What's best for new puppy dog walker, or doggy day care?

[Star29]

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Hi everyone,

I'm new here but have been an avid reader.

Finally created an account because I'm in need of your advice!

I'm going to be a proud mum of a new puppy in a couple of months - but there are a couple of days each week where me and my partner are both at work all day (he works from home the rest of the time).

I need to decide what's best for pup on these two days:

1) Hire a dog walker to visit my home twice per day while we're both out (pup would also get walked in the morning before we leave)

2) Drop the puppy off at a pet sitter's home, where he will have company all day long (including the company of up to two other dogs)

At first glance, Option 2 seems better - but I'm worried if this could potentially confuse the puppy? Will he know where his "real" home is? Could he pick up bad habits from the other dogs, or the sitter?

With Option 1, the dog has less company, but gets to stay in a familiar and safe environment. There seems to be less risk involved in terms of bad habits - but obviously this option requires that the puppy can cope with being alone for several hours, broken up with visits in between.

Also, if we were to go with Option 1, we would have to litter train the pup, so he wouldn't be expected to hold it for too long.

What do you guys think?

 

[goldenbear2013]

Hi there!

My first question is are you able to get a couple of weeks off work between your and your partner for when you first take him home?

When i had Bear my partner had 2 weeks off then i had 2 weeks off straight after him. This gave Bear our full attention and allowed us to practice leaving him on his own a little bit at a time.

This will also give you time to bond with your puppy and he will know that you and your partner are his owners. It will help with separation anxiety too by leaving him on his own a little longer each time. Even if it is just shutting the door and leaving him in the other room for 10 minutes it all helps.

If you cannot get time off work then personally (i am no expert) i would take him to a doggy day care. He will be too young to leave on his own for hours at a time and this may cause you issues later on down the line e.g: destructive behavior and again separation anxiety

My other piece of advice which has personally worked wonders for me is crate training your puppy.

Dogs dont poop or pee where they sleep and it give him a 'safe place' to be when he is left on his own. It toilet trains him quicker and you obviously wont get the destructive behavior when he is on his own as he will be in his bed and not able to roam around your home.

We crate trained Bear from day one and i have said it a couple of times on here that it the best thing we did with him!

I hope that helps you a little and good luck when you get your little man or girl!

Sophie x

 

[Star29]

Hi Sophie,

Thanks for getting back to me. I think I'm inclined to agree with you that the day care is the better solution - I'd definitely have more peace of mind knowing he's not lonely at home.

I'm going to take a couple of weeks off we we get him, and will be dedicating the bulk of training in that time to short separation periods, as you've suggested.

Even if we use doggy day care, there will always be times when he needs to be alone - if we want to pop to the supermarket for instance! So I definitely want to put in the effort early to help him feel OK with this.

I've toyed with the crate idea, and in the end I've decided on a combination of crate and playpen training.

My current plan (although this is changing all the time depending on what latest article I've read!) is to crate him at night, and then set my alarm at regular intervals to take him out to pee, increasing those intervals by 15 mins every couple of nights.

During the day, we'll put his crate in his playpen with the door to both open - this will be his own little area where he can go to sleep, and we'll also feed him in there to help build a positive association. We'll pop him in the playpen for short periods each day while we're home, to start getting him used to his own company.

The idea of this is that if we do need to leave him, we'd rather pop him in the playpen, rather than crate him, so he has a bit more space, as well as access to a pee pad.

What do you think?

I feel like I could be over-thinking everything a bit. I've grown up with dogs all my life, but this will be my first dog all by myself. So excited but don't want to make any mistakes.

 

[chelynnah]

Can you do a combination - maybe dogsitter 1 day a week and dogwalker the other? That would be the best of both worlds. He gets used to having to spend some time alone (which all dogs are going to have to no matter what our best intentions ) but also has the positive social aspect of the dogsitter as well.

He will definitely know where his real home is. Dogs are great at figuring out accepted rules in different situations provided they are clearly given. For example when my girls (who had always slept in our bed) went to our friend's to stay, they had dog beds in the kitchen. One night with a bit of whinging, and from then on any time they went there, they knew they stayed in the kitchen. In fact, one would plant herself in her kitchen bed and not move (much to the dismay of my friend who wanted to sofa cuddle with her LOL).

Even at home, when my in-laws come and stay the dogs stay downstairs overnight. My MIL stayed downstairs on the sofa for a couple of nights so they were ok with that idea, then after that they were fine. So even in their own environment, they quickly learn the circumstances when things are different.

And to show how they can generalise to people as well as places, when we added the two pups and the inlaws dog-sat the pups were in the crate togther overnight while the others were loose. So a few months later we went up to my in-laws for a weekend. We put the crate up so anyone who wanted a 'safe place' to get away from everything could (we have 5 dogs). When we got up to go to bed and said 'bedtime' expecting all 5 dogs to run up the stairs to our room, the pups instead put themselves in the crate - they associated my in-laws with overnight in the crate.

Best of luck with it all. It's great that you're looking at options so far ahead and have a plan.

___

Now that I've written all of the above I've read more closely your second response. The crate/playpen idea is great in theory, but my pups were climbing out of the pen at about 9-10 weeks at the latest. I had one who was flying over the side at 7 weeks. I have whippets, which are still quite little at that age. So I guess a lot would depend on size/type of puppy as to whether that would work. It would definitely work for while you're there, and giving the pup a wonderful safe play zone, but I'd still recommend the crate for when you're out.

Wendy

 

[goldenbear2013]

Hi Star29,

I agree with Wendy (btw she is great at giving advice ) playpens are good when you need to do housework etc so you know they wont get into any mischief whilst your doing chores etc but they grow so quick you will be putting it to one side before you know it!

I have a Labrador and i used my play pen 3 times! It's now on ebay come to think of it as i dont need it anymore!

Crate training is brilliant for dogs.

What i did with Bear was have the crate in our bedroom with us for the first 2 weeks, that way the puppy knows you are there but also knows it's bedtime.

Leave a light on on the landing or a lamp in the bedroom if you don't mind it so your puppy wont get too uneasy with it being dark and not being able to see you properly.

Each time he winges just give a little 'it's ok' in a soft tone but if he starts to cry properly then you will know he needs the toilet.

Put some sheets of paper down in the crate so he has a place to go if he does have an accident- trust me this will happen!

When he needs to go out no fussing just scoop him up pop him outside and stay with him whilst he goes to the toilet. When he is done give a little treat if you like or just a big fuss with lots of good boy's so he knows he has done a good job Scoop him back up and promptly put him back in his crate and he should go back to sleep after he has finished winging for about 10 minutes.

You will be tired beyond belief and if you have children you will know what its like!

Slowly but surely by the time the 2 weeks is up you will have a puppy that will sleep at least 5 hours straight before needing to go out again!

After 2 weeks put the crate on the landing or spare room (wherever you have space) and keep your bedroom door open so you can hear him and he you.

Another 2 weeks and then downstairs and by that point you will have a puppy that sleeps through the night completely.

I must stress i am no expert but this is exactly what we did with Bear and he took to it like a duck to water!

We had him toilet trained within a month!

I would continue to ramble on but i think this is enough to read!

may i ask what puppy you are getting?

Sophie x

 

[Star29]

Thanks Wendy and Sophie for your helpful responses, it's putting my mind at rest - I don't have kids, so can't imagine what planning for one of those must be like!

The playpen I have has a roof luckily - it's one of those pop up ones that are made of a tent-like material, with mesh sides. It has a zip on/zip off roof for when I'm out. We'll see how it goes, I know it's unlikely to last long but the reviews on amazon were pretty good, and I struggled to find a decent metal pen with a roof anywhere else.

I'm planning to set up a web cam for when I do have to go out, so I can monitor his responses and see what he gets up to - the wonders of technology!

I like the idea of alternating the dog sitter with the visiting dog walker. I think I'll go for this option but do it gradually - so the first couple of weeks, use just the dog sitter, and then start to incorporate the dog walker once I've got a better idea of how he's going to react to being alone.

The other complication is that when he's with the dog sitter, he won't be able to go out for walks with her and her dog, because he won't have been vaccinated (plus I want to make sure I'm in control for his first couple of weeks of walking outside on a lead to make sure the experiences are all positive!) - so he will be left on his own even there, but only for an hour or so.

In the first couple of weeks, we're going to visit the dog sitter several times, and leave him with her for short periods - like 20 minutes or so, so he can get used to her. Same thing with the walker - we'll need to get her to come round and visit a few times.

I so wish I didn't have to work! Love the idea of being a full-time dog mum

 

[chelynnah]

It really does sound like you've truly thought all this out. I like your plan, and I have to say you are exactly the type of person I look for when I have pups available. Good luck with everything and keep us posted. We want pics when the little one comes home.