppy pads - picked her up, took her outside and placed her on grass every hour. She was trained in about two weeks and I can count on one hand the number of accidents she's had (wee). She's never pooed in the house. It was hard work for a short time but well worth it.

We used a heartbeat puppy soft toy from day 1 and she has always slept through apart from the odd occasion. We rubbed it all over her Mum when we collected her and didn't wash it for a couple of weeks. It stank but I think it really helped her transition to our home and away from her Mum and littermates. It was probably the best thing we bought.

I wish we'd started training her more and earlier. She picked things up really quickly but we floundered a bit after teaching the basics but luckily got some great 1 to 1 training after the first lockdown.

Prevention is better than cure. I wish we'd gone zero tolerance from the start with mouthing and jumping up. It's far harder to train something out of a puppy.