We just got home with Buddy...Now what?!

[Kim D.]

Hi Everyone,

I've read as much as I can before he arrived, but now that we have Buddy home (he is 8 weeks) I feel completely unprepared.  Can anyone guide me as to what to expect and some pointers for the first few days (weeks) home? 

Thanks,
Kim

[The Pooky Professor]

Awww a little bundle of 8 week joy. There are different phases of puppyhood. Right now he'll eat sleep poop and pee. Use a crate & let him outside to go potty every couple of hours and after eating and 10 mins after drinking. At 4mos his bladder will be a little better & he will start putting everything in his mouth, thats how they experience their worlds. He'll start teething too with those sharp little shark teeth. At 6 mos he'll be pretty much housebroken and have most of his adult teeth in. At 8 mos he'll hit adolesence or what I call Terrible Teens, good luck with that one. It goes very quickly, for now his little brain is a little sponge, call him by name, teach him sit, let him out frequently t lots of exercise, and enjoy the ride! xoxo

[Kim D.]

Thanks so much!  I feel better already :)

[Cathy w/Shiloh~Cody]

Congrats on the new puppy!! Enjoy the new baby.

Pooky professor reply was right on about his days-eat, sleep, poop,play and cuddle. Start teaching him

the word crate, where you want him to potty-say the word when he does it, watch

his mouth a lot so he does not eat what he shouldn't inside and outside your home. Say

his name a lot, and if you have not already puppy proof your house-hide cords etc.

My dog was potty trained earlier than 6 months-they are very smart dogs. Try to keep him

from jumping by ignoring him and turn away-this will be beneficial when he is older and bigger.

[Carol Brand]

Ugh puppies...

 

Strict schedule.  At 8 weeks, I think a puppy should be able to last from 11:30 p.m. to around 5a.m.  I don't take puppies out in the middle of the night.

 

To facilitate house training, limit access to only small part of house with hard surface flooring (kitchen?).  Keep him crated or in a x-pen if you are not directly interacting with him.  Take him out every time to potty, don't just "put him out".   Praise him for going potty outside.

 

In the next 2 weeks leash break him  and work on introducing:  sit, down, come and other tricks like shake hands. Once he is leash broken you should potty him on leash.  Work on getting him used to being groomed.   

[Julie and Maggie]

http://www.dogstardaily.com/files/AFTER%20You%20Get%20Your%20Puppy.pdf

 

I got a lot out of this. YMMV but here is my 2 cents!

[Suzann, Rosey & Bandit]

You should look in the Puppy Madness group...  there will be a lot of helpful discussion there.  Just reember he has to get used to you and his new surroundings too so it will take a bit to get into a schedule..  Good Luck and CONGRATS!!

[Elizabeth & *Kosci*.]

Hi Kim. After being on a waiting list for over a year and anxiously awaiting my puppy, I to had the wobblies a few days of her being delivered. ( was I doing the right thing, would I do a good enough job etc.etc.)
I found that all that I had read came back to me and I'm very relaxed and prepared for her. I found being relaxed around my puppy made a settled and relaxed puppy.
I crate trained and have a x-pen off that so she is happy and settled when I come and go, and hasn't gotten into any thing she shouldn't when I'm not watching her.( I feed her in the play pen so my other dog don't eat her food).
Sit and enjoy the cuddles.
Start training from the first day, we put bells on the door out for toileting and rang them every time we went out saying 'get busy' as a queue to toilet outside, and within a short time Kosci now rings them herself to go out.
I went to puppy- preschool which was great for us as it gave her time to play with puppies around her age and learn puppy etiquette, we also learnt basic obedience and these dogs are so smart they need their minds kept busy.
We have learnt a new 'trick' a day,
Enjoy

[Elizabeth & *Kosci*.]

Another thing don't leave large tubs of water in the pen.. Groodles like water and I found out the hard way when Kosci splashed and tipped an ice-cream container of water everywhere... I now top up an inch of water in her bowl very regulary.

[Jane, Guinness and Murphy]

Congratulations on your new puppy.  For the next week or two your puppy needs to become comfortable with his new home and family.  I agree with all the great advice here, especially the need to get him on a schedule and keep him contained when you aren't able to watch him.  I used tons of baby gates during the first couple of months....they were either crated or right with me so I could watch them and react if they started to have a "potty accident".  Because we live in a condo my guys learned to walk on a leash right away, and I think this was a huge help with house breaking.  We always took them to the same potty spot, and I think that consistency was very helpful.  I also think Carol made a great point about getting them used to grooming.  I wish I had done a better job with that.  Life would have been easier later on.  Enjoy...this stage goes so fast.

[Adina P]

Yes to a schedule...or at least routine.  It doesn't have to be a schedule set to a strict time clock, but a routine where this happens after that and that happens before the other thing and it all flows regularly from day to day.

 

My personal list of must-dos:

-- Teach puppy to keep teeth off of human skin...even to keep mouth off of human skin (this won't happen in a day or a week though).

-- Teach puppy to keep four feet on the floor when excited and greeting people.

-- Teach puppy to accept crate and gate and leash confinement.

-- Teach puppy to accept all sorts of body handling (mouth, legs, paws, tail, head, ears, full body restraint, etc).

-- Teach puppy where to go potty.

-- Teach puppy that the world around him is safe and fun and something not worth fearing by giving him lots of safe exposure to this world (socialization) and the people and creatures of this world.

-- Teach puppy to chew on appropriate chew toys.

 

Those 7 things, in my opinion, are THE MOST important things for a puppy up until 4-6 months. Teaching commands, while fun because puppies learn super fast, is much lower on the totem pole.  You can still train behavior without teaching specific verbal commands.  Frankly I think learning verbal commands is overrated in puppies.  They learn SO fast, but their attention span is super short and most won't obey in distracting situations but they're too young to really expect reliability and too young for effective obedience corrections ... so might as well work on those 7 things (which is A LOT of work already) and get yourself a well-socialized, easy-to-handle puppy that is ready for obedience training as a young teen than to spend a lot of time teaching commands that will go out the window anyway when they become 'teens.'  Just my opinion.  I Know lots of people who are great puppy raisers will disagree with me on this.  I just personally have found that until I get SERIOUS about obedience training...the puppy stuff barely makes a real difference in overall behavior in the long run.

[Carol Brand]

I love your list, but I do want to disagree about the early training.  I think it is important to start teaching verbal or signal commands from the very beginning.  I think that early training helps develop a dog's capacity to work for and with people.  It also gives an owner something positive to fall back on when the teen stage strikes. 

 

Plus, who doesn't love cute puppy tricks?  

 

[Adina P]

Well the training that I do just doesn't work with young puppies...it's too demanding.  So in the future if I get a puppy I will probably just practice the handling part of things, placement, etc...but not give commands or corrections.  That way they will learn to accept handling and placement into sits, downs, stands, etc...and when the time comes that commands are connected and they are mature enough to handle the responsibility of choosing the correct action, it will go pretty well.  So the capacity of working for and with people will still be there and puppy tricks don't hurt anything.  I guess because doodles (and poodles) are pretty bright dogs and they learn easily people think they're done training when the dog learns the word 'sit' and 'down' and think something is 'wrong' when that same puppy won't obey in real life.  What's missing is the REST of training which is more time consuming and takes a lot of practice beyond just teaching a command in the home.