When to get puppy

[Lolly2803]

So we’ve decided to get our family dog. We are an active family and have 3 children. 5 year old twins and a 3 year old. We’ve decided on a Border Terrier. I’m at stay at home Mum. Home all the time.
I am just wondering when to get the little guy or girl. I’ve found a breeder who has puppies available in May. So then by the summer holidays we’d be able to take the dog out for walks etc or at least with us if it can’t walk far. And hopefully toilet training will be sorted.
Or do I wait till September when the kids are back to school. We aren’t a family that goes for lots of inside days out. Parks, beach, woods. We may do a few hours out at a time in the summer and if longer than my parents could have the dog. My husband also works from home two days a week. What do you think?

Are you fully prepared for having an extra baby in the house, but much fluffier with sharper teeth?? Have a good read through the "puppy blues" threads for a real window into how tricky it's going to be - especially with younger children as they won't be able to be left in the same room as puppy alone, not even for a moment.

To be honest it would be easier to wait until the youngest is at school full time. But if you are going to go for this year, when the kids are at school will give you more time to focus on training with the pup alone, less juggling of training and children at the same time.

I would also wait until all children are at school. Having a puppy was so much harder than I imagined it was going to be and I had done huge amounts of research. You will feel like you’re ignoring your children all the time if they’re on holiday when you get the puppy as it requires all of your attention (taking outside to the toilet all the time, making sure it’s not chewing anything it shouldn’t, training etc). Now ours is18 months it is a lot easier and he’s a wonderful dog but still harder work than I think I’d imagined and my children were 8 and 10 when we got him.

September- Puppies are hard work. You'll welcome the few hours 1:1 you have with puppy.
Also, it's good for puppy to have downtime and a quiet home during the day right from the beginning.

Makes it a lot easier when te time comes for leaving your dog behind for a few hours.

Be aware that some breeders will be apprehensive giving you a puppy to your family due to the 3 year old.

I would wait until your youngest is in school and most decent breeders should tell you to wait until then too.

Puppies are a lot of work and I really wouldn't want to be training one with three young children at home - it wouldn't be fair on any of you.

So now or September. My 3 year old is at pre school every day. Well every morning 9-1.30pm. So I have every morning to myself. I was more thinking now so the summer holidays we can enjoy the dog more or September.
I have researched and read books. I know it will be hard but many families with children have dogs.

If you think it's hard then multiple that thought by about 1000000% - we're just emerging from the shock of it now that ChenPup is 8 months. He's amazing, I love him to bits, but oh my word it's hard. I take my hat off to you doing that with 2 five year olds and a 3 year old - ours are 15, 22 and 24 (24 doesn't live with us)!

Now that we've all got the reality check out of the way I'd go for May - Autumn and winter is not fun for the 1am and 3am wee/poo runs to the garden. By then he/she will be older and able to cross their legs for a bit longer, and walks in the daytime are far nicer when it's warm and sunny and you're not having to mop floors and dry off soaking wet dogs with the horizontal rain battering down outside.

That’s what I was thinking. I know it will be hard. But I want the children to have a dog young and grow up with it. I feel the hard work will be worth it in the long run. Theyll be plenty of hard days I’m sure but we are prepared for that. I’m also used to broken sleep with my children so that side doesn’t worry me either. I am very much looking forward to having a dog to be my companion now my children are out. Beyond cleaning my house it will do wonders for my mind and my mental health I think. We are all really excited.

I would go for May in preference to an Autumn/Winter pup. Summer pups are easier to socialise and as a pp said, toilet training, especially the night time trips, are so much easier when it’s warmer. It’s also easier to get everyone out for walks when the weather is good.

My dd was 3 and my ds 9 and 11 when we got our last pup. We picked him up at the start of the summer holidays and spent most of the summer outside in the garden and going to different places for socialisation (we are similar to you in preferring outdoor day trips). I didn’t find it any harder work than previous pups having my dc as well.

Many years ago I also ended up with an unplanned rescue pup when my boys were 3 years and 18 months old and that was also fine. It’s always going to be hard work, but a lot depends on the character of the individual pup and how sensible your dc are.

I suppose the difference is that we had dogs when our dc were born, so they were used to how they needed to behave around dogs and our home was already set up for the dogs to have areas away from the dc.

My dc are young adult and older teens now and we have just chosen to have a pup this June, rather than wait for the breeders next litter in early spring next year. I have done bad weather puppy parenting, several times over and having our last one in the Summer was definitely preferable.

We have a terrier and it wasn't nearly as much of a drama getting a puppy as several people made it out to be on here.

It didn't occur to me to worry about the time of year as the breed we wanted was so hard to find, we bit the breeder's hand off when she emailed me to say she had a puppy!

Honestly if you've coped with three children, a terrier puppy is a total breeze. I would get on with it - it's nicer in summer than when it's cold and wet and the dog doesn't want to go outside.

We got ours in May (5 years ago). I think the time of year was perfect for toilet training Ddog.
However my children were 8 and 10 so I could focus on puppy easily.
Be prepared for your children to be scared of puppy and bitey teeth.
Be prepared for 5am wake ups for a surprisingly long time.
Good luck.

I'd go for May too. I got my puppy in January and spent a lot of time standing on the lawn in my coat and hat, shining a torch to spot the dog doing a wee. It was freezing. And wet. And the puppy hated it too.

It will be harder having the kids around during the summer though, especially as they will want entertaining. I think having more daylight and drier days will be worth it though. Good luck.

It's a bit of a red flag that this breeder has puppies (plural) available in May. Most decent breeders have long waiting lists. Will they take the dog back if it doesn't work out? Have they asked you lots of questions about your family set-up?

I would wait until September so that the puppy and your DC get downtime from each other. Puppies need a lot of sleep or they become extra nippy.

We did it slightly differently to you, so we already had the dog, he was 2 1/2, when my twins came along, followed by our third child, a few years later. We loved our dog, he was like our first born but there were times when I realised life would be so much easier without him.
So for one he was male so the kids could never leave anything in the garden or he'd "scent" it. That went for all their fixed toys like slides and goal posts etc. Also come snow time I couldn't let the kids play with the snow in the back garden in case there was a stray poo floating about. Small things but very annoying. Oh and the extra work they create (sweeping, hoovering, feeding, bathing, washing bedding, carpet shampooing, letting them out/into the house, walking) all adds up when you are already busy.
So yes he was amazing and the kids loved him but he definitely added to the workload. We lost him last year and have just adopted a 1 year old rescue dog. My kids are now older and can help with walks etc which is great. I would suggest waiting a bit!

Definitely May, then you'll have all the Summer months to house train. her/him.
Best piece of advice I can give, is to get a puppy play pen, (I don't like the crates at all), so you can put him in there overnight with his bed, water bowl and puppy pads.
Also, very handy for when you can't watch him for half an hour and to give him a break from the children.

My girl had one until she was totally housetrained by about 4/5 months.
Also get the biological stain and odour remover, Pets at Home have a good one called Simple Solution Extreme.
Take him/her to puppy classes as soon as you can, if you can find one not too far away, otherwise look online for training tips.
Start recall as soon as you get puppy home by calling them and giving a small treat when they get to you, I've done this with 8 week old pups and all my dogs can be let off with perfect recall.
Plenty of soft toys and chew toys, teach them to fetch their toys, mine knows the names of about half a dozen and fetches them to be thrown.
It's going to be hard work OP but so worth it, good me a doggie house is a happy house, I couldn't live without one. Good luck!

I would vote for May as well. Since your children are in school and pre-school, that will give you some concentrated time with the puppy every day. When the summer holidays begin, hopefully you will have made a lot of progress with things like house training and sleeping through the night.

TBH, I've never found the early puppy days to be that difficult. Of course, everything depends on the individual pup you end up with. Some are more difficult than others. But you have twins and another child. I would imagine you aren't afraid of hard work!

good me 😂 - for me

You're going to do it, so take the plunge and go for May.

Yes puppies are demanding, but it doesn't go on for that long.

I will echo others' warnings about the kids. Mine were 7 and 5 (planned for when the youngest started school) and it was very difficult. For a while I lived a different life to them. Them in the living room and me in the kitchen with the demon puppy. The biting was really tough on them. They learnt very quickly to keep their doors shut to stop toys being destroyed. At their age, fine. But maybe not as easy with younger kids. It lasted for longer than I thought too. For months the pup couldn't walk far so our lives became very different. We were suddenly housebound a lot more. For this reason, if you are set on doing I (and I would suggest waiting a couple of years) then I'd say go for September. You'd be able to concentrate on the pup for a few hours of the day.

Now! Can have the door open for it to run out to the garden for toilet training. Fun time over the summer for playing and training.

I’d say go for it but in September, only because the first few months you will need to potentially watch them 100% of the time and doing that and entertaining little ones can be hard. Also some puppies are so wriggly you wouldn’t be able to carry them whilst out walking etc
Be mindful that a lot of dogs find children especially young ones either incredibly exciting or they can be nervous of there unpredictability. So long as your little ones know you leave the pup alone when it’s sleeping etc you shouldn’t have any issues but I would crate train so pup has a safe space away from a busy household,
our pup was housetrained within a few weeks so you should be done before winter anyway and ime pups can go 6hours overnight from 10 weeks.
A birch pup might be easier than a boy purely so they can’t pee up all the kids toys (talking from experience 😂)

This can actually cause issues long-term with toilet training, as the dog doesn't learn the difference between indoors and outdoors.

Go for it. I was terrified getting our puppy based on what was said on mumsnet. We had a two year old and a four year old then and honestly adding a pup to the mix was a breeze. I’m so so glad I wasn’t persuaded to hold off until everyone was in school. I love that they have grown up with the dog. I’d go for May time if I was you. Good weather is a good time to be training a puppy.

Not in my experience.
Dogs are clever.
She also won't wee near our tent when we are camping, although we haven't trained her not to.

Of course it won't apply to everyone :)

But there's been lots of threads on here (and on other dog sites I'm on) where people are confused about why their dogs are having accidents "when the door is open all day so they can go out" - some dogs need a physical barrier during training so they don't get confused.

I'd wait til all kids in school. You need to train them as much as the puppy.