Hello *waves* I have just got a 9 week olf GSD pup and was wondering how long you should leave it before you can go out to the shops? Delta whines quite a bit even when Im in the house in another room so I am quite concerned what she will be like when I do decided to pop to the shops which would take me about 10mins max. She sleeps in my bedroom at the side of the bed and is quiet at night but it's during the day that I am concerned about.I have had her for a week and I know thats not a long time but I really dont know when the best time would be to start leaveing her just to pop to the shops
If anyone could advise Id be very thankful
Mistik :0)

Hi! I have left my new pups for up to half an hour at that stage (ideally when they're napping anyway!) so you shouldn't have problems. It's important they learn to be alone for short periods to avoid problems later on. Good luck!

Start now otherwise you will have problems later.  I found leaving in another room a good start, but instead of closing the door invest in a stair gate they are brilliant as the dog can still see and hear what is gong on.

I very much believe in starting the way you intend to go. A trip to  the shops is one of the essentials of life and something all dogs have to put up with. However much we want we can never not leave our dogs on occasions and just like anything else it needs to be trained. Short trips outside to the dustbin of some 10 seconds. Longer trips outside to hang washing on the line, 2 minutes. Still longer is the trip to the corner shop, 5 minutes. Leading up to a trip to ASDA, 30 minutes and a trip to the town, 1 hour.

By the same token, I am not quiet when a puppy is sleeping. Normal household noises are "Normal" and the sooner a puppy gets use to them the better its chances of taking other occurrences in it's stride. It is yet another facet of socialising, getting use to all things it will come against during its life.

Regards, John

LOL @ John.... I'm glad that your trip to ASDA is 30 mins....it takes that long to get in the car park at ours! :D
I agree with all posts, start leaving pup alone for slightly longer times, and do it frequently.

It's the Labrador in the TESCO carrier bag that does it Pinklilies, any longer and she falls through the bottom! ;)

Ah this saves me starting a new thread!

Millie will be a year old next week, and as I work from home she has me around all the time.  However I now need to go back out to work, until July at least as we've just booked our wedding and I need to get some spongoolies.  I have been investigating petsitters and can only find one in my area - and she only does holiday petsitting - she was interested in the possibility of a full-time every day petsitting, but as she doesn't already do this, it makes me nervous of her comittment (and I'd want someone who was fully committed - no changing their mind after a couple of weeks) and also she has regular bookings planned in the future when she won't be available for when regular customers have holidays booked.

I have managed to find just one dogwalker who is available in three week's time, she lives in another town but is still fairly local to me and would be willing to travel for an extra pound petrol money is fine - however she says she comes around lunchtime, probably about 12 or 12.30 and would take Millie for half an hour (or sit with her for half an hour if the weather was bad, but would make sure Millie got a full half hour attention from her each day).  She sounds a lot more dedicated and sorted out, but if I went full-time, especially if I went up to London to work, that half an hour in the day wouldn't be enough as I would potentially be out from 8am to 6.30pm.

My other option is to just get a local part-time job - but any job is going to be a four hour minimum plus travelling each day, plus the time it takes to actually get out of work as we all know what that's like when you're just about to leave for the day!  Now I know most people say 4 hours is fine, but my problem is that Millie has always had me around all day every day - except on Sundays when we do the food shopping and maybe once a week if I go into town for an hour.  I know the rule should be start as you mean to go on, and everyone advised me to go out regularly each day to get her used to it - but I had nowhere to go - I couldn't wander the streets for four hours each day just to get the dog used to it, plus as I work from home I wouldn't have earnt much money that way.  And my theory was that I didn't get a dog, to go out and leave her every day, I got a dog to spend time with at home, because I was at home.  However I didn't foresee the wedding (well I've been waiting 10 years for him to finally agree!) and I didn't foresee that my working from home job would pay so badly!

But I need to make a decision and I need to make it fast.  I've seen a couple of jobs in London, working just Thursday and Friday for an extortionate amount of money (but I'm not complaining!) which would be brilliant as two days at the petsitter would be better and I could still work from home Mon-Wed.  However there's a good chance that I could still be sitting here in July waiting to get one of those so I either need to take a normal full-time job in London that pays enough to afford a pet-sitter, or a local part-time job that doesn't pay enough for a petsitter and leave Millie at home.  How well do you think she would cope with the change from having me here all day every day to suddenly having me gone for four hours a day every day.  Or there's also the possibility of a full-time job in London where I would be gone for ten and a half hours a day with a dog walker coming in for half an hour.  I know a LOT of people do this and it works fine and its a possibility for the future but I can't imagine that it would possibly be enough now for Millie who is used to having me here all day every day.

Please help!  I need to get a job fast, my mum keeps ringing me every day with more people she's added!! (Lol i know the answer to the problem here is to deal with my mum, not the dog! But realistically my OH can't pay for the wedding by himself and I do need to make an effort to get out there and find work as I only brought in £300 last month and at this rate I can't even afford to pay the bills!).  But I can't even begin to search for a job until I'm clear in my head what I'm doing about Millie.

Any advice greatly welcomed!

PS I don't know any of my neighbours, except those that are also out all day, but even so, I don't know any of them well enough to trust with my dog, and I have no family living in the borough.

Hi Jess

I'm afraid I can't offer much advice but I was wondering which borough you live in, as I may know of pet-sitters and we have a list of them at work that I could pass on to you.

There are lots of people on here with far more dog experience than me, so they are probably in a better position to advise you but I would have thought that as Millie is now a year leaving her for 4-5 hours wouldn't be unmanageable.  I'm sure it would take a bit of time for her to adjust but it's not like leaving a tiny puppy.  You could invest in lots of Kongs, Buster cubes etc to help keep her entertained during your absence.  I realise this isn't the same as human company but it could help.

I think leaving her all day with only an hour's visit from a petsitter would be more of a wrench - lots of people do this but IMHO it is too long to leave a dog, especially if she is used to having you around all the time.  However if you had to do this, then Millie may well get used to it, but I know of some owners whose circumstances have changed much like yours have and they have had problems with their dogs becoming destructive, etc.

I hope you find a solution, best of luck to you both.

Mary-Caroline

extra thought - Highly unlikely but I don't suppose you could find a job where you could take her with you?  This is what I do with my pup and it works very well but I realise that being a vet nurse is an advantage there!  Still, thought it was worth mentioning.

That would be the ideal job!  I did actually see an admin job advertised a while ago in my vets and it did cross my mind that if I could take Millie too it would be perfect - but told myself I was being silly, nobody is allowed to take their dog to work anymore! 

I live in Gravesend, so I don't know if that will be on your list of petsitters - seems I'm the only person in the world to live in Gravesend!

I saw a job last night at the local council which was full-time but is only ten minutes away and I could have the dog-walker come in at lunchtime, although its near enough for me myself to come home for 40 minutes, or a job at the local college up the road which is just afternoons which would be better.

I think you're right though - she will learn to cope and it will probably only be for 6 months anyway.  We went to go out this morning to the bank and I planned to put Millie in the car as normal and I stopped myself and decided she would stay home - because she's ickle, we tend to take her everywhere - visiting friends, errands etc (one of us waits in the car with her) and the only place we don't take her is food shopping obviously - but I need to start as I mean to go on so I am determined that from now on she will be left whenever we pop out (even if she does bark at me like she did when I closed the door this morning!). But instead of our usual practice of taking her everywhere, I need to get in the habit of not taking her anywhere unless it concerns her (ie dogwalking) so that she gets more and more used to being left.  Thanks for your tips Mary-Caroline!

You could start a business pet-sitting in your local area!  If there aren't many then there is clearly a need and what a lovely job that would be working with dogs all day, and a bit of socialising for Millie!

Hi There

I have a 13 week old westie puppy and I have a pet sitter that comes in, in the afternoon for a hour a day to keep Mitzi company and take out for a short walk....I Live in Eltham south east London and I search for a while trying to find a pet sitter...I managed to find someone from the local paper but also my vets had adverts and the local pet shop for pet sitters.....Its such a piece of mind that I no that when Im at work someone will pop in and keep her company and she is not on her own.

I was at home with Mitzi for 3 weeks when we first got her and it was so hard to leave her when I eventually had to return to work...now she is only left on her own for 2 hours max and this is her rest time...

Good luck in finding a pet sitter!!

Suzie

And I thought you were a class act John....ASDA??

Got to get me toilet rolls to chuck at Wycombe Wanderers matches from somewhere Chris. ;)

hi i've had monty (GSP) since he was 8 weeks (he's now 3 months-nearly 4) and even though we can take him out now, we still sometimes have to leave him. We usualy wait till he's asleep or very tired and we're never more than 1 hour. BUt at this early stage, try not to be long at all. 10 mins is fine! Good luck with Delta! Phoebe

Just out of interest, people who do have to leave their dogs for a couple of hours or slightly longer, if your dog needed to go to the loo and was in the house, where would you expect him to go?  Would you leave newspaper down or just hope he can hold on til you get back?  I'm not critising, I'm just curious as obviously there are times when you might only intend to be out for a couple of hours, but delays in supermarkets or traffic build-ups etc may cause you to be longer.  Like I said, just curious.

Very rare occurence in our house - but on the odd occasion when it happens, the culprit picks the furthest spot in the kitchen from their bed :) Mine wouldn't know what to do with newspaper if I left it down :) It's only ever happened a couple of times - always during the night. Mine are confined to the kitchen during the night or if no-one is home - the floor is tiled so it's not a problem :)

Daisy

It's usually the result of over indulgence of a bone :D

I think once your dog is fully grown, you know exactly how long they can hold it for. A couple of hours is no problem, and Dylan will quite happily go for 8 or more (his choice!) when I'm home and the liklihood of me leaving him alone for 8 hours is very very slim/nonexistant

Although I've not been working since we brought Reggie home a month ago (he was 11 weeks when we got him), I intend to be working part time again asap so I have made a point of leaving him alone each day for varied amounts of time.
I have to take & collect my son to & from school, which takes about 20 mins, I usually go shopping in town once a week & am gone for a couple of hours. I feel really mean leaving him, especially when I nip somewhere that he could come too, but I do feel that it will make life much easier for me & happier for him later on when I don't have the choice!
I always make sure he's confined to one room - dinning room - which is quite big so he can charge around if he decides he wants to, I leave him some toys which he can play with himself - he loves to throw balls in the air then chase them, & I also leave him with some of his usual food in one of those balls which dispences it as he pushes it around. Of course he has his cosy bed too!
As he's not 100% house-trained yet, if he does occasionally need to do his business while I'm out, he'll go right by the back door (I have tiled floor there), but that is only very occasionally!
Like everyone else has said, I think that your baby will adjust fine if you build up gradually & make his environment as fun as possible when you are gone - try saving the his favourites for when you go!
Oh yes- I also found that a radio on just below normal speaking volume seems to soothe him too!
Good Luck!
Dee.xxx

I only have the experience of my one dog, but when we brought her home as a puppy, we didn't go out of our way to time how long we left her or anything.  I HAD to take my children to school everyday (always longer than 30 minutes and sometimes if I went to the shop, much more).  Also, I am lucky enough to be at home most of the day, but if I needed or wanted to go out, I did, sometimes for a couple of hours.  Saffy was always in her crate at these times and I believe that made her feel secure.  If I was at home, she would sleep most of the time until my children  came home anyway, so I don't think she really cared. 

She has NEVER pined or barked and now she is not in a crate any longer, she still sleeps the whole time we are out, however long that is.  She also never goes to the toilet in the house, however long she is left.  We once were out unavoidably for about 10 hours (never would do that intentionally) and she still had not been to the toilet (poor thing).  I think because she only sleeps while we are out, she doesn't go to the toilet.  She is an unbelievably relaxed and laid back dog and has fitted in with our lifestyle and any changes to it extremely well, I don't know if that is because of how we treated her or because we are very lucky!  Even as a tiny pup though she took everything in her stride, so that certainly made things very easy for us.

I personally believe that the more fuss you make over something, the harder it becomes for all involved (I found this with my children also!)  If you just get on and do things, they are often easier - however, like I say, I may just be very lucky and may live to eat my words if I ever get another dog!

Fiona

I totally agree. No need to throw them in at the deep end, but the sooner they get used to normal life the better. Even though I am home a fair bit at the moment I always leave them alone for a couple of hours or so while I'm in the house, just peeking at them every now and then to make sure they're not up to no good, and keeping an ear out in case the puppy needs to go out. While I'm out the puppy is usually in her crate, but leaving her to her own devices when I am home means I'm more likely to leave her out if I'm only gone for a short while. Hopefully I won't need to shut her in her crate at all soon and so far I've had no accidents. This is sort of the best of both worlds, as she's learning how to behave out of the crate, but is also happy to be in her crate if necessary.

I could not agree more with you Fiona, I am a new lab puppy owner she is now 18wks and we have has her since she was 7wks and apart from a few sleepless nights she is getting on fine, before her I had adopted an 8yr lab which sadly passed away at 14yrs last year and she was a wonderful dog and like your dog she adapted to my lifestyle and home life very quickly and she was never overly fussed over but was very loved by all the family, but since pups arrival I have been bombarded with information that is both confusing and at times very much conflicting and has made me unneccessarly nervous about her upbringing, it seemed so natural with my older dog.  Like yourself we are very much letting new pup fit into our lifestyle and so far she has done really well and apart from the normal puppy behaviour she will grow into a

I cannot agree more with you Fiona, we have just got a new lab pup 11wks ago now she is now 18wks old, we are new to puppyhood but not dogs I used to adopt older dogs and like your own they all fitted in to our lifestyle and home life at there own pace and were never overly fussed over but were very much loved by all the family, but since pup arrived I have been bombarded with information ranging from useful to downright conflicting, I have read puppy books that conflict each other, my pup gets left (10mins one book said) get real maybe when there are first brought home but not at 4mnths, you cannot be penalised for having a puppy because you have to leave it for more that 10 mins from the start of it life, they have to learn.

My pup like your own has a laid back attitude and stays happily in the house sleeping when Im out (which is no more than 2/3hrs) at a time and when she does come with me in the car she sleeps on the back seat till I return.  I agree if you make a big fuss and try for the text book puppy you are making life very difficult.  I may live to regret this when she is 1year and running rings round me!!!

Would agree with other posts. Start as you mean to go on. If you leave a treat you'll find they just go to the 'treat bin' when they know you're going out, and usher you to the door! My GSD has to be left part of the week until between 2-3pm. She accepts that it is part of her routine, and we've had no problems with it at all.
K

Have just started a new job meaning Meg (now 8 months) has to be left for almost 4 hours each morning I was feeling BAD - so good to read how others are feeling!
She was crate trained from 10 weeks and has always been left for short periods in her crate (10 mins on school run to begin with building to 2 hours for shopping trips - unfortunately No Asda - only Tesco!)
My main concern with the 4 hours was the crate - She's a big girl now (Lab) and although the crate is a big one, 4 hours felt to long.  So, when I started the Job last week, I rearranged the hall so that she had her crate and about a 5 x 3 foot section of hall that she could go into, with nothing to chew but the skirting / doormat.  I put plenty of toys in and a water bowl and felt happy that if she needed to pee, then she had somewhere other than her bed where she could go.
I have now worked 3 mornings and each lunch time I have come back to find every toy in the same place it was left, not a drop of water touched, and Meg curled happy in her crate having not put a paw outside it! Each day she has lifted her head when I returned and looked at me with eyes that say "oh - do I really have to get up now!"
As I am working in a school, I am a little worried how she will be after school holidays when both I and kids will have been at home a lot more. I think I will just try & keep a similar routine and take kids out without dog each morning.

I think 4 hours is fine, certainly now she has some more area to stretch her legs.  I would imagine after the school hols she will be glad to get back to her 4 hour naps :)

Thanks Isabel - I do hope to increase the area she has, but will take it slow. Eventually she can have the hall and kitchen, but not until I know my cupboards will be safe from her teeth!

You must start getting your puppy used to you not being around all the time as you never know what the future holds.  I have 4 dogs (one is 10 weeks old) and I work full time (from 8.30 till 4.00 most days).  My dogs are in a routine, they know when I get up we go over the field for 1/2 an hour.  They have their breakfast and I go to work.  When I get home the first thing I do is take them out over the field.  The puppy is homebred and has also adjusted to the routine.  He is clean most days and nights with only the very rare accident.  My dogs are kept in the house and have the kitchen, dining room and 20ft conservatory to themselves.  They never bark or whine and are not destructive.  I know a lot of people that do not feel it is right to leave dogs for this length of time but my dogs are happy and healthy and very much loved.  It also has them ready for unforeseen circumstances like when our son was in hospital for a week - we would pop home to take the dogs out and feed them and then return to the hospital knowing our dogs were settled at home.   On the other hand my mother had a dog which she used to take most places apart from food shopping and it would howl from the minute she left home to when she returned - but this was because she did not get is used to being left on its own.  I have found with puppies that leaving a radio or tv on does help along with lots of toys and a good chew.