[LarryBeall]

Hello all. I have spent most of the day perusing this forum reading all the great advice, but have some questions that I couldn't find the answer to.

First. I just adopted a 4 month old black lab mix puppy a week ago. Most things have went well except for a couple. One is crating him. My son desperately wanted the dog crate in his room so someone was sleeping with him. Being the naive parents we are we obliged. I'm thinking this was a bad idea as even after a week of going to bed at the same time he still whines for about 10 minutes when crated. Which of course wakes my 6yo up. Is having the crate in a bedroom a bad idea? I have read everything from keep it close to family members to put it in a well trafficked isolated room.

Second, I work from home. As such I'm here all the time. Last week I setup shop in the dining room and put water nearby while gating the area off so he couldn't leave the confined area. This is not really conducive to me being productive throughout the day. I'm thinking of moving is to my office and only giving him access to water on potty trips. Is this a bad idea? I'm taking him out every hour when he's awake or when he wakes up.

Last but not least. If there is anyone that has raised a puppy while working a 9-5 from home I would love to hear any suggestions you have.

Thank you in advance.

Larry

 

[SusanLynn]

Hi Larry,

Congrats on your new puppy! Here's a thread with lots of useful suggestions about crate training:

http://www.dogforum.com/training-behavior-stickies/crate-training-faq-3974/

 

[LarryBeall]

Thanks for that. Any other tips would be greatly appreciated. I'm feeling so overwhelmed it's nuts.

 

[TheAdventureK9]

Congrats on the puppy! Its fun and terribly stressful all at the same time.

Your pup is a tad older than mine. Some things are a bit easier I feel like when they are very young (I got her at 8 weeks) yet the concepts are still the same.

I crate in my room next to my own bed. I played a lot of crate games with her, but it also was a lot of ignoring. So I don't think your 6 year old would be a good fit for that. If she cried and he interacts with her (even sometimes looking at puppy and say shhh is rewarding!) it could start to be a real problem. We had a few restless nights but overall she learned to settle in her crate quickly. Look up the crate stickie that susanlynn provided. Those all helped for me.

I work a 40 hour work week but she isn't left alone for more than 5 hours between me and my BF. So its hard to say about a stay at home worker. Yet if you have to move to your office, go ahead and do that. Set a timer for yourself for every hour and take your pup out and offer water. That seems like a fine plan. Puppies are known to be bored drinkers, make sure you have tons of toys and chews for your puppy to entertain herself with. Then also make sure you fit in mental and physical exercise. Prepare things like frozen kongs, kibble in kong wobbler, get food puzzles and so on. That will help keep your pup happily entertained.

The only thing I see that may be worrisome is that since you are home a lot I would stress the importance of teaching your puppy to be okay alone. Since I worked away from home and live in an condo I needed my puppy to be okay confined to a playpen alone with crying. So I did separation training (Kikopup on youtube has a wonderful video on this) and it helped out tons and we can leave without worrying about her bothering our neighbors or being stressed out.

Get in lots of socializing too! Lots of new places and people and positive experiences! And enjoy the puppy months, mine is growing like a weed and its so sad!

 

[LarryBeall]

well we bit the bullet and moved him to our room. He is sleeping better and doesn't whine as much. He does hate the fact that our other dog can roam the house, while he is stuck in his crate. Now I have to figure out how to get him to poop before he goes to bed instead of waking up at 3:30am. I met with our vet today and she had some good ideas to help me with my daily feeling of being overwhelmed. First she suggested that whether I am home or not I should crate him for a couple hours everyday to give myself a break and allow him to get some much needed sleep. She also followed that up with telling me that I have to stop feeling so guilty for crating him and that I needed to be able to live my life as well. So tomorrow the plan is to go finish some last minute christmas shopping and hope that we have no accidents in the crate.

 

[mathilda]

it is very likely he can't hold it long enough for the whole night, but perhaps you can stretch it by making the eveing walk later and perhaps a bit langer.

 

[MulligantheWestie]

I had a similar situation with my pup. We have had him for about 1.5 months, and he is a little over 4 months now. I work from home most days and in the beginning I also struggled with this. In the beginning I was trying to keep him out with me either sitting with me while i work or in his bed, but I felt like I never got anything done and was getting frustrated. I was also given advice to crate him and it's changed my day completely. Now if I'm working from home all day he gets crated for a couple of hours in the morning and in the afternoon. It gives him time to rest and me time to work. He's still so young and doesn't always just want to sit in his bed when he's not crated. He wants to explore and try to eat everything! I think if you start to crate him during the day it will help. I also cover his crate with a towel to give it the "den like" atmosphere. When he is out with me I make sure he has some chew toys to keep him occupied. He is good in his crate for at least 3 hrs and up to 4. He's had a couple of accidents in there, but we are working to eliminate that. I started removing his water if he is going to be in there 4 hrs and that has helped. He gets plenty of water when not crated. He is also very comfortable in his crate. He sleeps anywhere from 8-9 hrs straight now. Good luck!

 

[LarryBeall]

Thank you to everyone for your advice and personal experiences. We are making progress. This morning I actually had to wake him up to take him out. Mainly because I was concerned he was going to have an accident. My wife told me that she thinks he would have lasted longer, but I woke up at 6 concerned he wasn't breathing as he hadn't woke me up. We had a ton of cleaning to do ahead of the holidays, so we crated him for a bit and then at dinner he was just a complete bundle of sleepless energy as he hadn't slept all afternoon and this was after two walks. We crated him a short while so we could have dinner with out chasing him around the house. This helped my nerves quite a bit and made me less anxious. Then this evening he was a beast. Just refused to calm down. We played for well over an hour and he was still going. Didn't seem to help that he was feeding off my son's energy. We finally got both of them calmed down and got a little peace.

One day at a time I suppose. I will say one thing I won't do again is get a puppy before major holidays. This has been the most emotional I have been ever. Not to mention my nerves being completely shot and having no appetite as a result.

 

[TheAdventureK9]

That's great for the pup sleeping in a bit! I swear mine wakes up like a little alarm clock at 6:00am every morning. Sometimes I still have to do middle of the night potty breaks too, that's all normal. Some pups just can't hold it as well until 6 months, so if that happens don't be too concerned.

Whenever Aayla gets too restless and won't settle down for the night I just tie her up to our ottoman. She will kind of pace at the end of the leash, cry a few times and then lays down and sleeps. Its been great.

When you play do you do any mental stimulation? Training? Scent games? Puzzle toys? All of those will make a puppy settle faster than throwing a ball a whole bunch of times. I would also suggest frozen kongs and chews to keep your pup entertained when he is being a busy body and you want to relax.