Please prepare us for a puppy!

[DueyCheatemAndHow]

Wanted a dog for 30 years no exaggeration. I'm giving up work in July so we've decided then is the time.

After years of discussion we've settled on a standard poodle and have been on a KC assured breeders list since Dec. Both parents are her pets. We've all met.

Puppies due next month so 3 months or so til we bring her home

Please hit me with everything you've got!

Oh should add we have a cat and 2 DCs (nearly 3 and 5)

I’m one week in with my 10 week old puppy, loving it, but also have puppy blues, sleep deprived (very) house training mostly hit.
My tip would be to buy lots of chew toys and start to redirect the chewing/mouthing/nipping straight away and make sure that pup gets lots of rest. A tired pup is a nippy pup.

My advice would be to set your puppy up for as much success as possible.

Use baby gates to control their access to parts the house so that they can't get hold of things they shouldn't.

Get your house organised now so that your DC have plenty of places to put their toys etc. where the puppy can't destroy them.

Think about how you're going to toilet train a puppy with small children in the house - eg. if the toddler is being changed or on the toilet and the puppy needs to go out, will you be able to manage that?

Have you got a plan in place for socialising, training and walks with small DC?

And yes to what PP said too - they need sleep and lots and lots of it!

Some great tips on here already. I really like "setting puppy up for success". We have the usual like shoe cupboards but DH will insist on leaving things like rucksacks and shoes in the hall and then wondering why they get destroyed.

And yes, I know that's a DH problem not a DDog problem

I had the same DH problem

It was always his stuff that got chewed or destroyed or peed on - he never learned 😂

Be prepared to give up 6 - 12 months of your life. I mean it. Puppy and not much else! They really can't be left alone at all for the first few months then you can build it up slowly as they become a bit mature.

Make sure your cats can be completely separated from pup for months if necessary. Pup will need to grow up.

Standard poodles are lovely and very smart dogs. So a training class is a must. Go for one that uses games based learning.

Manipulate pups environment so they cannot get it wrong. It results in an adult dog who has very few 'bad habits' IME. If they never start they never know to!

Crate training is fantastic but expect it to take months. You can have them sleep in a crate beside you at night but that's not crate training per se but fantastically useful for toilet training at night.

Join the Dog training advice and support group and read the puppy guides :)

Oh and buy whatever normally gets you through stressful periods in abundance and apply liberally 😃

There is no such thing as an unchewable item .
Make pup sit in front of you before making a fuss .
Get your insurance set up so that yours and breeders policies overlap by two weeks .

Thanks so much everyone.

Toilet - it won't be a problem if DD is still in nappies but I'm really hoping to get that sorted by the summer, she turns 3 in the autumn,she is definitely ready.

So - Gates. Our kitchen has double doors to the back garden and the playroom is off it. I'll baby gate the playroom. Should I also gate off the door to the rest of the house? I don't want to overwhelm her.

I really can't see me leaving her alone in the kitchen overnight to start with. So should I sleep on the sofa in the kitchen with her in her crate? Or take the crate upstairs?

Just sleep on the sofa downstairs until she/he sleeping reliably downstairs on their own , but whatever suits you .

Linking at the bottom of this post to the long post I did a while back to similar question. Our pup is now 2 and a half! So I would add as pupdates....

Lead walking remains an on going challenge! He's better walking to heel off lead than on.

Something I simply did not anticipate is how much motorbike/ boy racer spluttering exhausts would terrify him. For some reason, over the last year they have suddenly proliferated and they totally spook him (and I now hate them with a passion, too). He's not a big fan of fireworks but he gets over them more quickly then the booming, banging exhausts. So try to build up the exposure to any and all kinds of noises your dog might get exposed to.

We did get a Tuffies bed - it's brilliant. Wish I'd got him it much earlier.

I'm so, so glad we kept his crate - it's his den and he still loves to sleep there at night and mooch off when he's had enough of fuss, we only ever pop him in (maybe once a month if that) and close the door if someone visits that's really uncomfortable around dogs but for taking him to the vets, taking him in friend's car that has a dog box, dog walker van with crates it's been really helpful.

Though our pup was cute as hell, I love him even more as a dog. ♥️

Wishing you a lovely start to your pup journey.

Link to previous suggestions https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/the_doghouse/4336840-Newboy-arriving-Saturday-some-questions

Expect it to be three times as hard as you imagine.

desensitise to sounds using an app and desensitise to all sorts of different people in the socialisation period

crate train

teach a solid drop and swap and never take anything off the dog, to avoid resource guarding

best thing you can teach the dog is to settle! Look up the relaxation protocol and start it early on

do preliminary exercises to departure training early on to prevent separation anxiety - get a book like “be right back”

join Facebook groups for positive training and enrichment!

We have a seven month old miniature poodle. It’s actually been easier than we thought it would be. Poodles are very intelligent and catch on really quickly. I strongly recommend crate training, our puppy loves her crate and it’s helped enormously with toilet training. We also have a canvass crate for travelling. Our breeder showed us how to clip our poodle, and we’re saving £££££ on dog grooming costs. It’s pretty straightforward and we’ve handled her and groomed her from day one. We also clean her teeth every day. Poodles are a joy to have around, you’ll love having one. 🐾

Have you checked the parents' health test results? They should have had hips and eyes done as a minimum.

OP is getting pup from an assured breeder I'm pretty sure she has asked the relevant questions .

Personally I would have a safe space to put the puppy in as many rooms as possible. So that you can very quickly separate puppy and children.
For example if your 3 year old falls and hurts themselves you can crate the puppy etc whose you look after DCs.
I would also start drilling it into the children that they never ever approach the puppy whilst they are in their bed.
Make it routine they don't wander around with food/ drink either. They sit at the table until they are done.
Stair gates are a great option for separating off spaces. For a standard poodle I would go for the extra tall gates. It would also prevent children from learning how to open the gates (or climb them) too quickly.

Poodles are amazing dogs, I've had them all my life. One thing I did learn when raising my last puppy is never let them get higher than your head. Sounds weird, but mine used to sleep behind my head on the back of the sofa when I was watching TV. Bad move. It's an ultra dominant move for a dog and you'll never be able to get it out of them. I couldn't, anyway. I had many battles with him about it over his fourteen year life. But I still miss the little bugger every single day...

This is both helpful and terrifying!

We had a serious chat last night about can we actually do this. But I really think we can. And with me giving up work and puppy being born in the summer so hopefully easier for house training... if not now then I can't see when.

I've just bought the Steve Mann book and will start reading when it gets here. We are so keen to make this work.

Hopefully somethings we already do will help. Kids don't wander round with food at all. All shoes are in the porch so inaccessible by puppy.

I always sleep downstairs near the crate until they're sleeping through without needing the loo.

I wear an old sweatshirt for a few days before puppy arrives then put that in the crate (follow online advice on how to crate train properly, don't just put her in and expect her to love it)

Do lots of batch cooking before they arrive so you have meals in the freezer.

Expect to regret getting the puppy and feeling really overwhelmed for at least a few weeks (or a few months with my current one, who was very bitey and wild to start with)

There are apparently some good books and Facebook pages for puppy advice.

By the way I don't make a habit of buying puppies, I just foster them so I've been through it several times in a short time period!

There is a really good FB group called Dog Training Advice and Support. It has lots of guides which are really worth reading (they’ve also published them as a book on Amazon https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dog-Training-Behaviour-Solutions-stress-free/dp/B09ZCL5PN9/ref=asc_df_B09ZCL5PN9/?tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=570480429095&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=2799335490640666221&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=m&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9041094&hvtargid=pla-1721657352677&psc=1&th=1&psc=1 and it’s well worth it.

I followed their toilet training and crate training advice and it worked brilliantly.

I agree with PP that you should expect to find it incredibly overwhelming - puppies are hard work

They bite, they jump, they scratch, they cry, they whine and they pee and poo all over your floors

My personal opinion is that your youngest is really a bit too young - just because you will struggle to toilet train a puppy with a toddler in the house, and getting up in the night when the puppy cries or needs a wee or is missing mum will be really difficult with two young children.

Just make sure you know… no matter how much your DH says he’ll help, the kids say they’ll help, grandparents say they’ll help, friends say they’ll help… it’ll be you. If you’re the one at home, this puppy will be your life for at least a year.

Your DH will I assume be out at work and kids at school or nursery. Or maybe you’ll have the youngest at home with you too… yikes! You will be the one training puppy, walking puppy, taking it out for a wee every hour, watching it all the time when it’s not asleep to make sure it’s not going to destroy something, eat something, wee on something, bite someone…

As long as you’re prepared and up for it, great. But it will be you!

Seems we took a totally different approach to others. We never did the getting up at night with her but left puppy pads down. From night one she was left downstairs at night. About 5 mins of whining and that was it. She was toilet trained inanity 3 weeks. BUT we have another dog who was also downstairs with her at night (although they were separated by a baby gate).

I didn't find thing hard at all compared to the stories people have told. Perhaps lucky as this is the third puppy of the same breed that my husband has had. He's a massive Weimaraner lover 😁.

I could be without her. She's just the most cuddly pain in the butt ever! Good luck OP you will love it!

I'm honestly so grateful for all the thoughts!

I'm happy to admit that in an ideal world I'd wait til DD is at school. But I suspect I will be working part time once that happens (DH WFH so there will always be someone here). I suspect now is the only time I will be at home with no job at all so figure if the puppy stage is the hardest best I do that while I'm at home completely.

DS is starting school (5 min walk down the road so hopefully a great first walk for puppy) and DD will start 15 hrs of nursery but not til jaunary 24