# Recommendations for an appropriate puppy schedule for full time working parents



## schmendra (Sep 20, 2016)

It's a challenge to raise a pup when you work full-time, but it can absolutely be done! I think your proposed schedule seems completely reasonable - personally, I am all for dog walkers and daycare, despite how expensive they can be. However, I will say that you may find that you have to adjust it as you get to know what works for your pup. They really are all different.

In case it's helpful, I'll give you an idea of what has worked for us (2 adults working full time jobs and our now 5-month old pup)...

When Finnegan first came home, my fiance and I were determined to do it all ourselves. We staggered our lunch breaks so we would leave around 8:10, one of us would come home from 11-12 for an early lunch, and the other would work through lunch and be home around 3:30. After a few weeks of this we found we were SO burnt out, so we seriously re-adjusted our budget and hired a walker to come at 3pm every day so only one of us had to come home at lunch (she is seriously the best money I spend every month - Finn LOVES her and she takes some of the pressure off of us). We found that 3 hours was about the longest he could go in his crate until he was about 16 weeks old, so this schedule worked well for us. 

Now that he is 5 months old and has learned to like his crate (mostly), we have shifted things around. Our daily schedule looks like:
7am (ish): Up
7:15-7:45am: 2km on-leash walk
7:45am: Short training session with breakfast
8:10am: Crate with frozen kong
12pm: Walker comes - go for walk, play in backyard
1pm: Walker leaves - back in crate with another frozen kong
4:45pm: Home
5pm: Long on-leash walk or shorter walk with a stop at the park to work on retrieving and recall drills 
* Recall drills and retrieving are new - now that he's getting older we have lots more energy to burn!
6pm: Hang out at home for the rest of the evening (play, dinner, training session, check the floor for 'bits' from me making dinner, steal socks, etc.)

We used to have our walker come from 11-12 and then one of us would come home from 12-1, giving him two hours out in the middle of the day but we found that he just slept the whole time we were home after going out with his walker. I am sure that he sleeps 90% of the time he is in his crate - lazy bones. On Fridays Finnegan goes to daycare. He has a great time and it gives us a chance to take him home and then go for dinner or to the movies without feeling like he has been cooped up all day! 

On a related note, we had quite a hard time adjusting Finnegan to his crate. In addition to playing a ton of crate games over the first month, I eventually spent a small fortune and bought 10 kongs that I stuff and freeze - he gets one every time he is crated, which has made a huge difference. On Sunday night I make a smoothie of dog food, pureed pumpkin and water (long live the Ninja blender), tape over the small hole of the kongs, pour it in and freeze them. I know it won't upset his tummy, and they take him around an hour to get through. By the time he's finished I think he probably just crashes out until someone comes home. I know this tactic isn't everyone's favourite, but it has worked really well for us.

Be flexible and have fun, because the puppy stage absolutely FLIES by. And post lots of pictures once she is here!


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## nolefan (Nov 6, 2009)

Sounds like a good plan. I think you can do it if you're really sure both partners are 100% understand the commitment. Having someone come to walk her and play with her morning and afternoon till she's older sounds like a good plan. I honestly am not a fan of doggy daycare unless you have a very good one. Somewhere that has puppies separated from older dogs and you find out how they keep dogs from being bullied and what their policy is for behavioral issues (are dogs removed immediately after a problem or allowed to keep coming back?) How do they evaluate dogs etc. You're putting a serious amount of trust with strangers who may have very little behavioral experience and your puppy is a sponge, her experiences with the world, other dogs and other people need to be as positive as you can possibly make them.

Puppies respect no schedule but their own, you are probably being very optimistic about your timeline before leaving for work. If you have to get ready for work, you need to realize that it will come AFTER she is set. You will probably need to allot an hour of attention time dedicated just to her to get it all done. She will need play time and training time, 5 or 10 minutes.

My other concern is that you and your spouse truly understand what you're committing yourselves to here with this puppy. If she sleeps about 8 hours overnight in her crate. Gets up in the morning and is back in her crate in an hour to nap the rest of the day with a couple short interruptions till about 6:00 that is she is going to be crated for 18 hours a day. That means she is going to be extremely well rested in the evenings and for the next couple years, you're going to be on duty with your dog during all your free evening hours. She isn't going to eat dinner and take a 20 minute leash walk and then let you lay on the couch to watch t.v. or read or fold laundry. She is going to be wanting to play during most of the hours that you are home. You're going to need baby gates and an ex pen to keep her contained so that she's not getting into trouble the minute your back is turned to cook or take out the trash. It's going to be a major project for the next year or two (depending on her personality and individual energy level etc.) it could even be till age 3. I don't think most people understand that for the first couple years a young golden isn't going to be like dogs you remember from your childhood who ate dinner and then laid under the kitchen table to snooze or was satisfied with a game of fetch in the backyard. It's like having a toddler and this dog is going to need aerobic exercise and training to challenge her brain on a daily basis. That's like 6 days a week. Puppy playdates, retrieving, swimming and offleash hiking are the kind of exercise needed to get her heart rate up and leave her panting and tired. It's going to be a major project and Goldens are tougher than the average puppy because their teething phase lasts longer etc.


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## Charliethree (Jul 18, 2010)

As an alternative to crating consider setting up a 'confinement area' , can use a small puppy proofed room/hallway with an easy to wash floor, or an x-pen, either one set up with an open crate, water dish, a few puppy safe toys. You could also put in an appropriate 'potty' area, if you chose to. For example. 










Would suggest having someone come in during the day, to feed a mid-day meal, take the pup out to potty, and to provide some company and interaction/playtime for your pup.


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## ceegee (Mar 26, 2015)

It sounds fine. Dogs are adaptable creatures: they fit into the lives we offer them. And it's not a national disaster if the pup has an accident in the crate.

Young dogs do need to be supervised in the house, but they quickly get into a routine. I've raised three pups in the last ten years - two performance-bred golden retrievers and one performance-bred poodle (we do agility). So three high energy dogs. And it's not as hard as you might think. Yes, you need to put in the time. But if you start training as soon as the pup comes home, it won't be long before you have a reasonably well-behaved dog. At six months old, ours have all been relatively functional in the house. When not crated, they're always with a human, but don't necessarily need 100% of the human's attention at that age. Physical exercise is good and necessary, but don't rely on it: mental stimulation is far more effective at wearing them out! My current pup is now 11 months old. Right from the beginning, he loved running around, playing with our other dog, chasing a tennis ball, tugging and so on, but it didn't (and doesn't) tire him out. However, an hour-long obedience class or a couple of intensive training sessions at home, and he would be out like a light. Even today, if he's restless, we do some obedience exercises, or teach him a new trick, and it calms him down. Young pups are like sponges. You'll be amazed at what they can learn.

So: don't worry and enjoy your pup!


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## BellaGraceMom (Nov 28, 2016)

My husband and I both work full time as well. We just got our baby Oct 5 at 7 weeks. Instead of crating her all day, we have pretty much given her the master bathroom. We put a baby gate up in the doorway and she has the room to herself all day and at night. She gets me up around 5ish to pee/poop/eat. She goes back to sleep until we get up at 7. She just lounges around and goes back out at 8 and then we leave for the day. I do come home for lunch at 12:30 to let her pee/poop/eat. I leave again at 1:10. My son then lets her out when he gets home from school to pee at 4 and then I'm home for the day by 5:30 and she eats supper around 6ish. So far this seems to work for us and she seems happy with that. I have noticed on weekends that she actually wants to go to "her room" to rest and wind down. So we keep her close to a schedule on weekends as that seems to make her happy.


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## etcoffey (Nov 18, 2016)

Thanks everyone for the encouraging responses! We brought her home on Saturday and she is such a bundle of joy! She seems to be taking pretty well to her crate so far, so I'm hoping it will go well when we need to leave her in there for longer periods of time. We're spending the first few days just getting used to each other, but I'm wondering if - starting next week - we should start trying to go with the schedule I posted above, even though we'll be home with her? On the one hand, I want to spend every minute I can bonding with her while we can take the time to be home, but on the other I don't want it to be traumatic when she goes from being around us all day to being crated. I will say that, so far, she seems to spend a large portion of her day sleeping. I've been putting her in her crate but leaving the door open whenever she starts napping. 

Oh, and a question on her feeding schedule: I was a bit surprised that the breeder said to feed her at 7am, 3pm, and 9pm (maybe so her meals are more evenly spaced throughout the day?). We've stuck with that schedule so far, but I'm foreseeing the 9pm feeding especially as being problematic for eventually sleeping longer through the night (we like to go to bed between 10-11pm). Any reason we shouldn't change to 7am, 12pm, 6pm schedule? Can we go ahead and just make the change or would it be best to gradually move back her lunch and dinner feeding times by 30mins-1hr each day?


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## Sweet Girl (Jun 10, 2010)

etcoffey said:


> Thanks everyone for the encouraging responses! We brought her home on Saturday and she is such a bundle of joy! She seems to be taking pretty well to her crate so far, so I'm hoping it will go well when we need to leave her in there for longer periods of time. We're spending the first few days just getting used to each other, but I'm wondering if - starting next week - we should start trying to go with the schedule I posted above, even though we'll be home with her? On the one hand, I want to spend every minute I can bonding with her while we can take the time to be home, but on the other I don't want it to be traumatic when she goes from being around us all day to being crated. I will say that, so far, she seems to spend a large portion of her day sleeping. I've been putting her in her crate but leaving the door open whenever she starts napping.
> 
> Oh, and a question on her feeding schedule: I was a bit surprised that the breeder said to feed her at 7am, 3pm, and 9pm (maybe so her meals are more evenly spaced throughout the day?). We've stuck with that schedule so far, but I'm foreseeing the 9pm feeding especially as being problematic for eventually sleeping longer through the night (we like to go to bed between 10-11pm). Any reason we shouldn't change to 7am, 12pm, 6pm schedule? Can we go ahead and just make the change or would it be best to gradually move back her lunch and dinner feeding times by 30mins-1hr each day?


You can definitely change the feeding schedule to suit your schedule. You will find that most Golden Retriever puppies are happy to eat whenever you need them to!  I will just add here, for what it's worth, that my dog has always settled and slept better on a full stomach. I had moved to feeding her twice a day, morning and night, but watching her on a puppy cam after my dogwalker dropped her off in the afternoon led me to bring back her afternoon meal. She was restless in her crate, cried, wouldn't settle. My walker started to feed her again (in her crate) before she left, and like magic, she settled and went to sleep. She still gets her third meal (a very small one) late in the evening, close to bed time (and she is 3 years old). It has never affected her sleep.


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## ceegee (Mar 26, 2015)

For the feeding, my pup ate (eats) at 7:30 a.m., midday-ish and 6 p.m. When he was younger I would take away the water bowl at around 7 p.m. I wouldn't feed a pup at 9 p.m. - seems like a recipe for midnight outings. I think you can just make the change - she'll be fine.


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## Sweet Girl (Jun 10, 2010)

ceegee said:


> For the feeding, my pup ate (eats) at 7:30 a.m., midday-ish and 6 p.m. When he was younger I would take away the water bowl at around 7 p.m. I wouldn't feed a pup at 9 p.m. - seems like a recipe for midnight outings. I think you can just make the change - she'll be fine.


Oh - that's a good point! I forgot about the poop! When my pup was young, I did take her out for a last walk after her late evening meal. Probably about an hour after she ate - just a calm walk, and she would poop. But that final poop started to drop off as she got older, and I soon eliminated the walk. She went for a quick pee before bed, and that was fine til morning.


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