Show Me Your Puppy Schedules

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I understand routine is very important for puppies, so I'd be interested to see what your days look like. I'm struggling to get Boo onto a routine. His meals are fixed at around the same time but beyond that everything seems random, eg naps, bedtimes etc. Also trying to juggle all the 'don't go for a walk x minutes before/after a meal'

How old is your puppy? How long have you had him? My current dog is now two years old, but I'd be happy to share the schedule he had as a puppy though it changed with his age and development.

He’s 4 months old and we’ve had him for a month

Puppies don’t need routines or schedules..! I’ve honestly never ever heard of anyone trying to do this, and I don’t want to guess at how many people I know who have had puppies - over 50 at a guess?

Mealtimes and wee times yes, but I have never heard of anyone trying to get a dog onto a nap schedule?! Even the most insane ‘fur baby’ types don’t try and do that

Make sure it has an age appropriate amount of exercise (I used the 10-mins-for-every-month-they-are-old rule of thumb for all of mine, usually split across 2 walks) but mixed up the times to suit our plans, the weather etc

Having a dog that expects to be walked at a fixed time regardless of what else is going on sounds like an absolute nightmare and not something to encourage

Dogs sleep when they want to, and you cannot make a dog sleep at a certain time

For bedtime, just a simple have a wee-go to your bed is all you need. If you’re using a crate, encourage your dog to go in by itself, cover the crate, lights off, go to bed

My beagle is nearly six now, but at four months old his day went something like this:

6 - up and out to the toilet, then a quick play
6.30 - breakfast, then back out to the toilet
7 - cuddles/naps on the sofa
8.30 - walk and then socialisation - something like a coffee or going to a cafe
10 - back home, toilet, nap
12 - toilet, lunch, toilet
12.30 - playtime/training
1.30 - nap
4 - DH would come home, more play
4-30 - walk
5 - tea, toilet
5.30 - puppy zoomies. We'd try and give him a chew or do some training to distract him, then back out to the toilet.
6.30 - nap on the sofa with us/cuddles.
10 - toilet, bedtime biscuits, up to bed.

Then he'd be up around 2-3am for the toilet, maybe once more around 5am if we were unlucky. We'd take him straight out, praise, then back to bed.

Mealtimes and wee times yes, but I have never heard of anyone trying to get a dog onto a nap schedule?! Even the most insane ‘fur baby’ types don’t try and do that

Our puppy was always on a nap schedule and it was encouraged by every single trainer I spoke to.

Thank you. That was how I went into it, but so many people seem to have schedules. He gets ultra overtired, which leads to biting and snapping, and I wasn’t sure whether he wasn’t getting enough routine. I’m still at the stage of trying to find everything out, and I think I’ve now just gathered too much info and am overthinking

I’ve just messaged my dog trainer friend who specialises in fun dog breeds and also does remedial behaviourist work for a well-known rescue about her thoughts on a nap schedule for a puppy

She has basically said wtf, puppies don’t need a nap schedule. They need a day that includes enough time for them to rest, and get age-appropriate amounts of exercise but good luck trying to get a puppy to sleep at a specific time
At best, all you can do is train it to rest/sleep when it’s put in its bed but there is no logical reason that needs to happen at fixed times throughout the day.

Four months is a lovely age. Not without its challenges, of course! At that age my puppy woke up at about 7:00. He was completely housetrained by this point. I would take him out into the garden for a wee. Then he'd have breakfast and I would do 5-10 minutes of training. He usually had a nap after that. Whenever he woke up I would take him for a short walk (this particular dog has always refused to poo in the garden so walking has always been essential). Then we would play for a bit and have another very short session of training. He would usually sleep after that. DH and I both work full time, though we are lucky to have flexible schedules and at least one of us is home most of the time. But we did start to leave the puppy on his own for short periods of time starting at about 5 months. His "lunch" was usually given in some sort of puzzle or other enrichment type of arrangement. He slept a lot throughout the day but I didn't really schedule naps.

In the late afternoon DH or I would take him out again for some activity, either a walk or a trip to the park or a visit to a friend's or something like that. I have never adhered to the 5 minutes per month of age thing for exercise, there is no scientific evidence for it at all. Of course a young puppy shouldn't be walking for miles, but we definitely exceeded 20 minutes of daily exercise when he was 4 months old.

He had dinner at about 7:00 p.m. The hardest time of day when he was that age was the evening, the dreaded witching hour. That was when he could sometimes be hyped up, probably due to tiredness that he couldn't really recognise. We worked on teaching him to settle and that has really paid off over time. He's an energetic herding breed who loves running about like a loon and swimming in the summer, but he can definitely switch off now and is completely calm at home and that has been the case since he was probably 7 or 8 months old.

DH has always taken him out for a short slow walk at about 11:00 p.m. Then he'd go to bed and we wouldn't hear a peep out of him all night. He never slept in a crate, though at that age he slept in a puppy-proofed room. In general, he was quite an easy puppy and he has grown into a wonderful dog. I would love to have another puppy now but DH is quite adamant that one dog is enough!

At best, all you can do is train it to rest/sleep when it’s put in its bed but there is no logical reason that needs to happen at fixed times throughout the day.

Well, it massively helped us 🤷‍♀️

Of course it doesn't need to be at exactly the same times every single day, but puppies need a lot of sleep and having a rough schedule to stick to meant we knew we could keep track of his sleep and link it to his behaviour.

Over-tired puppies are a nightmare!