Help for first time puppy owner

[Cassie Keel]

Hi!

So happy a friend directed me to this website! This is my first post, so hope it goes ok...

We brought our pup Canyon home on Saturday. He is 7 weeks old. This is our first puppy, and we love him! The first night was pretty rough, but he has not cried the last 2 nights. We're still taking him out to potty after 4 hours of sleep. Thinking about uping it to 5 next week. Is that a good idea?

Potting has been ok. He has averaged 1 accident/day since we got him. Any helpful hints on making this process a smooth and successful one?

Canyon loves to explore the house like any puppy! We're constantly following him and monitoring him (which we anticipated), but we can't watch him every second and keep him contained. I feel like we may have too much house for a 7 week old. Should we be letting him explore everywhere or keep him in a confined space? We have a puppy play pin we've been putting him in at times.

This puppy chews! We have a variety of toys he likes to chew in but they don't seem to occupy him for long enough. Have you found any specific toys you love, or a specific toy at a specific stage?

Any helpful hints/tips/suggestions to make our transition a smooth one is appreciated!

[Cheryl and Finnegan]

Welcome to DK, Cassie and Canyon!  Canyon is adorable.  You'll find lots of good info here.  You can use the search bar to search for topics like "chewing."  At just 7 weeks, your guy is pretty young. Breeders really shouldn't release pups until they are 8 weeks old because it's an important time for mom and siblings to teach manners, but it sounds like he's getting on well. I'd definitely keep him confined in a space where he is safe and secure when you're not watching him.  A whole house is too much for a pup that young.  He could easily get himself in trouble. I found a Kong stuffed with peanut butter and frozen or even those hollow bones stuffed and frozen keep pups busy.  Finn also had one of those interactive balls  you can fill with kibble and it just drops one or two pieces at a time as he rolled it around.  Good luck and post more pics!

[Toni Clayton]

Hello! Love the name Canyon! He's a cutie!

I found that George preferred soft stuffed toys when he was 8-12 weeks old...and we have one of those fabric toys without the stuffing..about 9-10 weeks I also introduced bully sticks, which for some pups is too much at that age (gives them soft stools because they're very rich) but he did and still does fine with them. Now at 19 weeks he has a long stuffed toy and a squeaky chicken he loves..plus the balls with holes in them..puppies are like toddlers..their attention span isn't long and it's perfectly normal for them to move on to something else to play with. I agree to keeping him contained when you can't watch him closely..we crate train and also have an ex pen attached to his crate...it helps with house training also. The "rule" is that puppies can go 1 hour longer than their age for going potty. Stopping water at a certain time in the evening (for example, by 8pm) can help with the overnight going out.

You'll find that everyone has their own opinion on a lot of things...you just have to find what works best for your situation...definitely use the search bar like Cheryl suggested..good luck!

[Kelly & Zoe]

Canyon is adorable!  My $.02:

Toys - I would invest in a couple of puppy kongs for chewing.  Filled or no, they have a wonderful rubbery texture that dogs who are teething seem to love.  You can also pop one in the freezer (filled or no) and it's a nice cool treat.  filling with unsweetened applesauce for a pup that age may be better than peanut butter or cheese which may upset tummies (at least that was our experience).  I also liked non stuffing soft toys - Zoe still romps around with several of them :-). 

Taking out to potty every 4 hours at that age sounds about right (I think we may have done every 2-3 hours until week 10).  If you can up it to 5 without accidents, go for it!  Not sure of your potty training method, but 1 accident a day at this age is pretty good!  I would recommend just making sure to clean the accident spot with Natures Miracle or something else that completely masks/eliminates the smell as dogs tend to want to potty where they have previously.  Around 3 months Zoe slept through the night without having to be taken out and by month 4 was completely potty trained.  Sounds like you're on the right track.

Confinement - we invested in several (portable) doggy gates to pen Zoe in different parts of the house at different times and that worked pretty well.  So for example, when we were downstairs in the kitchen/living room, we'd put up a gate that confined her with us there. For every couple of weeks without an accident, we opened up/let her roam free in another section.  We have a large house, 2 story and it was indeed a bit much to let her roam free until she 'earned it'.  But we did let her explore the entire house (following her) often so that she was comfortable everywhere.  We didn't give her free reign of the house until she was about 10 months, but that was more for mischievousness (and us not having puppy-proofed *every* room in the house) rather than house training incidents.  

Good luck!  I found this web site to be an invaluable resource!

[Stefan]

I'm getting my doodle in 3 weeks and this helped so much.  Thanks!

[Kate, Mel, Tenley & Harper]

I think you can definitely up the hours at night to 5 next week. I would add an hour every week (but don't go above 8-9 hours). My breeder started crate training the pups at 6 weeks old, keeping them in individual crates at night. None of them ever had an accidents at that age when left for 6 hours. Tenley has never woken me up at night since he was 11 weeks old (and he's 8 months now).

As for potty training during the day, I took Tenley out religiously every 1.5 hours, 2 hours MAX, until he was 6 months old. He never had an accident in the house ever since we got him at 11 weeks so maybe that was a bit much (he was probably house trained much earlier than 6 months), but I kept it up. Now, at 8 months, we take him out every 3-3.5 hours and he is fine.

I would let him go where you go, but never out of site. You can try tethering him to you if he is wandering too far. I am a big fan of NOT restricting puppies when younger and teaching them how you want them to behave as an adult from a young age. For example, say you weren't going to allow him to go to the 2nd floor of your house until he was an adult. Some people would say to gate him downstairs. I would say get rid of the "adult" notion, and teach him how to behave on the second floor from the time he was a puppy. But that's just my personal training style, everyone feels differently :)

Tenley was a big chewer too. One of his favorite were the puppy strength nylabones. They are a lot more "jelly" than the adult ones, and he loved them. At that age he mostly liked stuffed chew toys, though, and kongs. Once he turned 7 months old he destroyed all the puppy toys and we got him adult dog toys :)

[Toni Clayton]

Funny you should say that about teaching him how to act now...I realized I need to take George in all the rooms and practice our training, so he can learn how to behave..you just validated me a little, thanks...

[Kate, Mel, Tenley & Harper]

Yup, all the rooms and all the locations you can think of! Once he reliably can execute his commands, increase the distractions. Take him outside. Take him to a park. (Increase the value of the reward in tandem with the level of distractions.) He'll learn to trust you more and to trust the noises/sounds/sensations around him more, which will all make for a more well adjusted adult dog!

I still stop Tenley about 10-15 times on a 40 minute walk to do some combination of sit/down/sit-stay/down-stay, "touch", etc. It really helps!

[Kelly & Zoe]

The only thing I would say about confinement is that in order to correct you need to see the behavior occurring, so that's why we opted for gating where we could observe and correct, which helped us to train how to 'act'.  At 1 yo Zoe has free reign of the house and the backyard so it worked pretty well for us.  

[Toni Clayton]

We do crate and have an ex pen..and it's truly been the best for us...I figured I would actually start with him leased in the upstairs...and we can practice our training in all the rooms..

[Kate, Mel, Tenley & Harper]

Yes, that is true. If you can't keep an eye on pup or if it is wandering too far, I would tether it to yourself so you can see it. But rather than relying on the leash as a means for keeping the pup near you, teach him that he is always rewarded for staying near you... in other words, think of the leash as a safety device more than a method of restraint. You should never have to pull or tug on the leash, encourage the pup to do what you want them to do without using the leash and reinforce the behavior when they do it properly. So if you remove the gate or remove the leash, the puppy should behave exactly as you taught them to behave because you didn't rely on the gate or leash as a crutch when teaching them.

All that being said, there are times when obviously you can't keep an eye on pup... in the shower, running an errand, etc.... for those times, I would get him used to the crate.

[Toni Clayton]

You know, I  have an extra leash that is lightweight...I think I can attach it to the one we always use and loop it around me..we've tethered once or twice, and he seems to really respond to it. Thanks!

[Michele Kiss]

Welcome :-)  Our pup is a miniature labradoodle, 18 weeks old. Here are our experiences:

1. He cried when put in his in his crate the first two nights, after that he wouldn't cry. (If he does, I found lying in front of the crate for ~2mins and having him hear me breathing - slow, deep, kinda like I'm sleeping - settled him. I didn't actually sleep or stay there long but just to settle him.) 

2. He slept through the night after about 3-5 days or so. When he slept through the night we did NOT wake him to go potty. If he needed to go, he would cry, and I'd wake up and take him. (So, if you're a SUPER deep sleeper that might not work.) At first he would sleep till around 5AM but now it's more like 6-6:30AM. I personally wouldn't wake them if they're not awake.... 

3. At first we did NOT let him roam the house. We actually still don't. We bought a puppy play pen, but he cried when put in it :-(  So, I would put him on a leash and tether him to my desk. (I work from home.) Now, he's not tethered to the desk, but we do still use baby gates and closed doors to keep him in a room / area we can supervise. I highly recommend that... 

4. For chewing, Fenway loves puppy Nylabones and these Boots & Barkley hide chews. They are the ONLY things that entertain him for long enough: http://www.target.com/p/boots-and-barkley-chicken-flavored-american...  (E.g. It can take him an hour to go through one...) - we get the chicken ones though. Apparently they are less likely to stain cream carpet. 

5. We also got him a variety of puzzle feeders which make a BIG difference. Really slow him down eating and make it more entertaining. 

Puzzle toy: http://smile.amazon.com/PetSafe-Buddy-Tug-A-Jug-Dispensing-Medium/d...

Food bowl: http://smile.amazon.com/Kyjen-2872-Slo-Bowl-Feeder-Interactive/dp/B...  

And we also feed him out of a kong. Basically he never gets a "bowl of food"