Owning a doodle

[Jeff]

Hi,

My wife and I are thinking about getting a mini golden doodle.  We both work full time and live in a large apartment.  We are pretty active and at the moment we have no kids.  Also, neither of us have ever been pet owners before. 

 

Given our current living conditions and work schedules, my thoughts are to find a slightly older pup around 4-6 months. We would definitely enroll in obedience training for both ourselves and the pup.

 

My greatest concern is the time the doodle would spend alone.  A typical weekday would be to spend 15-20 minutes with it prior to work then it would be left alone for 3-4 hours.  We would hire a dog walker to come during the day.  The dog walker we have in mind takes 5-8 dogs on a pack walk or off leash run.  They are usually gone from the house for 2-3 hours.  When the doodle is dropped off it would then be by itself for another 3-4 hours until one of us came home.  In the evenings we would spend more time with it training and excercising. 

 

Would this regime be okay?  I was thinking that a pack walk would provide socialization and excercise during the day when we are not there. 

 

We both realize that undertaking a pet is a huge responsibility and we want to make sure we know what we are getting into.  We also want to succeed and put our best foot forward.  If a doodle is not the breed for us then that is okay too.  Any feedback from current doodle owners would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks Jeff

[Teri & Clover]

There are some trainers who will take the pup for three weeks or so and do the initial training  for you. A family that I know did that with their golden doodle. They were very happy with the results. I wish I would have done this as a new doodle owner.

[Allyson, Peri & Taquito]

I have a mini doodle and live in a condo - both husband and I work full time.  HOWEVER, when we brought her home, I took a week off work to get her used to being with us.  She is two years old and we still come home every day during lunch to walk her and our other dog. 

 

Here's the thing:  you will need to be committed to lots and lots of training - doodles are smart and need to be trained or they can be very hard to live with.  Also, when you are working full time, you will need to make sure  you are home with them when you are NOT working. For instance, we will both never plan to be gone during the week after work.  IF the dogs are home all day alone, one of us needs to give them their people time that night.  And on Fridays if we have social plans, Peri goes to daycare all day long (she is there now) so she is worn out and fine with just hanging by herself that night. 

Those are my two cents - I have very similar situation - condo, husband, no kids..."yet".  Our dogs are our babies but take up lots of time, money and attention.