# How much time do you spend entertaining your puppy?



## 2cats1dog (Jun 3, 2015)

Ellie is now 5 months old and no longer sleeps as often as she used to. I work from home so I'm with her all day except for the 10 minutes it takes me to pick my kids up from school. I feel like she needs constant entertainment. She wakes up around 7 and eats at 7:30. In the morning around 8:40, we walk for 20 minutes to school and 20 minutes back. Then I'll play with her for another 5-10 minutes. Then we head up to the office and sit down to work. She takes a good nap and then around 11 am she wants to play. So I play with her for 20-30 minutes and she walks down the drive way to the mailbox with me. Then I feed her lunch. Sometimes we do 5-10 minutes of training depending on how much work I have to do.

Around 12:00 I head back upstairs to work and she wanders the house chasing the cat, chewing on her bully stick or toys, or searching the floor for crumbs. Of course I stop and pet her, talk to her, give her belly scratches, throw her toys for her to fetch every now and then. But she'll come and lay her head on my lap and look at me like "mommy, can't we play again?" If I didn't have work to do I'd definitely spend more time playing with her. 

My kids get home around 4:00 and I spend the next hour or 2 cleaning up and making dinner and entertaining the dog. My husband gets home around 6:30 and that's when she gets dinner. He takes her on another 30 minute walk. And we'll play with her a bit more between 8:30 and then she's out for the night. Thursdays we go to puppy school and she gets some puppy play time.

I adore her and want to make sure she's getting plenty of attention and stimulation. I've considered maybe putting her in puppy daycare 2x a week so she can have some good running around play time. Sometimes she seems bored, but I have to get my work done or I don't get paid. So my question is, does it sound like she's getting enough playtime/training/exercise?

And because she's so cute, pictures:


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## Caesar's Buddy (May 25, 2010)

Sounds great to me.


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## Cpc1972 (Feb 23, 2015)

We are home all day also. We play with her several times a day. It doesn't happen as much on Mondays and Wed and every other Friday because we watch my four year old niece. She sleeps more on those two days. I don't think we have a set schedule but play sessions happen a few times during the day. Then she gets her two mile walk in the evenings on most nights. Sometimes after her walk she still has a little energy and we will get her puzzle out. I think your doing fine. My mom always feels guilty when she looks bored because my niece needs her attention.


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## rabernet (Feb 24, 2015)

She's so beautiful!

You'll have mixed reviews on daycare, but I can tell you that daycare was a godsend for us. We took Noah 2 x a week until he aged out (we're not neutering). 

You do want to research your local daycares, how they do temperment tests (ours was essentially a free day of daycare, while they observed him with different dogs that were regulars and they knew their temperment). 

Not only did it help him learn to socialize with other dogs, it also gave him aerobic exercise for the day (his report card often said "Noah's best friends are the ones who can keep up with him")

At the end of the day, you have a dog who is happily exhausted, and you still often have a very happy and tired pup the following day as well.


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## Harleysmum (Aug 19, 2014)

Well she could be banged up in a crate for 10 hours so I think she is having an awesome life.


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## 2cats1dog (Jun 3, 2015)

rabernet said:


> She's so beautiful!
> 
> You'll have mixed reviews on daycare, but I can tell you that daycare was a godsend for us. We took Noah 2 x a week until he aged out (we're not neutering).
> 
> ...


She absolutely loves playtime on Thursdays. Sometimes I can't get her to focus in class because she just wants to play. I think having another few hours a week would be so fun for her. I've been looking for some day area with good reviews but I plan on calling around. The place we take her for classes has day are and they do trial to see if the dogs are a good fit before allowing them full access.


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## Sweet Girl (Jun 10, 2010)

The only thing I could suggest is, instead of just walking, can you take her to a park and throw a ball for her? Or let her play with other dogs for a half hour? Either of those will tire her out more. Come to think of it, at 5 months old, Shala was WAY more into wrestling with other dogs her size than playing ball. And it is a GREAT way for them to burn off energy.


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## 2cats1dog (Jun 3, 2015)

Sweet Girl said:


> The only thing I could suggest is, instead of just walking, can you take her to a park and throw a ball for her? Or let her play with other dogs for a half hour? Either of those will tire her out more. Come to think of it, at 5 months old, Shala was WAY more into wrestling with other dogs her size than playing ball. And it is a GREAT way for them to burn off energy.


We usually play ball around lunch time. Today I let her run around off leash in the woods for a bit and she loved that. There are other dogs around here, but we haven't found any that are keen on playing. Most of them are little dogs who just want to lunge and bark at her. We did see a lab that was close in age once but haven't seen her since. I have a friend who has a 3 yr old GSD and he loves to play. Once Ellie is a little bigger we might let them play together. He likes to play really rough.


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## PatJ (Aug 6, 2014)

MacKenzie (9 mos) is up at 6am but waits until we finish coffee and paper. She spends that time trying to entice us with her toys or romping with her friend, Katie Kat. After coffee, we work on commands and do frisbees and balls in the backyard and finish off at the dog park. We're retired and follow this routine about 5 mornings a week.

She naps from about 1-5 pm. Then we repeat training and frisbees in the backyard followed by a 1 hr walk in the neighborhood. We also try to include her in tasks around the house letting her carry items and shopping where one of us stays with her in the car. 

Other treats are visits to dog beach, swimming and camping in the RV. She's pretty spoiled. Are we happy? I've lost 20 pounds exercising her!!


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## carolinehansen (Sep 16, 2015)

Omg she's gotten so big!


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## nolefan (Nov 6, 2009)

First let me start by saying that you sound like a dream dog home and you're doing a great job with your puppy. Please do not take any of my comments or suggestions as criticism.

I am a stay at home mom of 3 and I've had Goldens for 20 years. I have raised 5 large breed puppies (4 Goldens and a Collie) and I'm not an expert, but have figured out a few things about how to make it work. If you are feeling like somehow this schedule with the puppy is sucking the life out of you and you can't keep doing it, take heart, I think you can tweak a couple things and not feel badly. Also, I think if you look at this as not being 'forever' it may help. Depending on how high energy your dog is, this is something that should get a little easier over the next two years. A puppy really is like having a toddler/preschooler. You just aren't getting a lot of down time at this age. Just like when your kids were 2 and 3 years old, you knew it wasn't forever but you just could not expect a lot of time on the couch with your feet up drinking wine and watching Seinfeld unless your kids were drugged  Here's my idea on what to do differently:

1) Start crating your puppy more during your work time. Or use an ex pen. Experiment for where he will settle best, right next to you or in another room out of sight. You have to have uninterrupted work time without feeling constantly nagged for attention or worrying about him getting in to mischief. There is no reason he can't be crated in 2 1/2 hour increments why you get things done.

2) SweetGirl brought up an important point. Your puppy is hitting the teenager stage of growth. Just like a 12 year old boy, it's going to take more and more aerobic exercise to take the edge off. A leash walk around the block is great exercise for your 80 year old grandmother but it is not sufficient for a healthy, growing retriever. It's going to take a daily session of aerobic exercise (about 20 minutes that gets his heart rate up and leaves him panting) to help make him a content, good puppy. 

3) Puppy play dates are the perfect form of exercise and the other is to teach a formal retrieve if your dog isn't good about playing fetch yet. It is hard to get dogs this age exercise because they don't really need to be running on leash and it's hard to find a place where it's safe to have them hike off leash or swim in most neighborhoods. You can network with people from your training class, friends from your child's school, church, the gym, anything you can think of start asking people if they have a dog who is young and very sweet tempered and might be a good match for a play date. It only takes about 20 minutes but if you do it a couple days a week it's huge.

3) Doggy daycare. I have mixed thoughts about this, if you work hard to find a place that has people who are experienced and educated about canine behavior and body language and keeps the groups small, it can be a great thing for your dog. The bar has to be set pretty high for it to be something I would feel comfortable with though. If it is done badly you can end up putting your dog in a bad situation where he can some bad experiences and learn some bad behavior. Twice a week could be a great thing for you for a couple years.

Keep taking your puppy to training classes and make sure you build training time in during the day at feeding time and it will help with tiring him out to give him mental challenge every day. Plus it will be good to keep teaching him self control and other useful skills. As he becomes more well trained, you can put him on leash and have him practice "down/stays" and "place" etc. while you work. 

4) Your pup is 5 months old, is there a reason he is still eating 3 meals a day? Try going down to two meals and it may make your potty schedule a little easier to deal with. 

I know it feels like your puppy is very time consuming now, and he is, but honestly, if he's going to bed at 8:30 at night and sleeping until 7, he is giving you a big break in the evening. If you want him to sleep more during the day, see about keeping him up later at night or getting him up earlier in the morning (maybe your husband could take him hiking at off hours somewhere). You all are doing a great job with your puppy, but this is pretty much the expected schedule to do a good job with a large, working breed puppy. Hang in there, by the time he turns 3 years old, he should not require quite as much 'entertainment'


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## 2cats1dog (Jun 3, 2015)

nolefan said:


> First let me start by saying that you sound like a dream dog home and you're doing a great job with your puppy. Please do not take any of my comments or suggestions as criticism.
> 
> I am a stay at home mom of 3 and I've had Goldens for 20 years. I have raised 5 large breed puppies (4 Goldens and a Collie) and I'm not an expert, but have figured out a few things about how to make it work. If you are feeling like somehow this schedule with the puppy is sucking the life out of you and you can't keep doing it, take heart, I think you can tweak a couple things and not feel badly. Also, I think if you look at this as not being 'forever' it may help. Depending on how high energy your dog is, this is something that should get a little easier over the next two years. A puppy really is like having a toddler/preschooler. You just aren't getting a lot of down time at this age. Just like when your kids were 2 and 3 years old, you knew it wasn't forever but you just could not expect a lot of time on the couch with your feet up drinking wine and watching Seinfeld unless your kids were drugged  Here's my idea on what to do differently:
> 
> ...


She gets a 40 min walk, 20-30 minutes of fetch or other games, and another 30 min walk. And a few 10 minute toy breaks through tout the day. We definitely are not just walking her around the block. We also work on training through the the day and she gets her meals in puzzles.

I know she's going to require a lot of attention. I have no problem with that. My question was is she getting enough. We did just start a puppy play group and she had her first today. It was set up by our trainer and Ellie has a little lab she loves playing with. 

She's a very good puppy and is on a pretty good schedule. We have no issues with potty time, chewing, barking. I just want to make sure she's getting enough but not too much exercise.


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## 2cats1dog (Jun 3, 2015)

carolinehansen said:


> Omg she's gotten so big!


I know! She's more than doubled in size.


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## nolefan (Nov 6, 2009)

2cats1dog said:


> She gets a 40 min walk, 20-30 minutes of fetch or other games, and another 30 min walk. And a few 10 minute toy breaks through tout the day. We definitely are not just walking her around the block. We also work on training through the the day and she gets her meals in puzzles.
> 
> I know she's going to require a lot of attention. I have no problem with that. My question was is she getting enough. We did just start a puppy play group and she had her first today. It was set up by our trainer and Ellie has a little lab she loves playing with.
> 
> She's a very good puppy and is on a pretty good schedule. We have no issues with potty time, chewing, barking. I just want to make sure she's getting enough but not too much exercise.



This response sounds like you are quite certain that you are giving your puppy enough exercise. I'm not sure why you posted if you didn't want to hear different suggestions. In your original thread you said "sometimes she seems bored, but I have to get my work done." This gives the impression that you are wondering why she would be bored when you're giving her so much of your time. My answer was an attempt to explain why the same schedule that worked for her at three months might not be enough for her as she approaches the 6 month mark and beyond. Adjustments have to be made as they get older, to keep up with their energy levels.

Congratulations on the great job you're doing with your puppy.


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