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[quote=Anonymous]We got our puppy when he was ten weeks old (he’s now six months). It’s been one of the hardest things I’ve ever done and has very much stressed our family. Kids say they are going to help but I am warning you - sure they’ll take him for a walk or two a day and play with him a bit. But it’s going to be on you to manage literally every minute of his day, even the not fun stuff.

An example of why this is so hard - we’ve been out all day with the puppy, which has been fun and we’re all exhausted. We come home, kids immediately go to their rooms, take showers, want to regroup. Puppy is amped and needs to eat and go potty and play a little before bed. Guess who’s doing that work when I’m exhausted from our day too?  Hint, it’s not the kids 😝 now imagine that, yes, literally every single day without end.

He’s up at 6:45, he needs to be exercised for 1.5 hrs at least every single day. So instead of starting work, or drinking coffee and reading the paper in the weekends, I play with the puppy and train him and tire him out. Every. Single. Day. I’ve gotten a rotation schedule going with the kids somewhat, but it’s still me managing it all and they don’t do a great job of entertaining him for the full time he needs it so then he’s not as tired as I need him to be so I can work all morning.

Anyway. My #1 lesson would be to do things the way you would want them to be right from the start. Put the crate where you will want him to sleep and get him in a schedule ASAP. You will at first need to set an alarm to wake up every two hours or so all night every night. Ours actually did well and slept through the night from about 14 weeks, but those first few weeks were really really hard.

I hope it goes better for you than it did for us!! It seems like it’s going to be so fun and you read all the training books and the kids are all excited and I’d say 25% of the time has been like that, but a good 75% is just a really hard slog.

Did someone say puppy blues?  Ugh. Sorry. And mine is great, really. Going to be a fantastic dog in a year or two. [/quote]

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