Getting 12wk puppy into a routine.

[NavigatingAdolescence]

Have an adorable (female) 12 week old cockapoo puppy who has been with us for just over 3 weeks. She’s settled brilliantly and is learning very fast. She’s been ringing a bell on the back door to let us know when she needs to go outside since 3 days in, with a 99.99% success rate.

She sleeps happily in a crate in the living room for naps and overnight (one of us sleeps on the sofa with her overnight).

There doesn’t seem to be a clear pattern as yet and I’m wondering how to establish one. She’s pretty consistent about waking between 5:45-6am for a poo no matter what time she ate the night before. Would prefer she woke closer to 7am if possible just because of the household routine. (She has her last garden trip around 11pm so pretty happy with 7 hours as it is.)

We’re keeping a diary but there is no clear timeframe between food and poo-ing as yet.

We’re enforcing naps as when she is overtired she gets a bit nippy/has zoomies and our trainer has advised that’s either due to tiredness or hunger.

She’s also gone off her dry food (even when soaked) in the last couple of days since the trainer introduced her to chicken, so I’m looking to shift her onto raw food this week. Will that pass through her digestion differently?

Any help on how to have a more reliable routine would be helpful. I’ve been off work for 3 weeks with her, but need to go back this week and a bit worried that I’m going to be managing her more than working.

Obligatory pic attached.

Dawww, she's super adorable!

By routine - do you mostly mean her toileting routine and being able to predict when she needs to poop? Or do you mean overall?

Are the enforced naps given at a regular time each day, or are you just enforcing naps when she seems overtired?

Raw food generally causes a lower need to poop / lower quantity of poop.

I feed my dog raw, at roughly 9am and 5pm daily. This seems to lead him to need to poop around 11am, again in the afternoon, and maybe right before bed (not always). He usually sleeps until around 7am, but we've kind of trained him to do that over time by refusing to take him out until that time. Basically, he knows now that nothing will happen before 7am, so he may as well sleep.

Your pup is still really young though, and it sounds like you have a good night-time routine with her, so in your case, it's probably a waiting game until she gets a bit older.

I would say that at 12 weeks, you're already doing extremely well if she'll sleep for seven hours in the crate until 6am.

Toileting at that age is generally still quite unpredictable as they still can't really hold their bladders and bowels for very long. You just need to take her out regularly through the day (every 30-40 minutes or so) and keep persisting - she will get it eventually!

When you say you're going back to work, is that in a WFH type role as you say you're going to be managing her at the same time?

I hate to say it, but I think you're going to struggle to work full-time and look after a 12 week old puppy. They need lots of supervision, toilet breaks etc. at that age, and if you're busy (on a call or whatever) they won't be able to wait until you're available to take them out.

Thanks for the responses.

I work mainly from home and DH is pretty much permanently from home. Letting her out isn’t a problem. My desk is in the living room next to the patio door she goes out of. DH’s is in a building at the other end of the garden but he can work from the sofa a fair bit.

I start a new job in Dec, mainly from home (but will need to travel sometimes) so knowing when she’s likely to be asleep/need watching outside to poop scoop would be helpful as I will arrange my meetings accordingly.

I’ll

I start a new job in Dec, mainly from home (but will need to travel sometimes) so knowing when she’s likely to be asleep/need watching outside to poop scoop would be helpful as I will arrange my meetings accordingly.

This is really going to be dependent on your individual dog - it's not something you can generalise unfortunately!

It depends on all sorts of things - diet, meal times, size of the dog, what time of day she's exercised, size of the meals, how many treats/snacks/chews she gets in between, etc.

If it helps, my own dog is four now, and his routine is pretty predictable these days, but he didn't really settle into a reliable routine until he was about 5-6 months old, and that routine changed several times until his current routine became established when he was around 18 months old.

That’s really helpful. Thank you.

I was told before she came that she needed to poo 10 mins after eating, so it taking anything between 3 and 6 hours has come as a bit of a shock!

She’s won’t be fully vaccinated against lepto for another couple of weeks so she’s getting 1 15 min pavement walk a day (sniffing and socialising, mainly - afternoon) and then 2-3 short training sessions in the garden getting her to run between us. Trainer says 2x 15 mins exercise a day max.

Indoors she has loads of toys and licky mats etc to work her brain.

Once you're back at work and settled you'll probably find you pick up her signals and figure out a vague routine anyway

I would recommend teaching her to toilet on command if possible too - we use "go toilet". So when she goes to the loo, use the phrase you've picked as she's doing her business, then tons of praise/treat afterwards.

Eventually she should learn that "go toilet"
means she has to try and pee/poo. It's really helpful on rainy days or when it's bloody freezing outside