Puppy Schedule - looking for some advice!

[betho]

Hi All,

My husband and I are getting a puppy in the next month and I am trying to nail down a schedule now. It will be my first dog, but not my husband's. He grew up with dogs and has had them his whole life. I work full time during the day & my husband works full time at night, meaning he will be home all day, and I will be home all night. I made a rough draft schedule and just looking for some input on it. We plan on doing doggie daycare 2 days a week once the pup is old enough, and we will also be signing up for puppy classes as well which will probably be one night during the week or on Saturday's. During the weekends we plan on being very active and taking the pup out with us to do all the things. Weeknights are a bit harder to do that, but will also be easier once winter is over and it isn't dark out at 4:30pm. TIA!!!

Here is the schedule:

• 5am - L wakes up & takes Obi out to go potty & 1 or 2 mile walk
  
• 5:45am - L will feed Obi Breakfast in his crate and get ready for work - let him out after he eats to hang out/play
• 6:40am - 7 am - L takes Obi out to go potty again before leaving for work/quick walk
• 9am - H gets home from work & takes Obi out for a good walk & potty
• 11 am - H takes Obi out to go potty
• 1/2ish - H feeds Obi 1/2 cup of food and takes out to go potty
• 3ish H takes obi out to go potty
• 5:30pm - L gets home from work - H & L take Obi out for long walk/play time/training time
• 7pm - everyone eats dinner
• 7:30pm - take Obi out after dinner/clean up to go potty
• 7:30pm - 10pm - playtime/cuddle time/training time
• 9:30pm - L takes Obi out before “bed”
• 11:30pm - H takes Obi out before he leaves for work
• 1:30am - L takes Obi out to go potty
• 3:30am - L takes out Obi to go potty

 

[sepheeme12]

@betho Just make sure puppy is getting time to rest. After a couple nights you might scale back the overnight potty breaks if you’re seeing success. I like to give puppies short bursts of activity followed by crate time so they learn to settle on their own (and “hold it” in the crate). The 1-2 mile walks may be quite a stretch for a young one, assuming you’re getting pup at 8ish weeks.

 

[splooshqueen]

@sepheeme12 Young puppies don’t exactly need to go for walks just yet, assuming they don’t have their shots anyways. My puppy is 4 months old and we just started taking her for walks!

 

[betho]

@splooshqueen I had no clue. I was worried someone was going to say they won't have enough exercise. That makes me feel better then. Thanks so much!

 

[betho]

@sepheeme12 Yah we are getting him at 8 weeks. I will cut the walks down and just spend some time with him in the morning then. thanks so much!

 

[imagebeastmarkbeast]

@betho Great start, but this looks more like a schedule for a trained pup. If it’s already trained then just ignore my comment:

This is a good schedule to lay down groundwork, but depending on the age, just be prepared for this to be all over the place. If you’re potty training, you’re going to need to be taking him out constantly, more like every 15-30 minutes is what we just went through. You should take it out after eating and drinking. That stretch of 1-2 hours after eating to take it out is too long of an expectation and there will be accidents.

Expecting a pup to be ready to go on a 1-2 mile walk is a lot too. My pup is almost 4 months and we’re still working on getting him to walk calmly on a leash and have definitely never made it that far in one go.

I’d add more time to focus on training the basics but if you can stick to set feeding and walking times in addition to all the extra you’ll be doing, that’s a great start to getting the pup on a schedule! And you’ll be surprised by how much it wants to sleep too, so factor that in. You’ll probably get a better idea of a schedule after a few days.

Good luck and enjoy!

 

[betho]

@imagebeastmarkbeast thanks so much! this is all great advice. The pup isn't trained yet, but we want to start training immediately. The only time during the day that no one will be home is from 7am to 9am. Should I feed him earlier so that when I do take him out before I leave for work he is more likely to go potty? Also, did not know that about walks and here I was worried about the pup not having enough exercise. It will all be a learning experience, but I just want to be as prepared as I can be before the pup comes home.

 

[imagebeastmarkbeast]

@betho I think the 5:45 time should be ok for the morning. He should definitely go potty before someone leaves at 7!

 

[tessielou]

@betho I think this schedule actually is pretty good. Our puppy was able to hold for 2-3 hours so we pretty much just kept an eye on the clock and took him out ever 2. But everytime the puppy comes out of the kennel, immediately out to potty. No play until potty's done.

I agree with others that 1-2 miles may be a bit much. You'll want 5 minutes per age month per walk 2-3 times a day. And you'll want to be careful about where he goes walking until he gets his vaccinations.

Otherwise, I think this schedule looks good. Good luck!

 

[imagebeastmarkbeast]

@betho We were like you and wanted to do lots of walks when we got our girl... but when they’re that young it’s easy to over exercise them. What was a short walk for us left her so tired she wouldn’t want to even eat ... we did some research and found that over exercising that young can also lead to bone growth and joint problems later... so we cut that way back.

Our pup is 15 weeks and our day kinda looks like this when I’m home:

6am-7am: Out, breakfast, chill 20-30 min, out again

7-830ish: Crated for naps and so I can become human

Throughout the day she gets random fetch and training sessions (mostly inside). I can tell when she’s overly tired cause she gets super nippy - so she’ll go to her pen to nap for as long as she wants.

When she’s awake, she goes out every 60-90 minutes + right after she gets done hard core playing and 20-30 min after she eats.

12pm lunch & then out after

Continue day of random trainjng/playing... but also some time ignoring so she’s not completely dependent on my attention.

She eats again at 6pm

We cut off water and switch to ice cubes around 8pm... and our last out is at 10pm.

When I’m out, our morning looks the same, but then she’s crated for no more than 4 hours at a time with breaks. We always take her out again after she eats - she never goes directly back into the crate from lunch.... usually when she’s crated like that though she needs a lot more stimulation in the evening... so more fetch and designated training sessions.

This was long. If you read it I hope it helps

 

[betho]

@imagebeastmarkbeast No no, not long! This is super helpful. This is my first pup and this is all so new to me. Sure I’ve researched a ton, but it’s still going to be apt of learning and seeing what works for us and our pup. I’m open to any and all advice!!!! Thanks!!!

 

[johnadam]

@betho I also think there's alot of "walking" for a puppy that age. I'm also getting a puppy in few weeks. Here's my tentative schedule. This is very high level, I'm sure it won't go exactly like this for time, alot of this will be improvising based on puppy's behavior and how much he learns/doesn't learn, but this is tentative plan.

• 6:30 - Wake up, Potty, Play
• 7:30 - Breakfast
• 7:45 - Potty play
• 8:30 - Quick few minutes potty before putting him for his nap
• 10:00 - Potty, play
• 10:45 - Nap
• 12:15 - Potty, play
• 12:45 - Lunch
• 13:00 - Potty, play
• 13:30 - Nap
• 15:00 - Potty, play
• 15:30 - Nap
• 17:00 - Potty, play
• 17:30 - Dinner
• 17:45 - Potty, play
• 18:30 - Nap
• 19:30 - Potty, play
• 22:00 - Quick bathroom break but crate for nap immediately after (no playing after potty at this time)
• 2:00 - Potty and back to nap
• 4:00 - Potty and back to nap

I am not planning on taking the pup for walk at this point (8 weeks) - at least not until I get ok from the vet (probably after his second round of shots)

1/4 of his breakfast/lunch/dinner will be given in his crate, while the other will be used for a focused training session.

Feeding time = focused training. where I'll be working on obedience and impulse control and playing fetch.

Edit: Most of potty/play time for first week or so will be spent on bonding.

 

[betho]

@johnadam That’s a great schedule. Unfortunately I can’t be home all day with the baby and my husband has to get some sleep. I’m hoping eventually we get down to a good routine that works for us all.