Sorry this is a bit long winded . . . . .
We have 2 beautiful springer spaniels who are 15wks old and growing fast and will soon be ready to hit the streets. Your thoughts on a good routine for all of us would be appreciated.
Training is going well so far, they do the usual, sit, come, stay, down and leave it, even give happens more often than not, we mostly train them apart to stop them distracting each other and we were thinking, at least initally that we would walk them separately too.
At the moment the routine of the house is
Hubby up around 4am - so pups up too - he then takes them out to potty, has breakfast and sorts himself out, has a play, then leaves around 5:45am
Son gets up around 7am, takes pups out, sorts himself out with breakfast etc, has a small play but tries to make it calm time.
I get up (after waking at 4am, dozing in and out) around 7:30-8am depending on what time if any I have to leave the house.
Puppies are given breakfast 8-8:30am, outside for a potty break, then they are active, I usually spend about an hour playing with them, training them and doing a calm freeze when ever they get a bit hyper.
This usually ends with me sitting on the floor with them and the puppies settling down for a sleep.
Then I can sort myself out and start work. I work from home a lot, the times I am out of the house can vary from not at all, an hour or at worse 8 hours and anything in between. Days that I am out for more than 5 or 6 hours I have a friend who comes and sits on them.
When I am home all day I put thier crate across my office doorway and they spend thier time in the hallway (huge area which is where they also sleep at night) and sleeping in thier crate. I have a break every couple of hours to take them to potty and play.
Hubby gets home around 5pm and son around 6pm. If puppies are in an active phase they play with them, we do some training and then eat around 6:30
Puppies are fed around 7pm, they have a play time and usually crash around 9pm, I take them to potty before I go to bed around 11-12pm
One issue I have is that they have started scratching on our door (they are in our main hallway, which is a large tiled area that leads to the main living area and has a door to the garage and our bedroom off it.) before Steve even gets up at 4am and of course if they have not scratched at the door as soon as he opens it they are awake and up.
We plan to eventually have them in an area of the garage with access to outside at all times which will hopefully help with the very early wake up.
Any comments on this routine and suggestions very welcome
thanks
Karen
Advice on a good routine
Moderators: emmabeth, BoardHost
Re: Advice on a good routine
So far so good...
I would build in periods of you leaving the house with one puppy at a time, out the front door onto the street. Just do a bit of standing and watching the world go by and having treats and then back indoors, to get them used to one going out without the other.
As for the future plans - I would not have two young dogs with more access to the outside world or an empty room without people in, than they have access to home/people... what you may well find is that they think up jobs for themselves, mostly digging, yelling at stuff that goes by etc.
The other issue is that access to outdoors means toilet training can slide, it blurs the distinction between indoor and outdoor, removes any need for them to learn to hold on and wait for a human to take them out.
Bear in mind that them having one another is NOT an equal substitute for having contact with adult humans.. and in fact could well be worse than one pup being on its own.
I would build in periods of you leaving the house with one puppy at a time, out the front door onto the street. Just do a bit of standing and watching the world go by and having treats and then back indoors, to get them used to one going out without the other.
As for the future plans - I would not have two young dogs with more access to the outside world or an empty room without people in, than they have access to home/people... what you may well find is that they think up jobs for themselves, mostly digging, yelling at stuff that goes by etc.
The other issue is that access to outdoors means toilet training can slide, it blurs the distinction between indoor and outdoor, removes any need for them to learn to hold on and wait for a human to take them out.
Bear in mind that them having one another is NOT an equal substitute for having contact with adult humans.. and in fact could well be worse than one pup being on its own.
West Midlands based 1-2-1 Training & Behaviour Canine Consultant
Re: Advice on a good routine
ahhh thanks Emmabeth
good to know what we are doing so far sounds good.
I already take them out and about separately and they are pretty cool about it, lots of sniffing each other when they are re united. I have been going to an additional puppy class each week with only one of them, just so they get the chance to socialise and be without each other. And we plan to walk them together and separately.
Interesting about the toilet training - I was thinking we would still shut them up overnight, goodness knows what they would get up to overnight with no human intervention!! but the fact that they will be further removed from us, not right outside our bedroom door, will mean any scratching can be ignored easier. My hubby keeps getting up early and going out of the bedroom too soon after they have been scratching at the door which is seriously winding me up!! they actually stopped after we successfully ignored it but have done it for the last 4 days in a row.
Also the reason for having access to in side and outside while left is because it can get hot here in Australia and I want them to be able to access the cool when they need to and shelter in the cooler months
The reality is they will not often get left for more than a couple of hours at a time, if I know I am going to be 4 hours or more I get our friend to come and sit on them.
thanks again
Karen
good to know what we are doing so far sounds good.
I already take them out and about separately and they are pretty cool about it, lots of sniffing each other when they are re united. I have been going to an additional puppy class each week with only one of them, just so they get the chance to socialise and be without each other. And we plan to walk them together and separately.
Interesting about the toilet training - I was thinking we would still shut them up overnight, goodness knows what they would get up to overnight with no human intervention!! but the fact that they will be further removed from us, not right outside our bedroom door, will mean any scratching can be ignored easier. My hubby keeps getting up early and going out of the bedroom too soon after they have been scratching at the door which is seriously winding me up!! they actually stopped after we successfully ignored it but have done it for the last 4 days in a row.
Also the reason for having access to in side and outside while left is because it can get hot here in Australia and I want them to be able to access the cool when they need to and shelter in the cooler months
The reality is they will not often get left for more than a couple of hours at a time, if I know I am going to be 4 hours or more I get our friend to come and sit on them.
thanks again
Karen
