Tell me your honest experience with puppies

[cadburyegg]

We are hoping to get a puppy (specifically golden retriever) later this year. I have done a lot of breed research already and am aware of what to look out for regarding health etc.

I have 2 dc so I'm no stranger to waking up in the night and potty training but I imagine a puppy is slightly different 😂 but I'd like to know honestly what to expect, I have read a lot about them chewing everything, how long did your puppy take to potty train and sleep a reasonable stretch at night or is it a case of getting up every 2 hours for months on end?! What else did people struggle with, did you ever have regrets, presumably it's worth it in the end.

Tell me your honest stories, I want to go in with my eyes wide open. I am doing other research obvs 😊

Some good advice on this thread! My Goldie is nearly 2 now and the best dog ever. But at the start, it was so hard. The constant supervising got me. I hated her, hated everything, regretted it so much.
It's sometimes very difficult to ignore the bad, reward the good and it's relentless but they do get there.
I did so much faking it til you make it but the hard work and effort does pay off.
I never had a teenage stage. She was great by 6 months and has stayed that way!

AwkwardPup was a terrible sleeper - we tried a crate next to our bed (refused to settle, whined & scrambled at the door until we gave up trying to sleep), having him in bed with us (impossible, bitey monster), in the end DH & I took it in turns to sleep on the floor downstairs with him for 6 weeks (!).

He was genuinely worse than DS as a newborn (who would at least sleep when being held, rather than bite us ). Plus puppies are mobile & into everything.

He's 3 now, & it's a distant memory, except when we see a spaniel puppy & get puppy broody, as we remind each other how bloody awful it was.

Puppies smell gorgeous though, & when they conk out asleep they are adorable, but they are hard work!

I found it pretty relentless and our puppy was a dream, slept well in her pen, arrived fully toilet trained, cuddly and beautiful. We have a golden retriever/ lab cross. She is coming up to three now and is a dream but she was exhausting as a puppy.

The hardest thing was the biting phase as a puppy with her razor sharp sharks teeth attacking your feet. She was also very full on either all go, high energy or fast asleep. It was almost impossible to play chilled games with her because she'd rev up immediately.

Top tips from me would be

• lots of nap times. They need lots and lots of sleep and OTT behaviour is partly down to being overtired/ overstimulated.
• lots of short bursts of training or fun games through the day for mental stimulation and bonding. I wished I'd researched these more.
• get some licky mats, kongs, old boxes stuffed with card and paper and some kibble to keep them busy.
• practice leaving for short periods from early on. Radio on, licky mat, goodbye, go.
• teach 'sit' and use for everything. It is more effective than saying down, off, no and works the same. She's trying to get in the bin, sit, now not getting in the bin. Remember to reward.
• use kibble from her daily allowance for training treats. You might even use all of it like that!
• scatter kibble in the garden for calming and stimulating sniffing around game.
• get yourself some crocs or similar for quickly slipping on and off when toilet training.
• don't get puppy pads. Newspaper in crate/ pen for nighttime emergencies.

I am quite jealous but it is incredibly exhausting. Good luck!

I would say you need to allow for 18 months of your life to be pretty different and the first four under the equivalent of house arrest and with some day release.

schedules are helpful but puppies often have other ideas. But try to be fairly predictable so your puppy feels secure.

be really firm with children about not waking your puppy. They should sleep up to 20 hours a day. And warn them they will bite and bite and bite when mouthing. They’re not toys. Small children cry and sulk when confronted with the reality of a puppy.

Don’t panic if you get a puppy that’s not interested in food, it’s a bit trickier to train but not impossible.

Puppies pull on the lead and it makes walks harder while they’re learning not to. Walks are essential for fewer zoomies, better sleep, better eating, socialisation.

Have 2 of you working together for the first fortnight your puppy is home. It’s like having a newborn without a nappy on, who can move very fast and likes to get under things.

house training is generally one of the easier things if you’re watching like a hawk (again, 2 of you is preferable). Any floor sniffing or circling hustle them out of the door.

get a puppy at the start of the summer. Standing outside waiting for them to pee is a lot more fun when it’s mild.

Having had 10 dogs from puppies my top tip would be to leave the puppy with the litter/mother until they are 11/12 weeks if at all possible, the difference in behaviour from an 8 week old is amazing. Toilet training is relatively easy but always go outside with them - don't just let them out - and praise every wee and poo as if they'd won an Oscar! Don't be afraid to scold bad behaviour (the mother will tell them in no uncertain terms) but only the instant it happens - 30 seconds later they won't have a clue what's wrong.

Having a puppy is hard work, relentless, tiring, and reduced me to tears on many occasions. It’s like having a baby mixed with a toddler mixed with the Duracell bunny on speed. They need constant supervision, and your life will revolve around them. You imagine nice country walks, but puppies can’t walk far for several months, so you feel housebound for a while and suffer from cabin fever. Also, all the jobs that you do around the house take twice as long, because you’re keeping an eye on the puppy.

Dig I regret getting a dog? Yes, at times I did. However, he’s here to stay and he is adorable.

Come and join the puppy Survival thread.

Oh, and they cost more than expected.

food

treats

insurance

worming tablets (I have monthly vet plan)

toys

training classes

equipment (collar, leads, dog bowl, treat bags etc)

new clothes - either because puppy has bitten a hole in it, or because you now need ‘dog walking coat and ‘dog walking shoes’

(new car - for dog to travel in)

Latest puppy came home at eight weeks. For the first week he slept 10-2 in the night, when I woke him up and took him out for a wee and whatever. Getting up at 6.00 for the day. Be boring at night, just praise then back to bed. Then I pushed it back to 2.15 for three nights, then by 15 minutes every three nights until he could go right through. We never had an overnight accident.

I'm 2 weeks in - and boy is it hard!
Admittedly, my first dog but not my husbands.
I have lost half a stone in those 2 weeks due to the stress and anxiety of it all, and have considered giving him back several times, we won't of course but it's the roller coaster of emotions that you may go through. Our pup - a border terrier - is a feisty, wilful little gremlin at times. Other times you can see the good boy he will become, but those moments are rare still.
I'm already feeling the tie, I can't just pop out to get that elusive ingredient for dinner etc. heck I can barely shower! My ankles look like I've been pulled apart by a bear.
I'm feeling overwhelmed at times but it is getting better than the first few days he was here, I still have massive regret moments though.
The positives at the moment are that he's reliably sleeping all night, and he is a fast learner. Mostly toileting outside, we've had one poo accident inside in 10 days now, he wees maybe once a day inside, which is our fault for not spotting his cues in time.
My daughter is suffering, but her expectations were so far off what the reality is, but I know in time they will be the best of friends. We start puppy classes in 2 weeks too, which hopefully will help.

I'd read and read about how hard puppies are, but nothing really prepares you for the reality of it.
And I can hand on heart say now, never again!

Keep repeating the mantra 'it won't be like this forever' when you're in the midst of your umpteenth night of broken sleep.
Teach your pup switch off techniques, for your sanity as much as theirs. It can actually be quite a hard skill for them to learn but crucial for everyone
Training isn't a six week or even six month thing. We are still training on every walk (he's 12 months) and expect to be training for many more years to come.
I'll never forget what our trainer told us when pup was five months old and I was ready to pull my hair out.
He told me that if we consistently did what we were doing at that time, when Ddog was two we'd have a fantastic dog.
I was shocked by this thinking 'two years??!?'

But he's right. We're only now starting to see the dog I dreamed of owning.
It's a bloody long hard slog but you will reap the rewards!

To each their own but given the choice I wouldn’t have a puppy in the house until the youngest of my dc were eight and nine years old and had the impulse control and ability to understand a puppy’s pov and that the animals we are responsible for come first on many occasions.

I have been very lucky to have easy puppies every time. My current dog is 2. He slept through the night from the beginning. He was a breeze to house train. He wasn't particularly bitey. As a young puppy he sometimes chewed paper and occasionally socks or shoes, but he never destroyed anything important. (I've heard horror stories of puppies chewing phones, remote controls, carpet, skirting boards!) He is quite typical of the puppies I've had over the years. I hasten to say none of this can be attributed to any particular dog training brilliance on my part. Some puppies are just easier than others and so much is down to the luck of the draw.

I've always found the teen phase more trying than early puppyhood. But even the teen stage doesn't last long, thank God.

My top tips:

Work on lead training from the beginning. With my current dog, it was obvious he was going to be quite strong and I was determined he would walk well on the lead without pulling. We started training from the time he was home, first inside and without a lead (just rewarding him for walking by my side), then progressing to outside and with a lead. I'm so glad I put in the effort to reinforce this habit from early on.

Ignore the nonsensical 5 minutes per month of age "rule" when it comes to exercise. Obviously, a young puppy shouldn't run for miles, but my dogs would have been frustrated and miserable if they'd been limited to 20 minutes of exercise daily at 4 months of age, etc.

Teach your puppy to be calm. I don't like crates and don't use them on a regular basis (though my dogs have always been fine in a crate if necessary). But I think it's so important for dogs to learn to have an off switch, so a calm settle is something to encourage.

I think my best advice is to hope for the best but prepare for the worst. And remember the mantra: this too shall pass.

I'm shattered at 6 weeks with Boo who is now 20 weeks old. I think I have a difficult puppy. He seems relentlessly on the go. He has chewed everything including skirting boards, door, wall and carpet. He was so bitey I though I'd accidently adopted a fighting dog. He won't be left on his own. I haven't got his sleeping arrangements sorted and I'm not sure how he will ever co-exist with the cat.

However. He is also super loving, house trained and aced his first night at puppy school. He's friendly with dogs and people (and weirdly the small horses that live down the road). The rest will come eventually I'm sure. I recommend the puppy thread which has saved me several times from just jacking it all in.

I thought about giving him back at one (or more) point, but then reasoned that I kept my son and he's still a freaking nightmare in his twenties 😂

To focus on the downsides for you - We have a 3 yr old goldie. When he was a pup It was like having a toddler who had weapons.

Honestly didn’t think we’d make it through the first six months and at the time regretted it so much. Around 5 months old things started to improve. It was far harder than having children but also passed faster.

As an adult they are lovely, we keep getting told it’s between 3 and 4 years old that they finally calm down a bit so we’re getting close to that now but they do still tie you down a lot.

Also just to add sleep wasn’t an issue for us, he came to us sleeping through from 10pm-6am so we never ever had to deal with disturbed nights which is so fortunate but it was still the hardest thing I’ve ever done.

I'm so glad we're past the early days.

But don't be fooled. Puppyhood lasts a lot longer than you think.
But you will get there. The more you put in the more you get out.

I had a 'YES!' Moment yesterday.
I always used to see other dog walkers with their impeccably behaved dog and say to mine 'now that's how nice dogs walk'
Lo and behold we passed a younger pup on our walk and I heard the owner saying the exact same thing about my dog.
To say I was overwhelmed by pride is an understatement.
Just so glad she didn't see me five minutes down the track wrestling with my dog trying to chew his lead and flee.
We take the small triumphs these days 😂

Crate training is brilliant and will aid house training and keep them safe when you can’t supervise them, We’ve used it very successfully for our last three dogs. I’ve had a golden they are wonderful dogs. Make house training your life’s work to start with. The more you put into it the quicker your puppy will be trained. For the first week I set my alarm for 2am and took my pup outside for the toilet. A golden grows very quickly and I was able to leave her overnight from 12 weeks.

Thus makes me laugh. Reading all the issues of having a puppy. Wee and poo on floor, chewing, etc. The reason for this is that relatively few people have the lifestyle or property to own a dog. They need space and importantly lots of space to be able to be outside a lot (where they belong). What many expect is a dog to exist in small space inside and be regularly left inside while owner goes out. No wonder they chew and get anxious as it isn’t their natural environment.
OP do the dog a favour and do not get one unless you have a large property/smallholding

We've had the opposite experience to a lot of people! Our puppy is just coming up to a year now. He slept through the night after three nights and toilet trained after a few weeks (it took one day to teach him to ring a bell to go outside when he was about 18 weeks old). He used to sleep in a crate downstairs and would wake up around 6am for a wee, but then we learned that if he sleeps in our room he'll sleep until we choose to get up so we do that instead.

He had short bursts of activity but would sleep most if the day until a few weeks ago.

The mouthing/biting was really hard. I expected it but it still wore me down and the kids were scared of him for much longer than I expected. We had a trainer who advised to keep a basket of toys where they could reach them and to pick one before coming in to see the dog and then give it to him to distract him from attacking their feet. That worked quite well.

He's 11 months now and no longer spends all his time asleep between walks. He wants to play! He will head butt us and bring us toys and then woof if we don't play with him. He rings the bell to go outside just to get someone to come with him and then bounces around the garden. There is no amount of attention that is enough for him and I do have other things to do, so rely on chews and toys to give him something to do. He's brilliant fun to do training with - at the moment we're working on teaching him to recognise his toys by name.

The max we've left him alone for is 3 hours and I do find it a bit waring to have to plan everything around him. We have found two reliable people we can pay to look after him or walk him and one friend who we swap dog care with. I highly recommend investing time in establishing this sort of network but it can get expensive. Especially overnight care if you want to go away.

He's been such fun and everyone adores him. The biggest loser is my youngest who quite liked being the baby of the family until he came along 😅

When we had our dog we mastered sleeping through the night, toilet training and biting- then he hit his teens and he destroyed the house!! Even ate through the back of the sofa when we went out for an hour one Sunday. God I miss that dog 😂

Our GR puppy was a nightmare.
He mouthed and nipped all the time. Looked cuddly but if you picked him up for a cuddle you soon regretted it! He ate rubbish at every opportunity and had copious diarrhoea bouts overnight. He was needy. Not our first dog or puppy but we nearly divorced over him.

We are still in touch with some of the people who adopted his siblings, all experienced dog owners, and they had similar experiences.

Three years on and he's a wonderful loving companion who we wouldn't be without!

Put the time into training , lead walking, drop, recall, off lead, and it’ll all pay off. I’d have given ours back like a shot any time in the first 5 weeks. I was exhausted.

shes 4 now and a lovely dog.

also ours has only ever been left with family, so if we go away she goes to family…that’s a bit tying.

work out if you want to get them used to kennels…

After only having rescue dogs we got our first puppy a couple of years ago a lovely Staffordshire bull terrier I was nervous about getting a puppy after reading they can be a nightmare

well he was a absolute darling

got him at 8 weeks old by 9.5 weeks old he had learnt to ring a bell for getting outside for toilet so never had a accident inside house since 10 weeks old .

he was in a cage at night to start but from 5 months he was no longer using cage he would happily sleep on the sofa at night or when left alone

he has never damaged anything in the house ever , he was the easiest dog over ever had and a lot easier than a lot of rescues I’ve had over the years

I was stressing over nothing I couldn’t have asked for an easier pup .

I found having a puppy a bit of a nightmare to be honest. There were tears! I did not expect it to have such a massive impact on our lives. The supervision, always looking down. My neck hurt after a while just constantly keeping an eye on her! I was also exhausted because I was not used to getting up in the night and I did not realise she would want 3 wees per night, and to be then get up properly at 5.30.

Then there was the stress over her 1st season and then getting her spayed. Both ended up being complicated and quite protracted episodes with multiple vet visits so I am more than glad to see the back of all that.

My top tips are:

• Training, training, training - so worth it
• Socialise them loads
• Book some time off work (first couple of weeks if you can)
• Keep remembering that it gets better

Only thing we still struggle with is how much of a tie it is having a dog. It was obviously going to be the case, but it still hits you when you realise you can't even book a night away with sorting something out, and we have no family near by to help. Luckily we found a really nice home boarder, worth her weight in gold and treats our dog like family.

Puppies are very different from each other. We'd house-trained previous puppies with no difficulty at all.

Then we got another one, who was a bloody nightmare in that regard. Walks beautifully on the lead, though...