My Puppy's day schedule - Two options

by Vikrant
(Hyderabad, India)

Hi,

I have got a labrador pup 45 days old.

Problem is I am in out of home from 11 to 7pm.

Option 1:

I feed him around 10:30, take him out for poop and then make him sleep and leave.

My maid comes around 3:30-4:00 feeds him again, walks him out for 15-20 mins and leaves.

I come home around 7:00 and then I am all for him.

This has happened 2 days, and he's looks fine with it. It seems he passed the day sleeping.

Another option is :

I have a neighbor who have a lab pair. The neighbour is fine with leaving pup with the dogs during this time. All this while they have a servant who takes care of his stuff as well as the dogs.

The dogs are fine with my pup. The bitch loves the pup, while the dog sometimes bullies him.

Now i have some concerns here - My pup might be confused what is his real home? Also I am concerned that dogs might bully him a lot.

Also although the dogs are perfectly healthy, Is there a chance that pup might catch few diseases from them ?

Thanks !




Hi Vikrant
Well, it seems as though you've given this a lot of thought, and both options have pros and cons.

11:30 - 3:30 is a long time for such a young puppy to be left alone, it's very unlikely that he will be able to control his bladder/bowels for that length of time and this could cause problems with house breaking. If you crate train him it may be more successful, but it's still a long time.

The second option gives him more attention and opportunity to attend to his housebreaking issues, but you are right to wonder if this may be confusing to him. This will be especially true if you have different ideas/rules etc. on how you want him to behave and what is considered acceptable behavior. Different viewpoints could mean that he will be confused and take longer to be trained.

I wonder if you could maybe combine the two options. For example, if you could get your maid to come an hour or so earlier to take him out, and use a crate for him, that may work for most days. He will spend most of his time sleeping while you're gone, but the 'potty break' at around 2:30 would make it much easier on him.

Then, perhaps twice a week he could spend the day with your neighbor and her dogs. This would be good for his socialization, and would give him a couple of days when he's not on his own for so long.

As for the risk of disease, if your neighbors dogs have had all their vaccinations and the area that the puppy will be allowed in is fenced and not accessible to roaming/stray/unvaccinated dogs, then it should be quite safe. You obviously will also need to make sure that your pup is started on his puppy vaccinations and always kept up to date with them.

Hope this helps a little, I think with a bit of flexibility you will be able to work something out that fits perfectly. Best of luck with your puppy!