kirst_goldens Posted January 30, 2011 Share Posted January 30, 2011 Hey all I have a golden puppy coming soon and she will be crate trainedand an indoor doggy of course... My pickle is when she is very young i dont wnat to leave her outside alone whilst im at work - my longest shift is 5 hrs... I am taking time off work to settle her... then later on i am hoping she will come to work with me.. So... Do i give her a play pen in the yard? i worry about shade and what not? Or do i crate her inside... is 5 hrs too long for a young puppy? I have no idea what to do lol ANy ideas? what have u guys done in the past that has or hasent worked?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Red Fox Posted January 30, 2011 Share Posted January 30, 2011 Puppy pen inside with a tarp underneath if you have carpet. Or gate off a room (kitchen/laundry/bathroom)? 5 hours isn't that long and you could leave some food toys to keep her busy. Not sure where you are but I'd be worried about the heat when leaving a puppy outside at the moment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Naomi Posted January 30, 2011 Share Posted January 30, 2011 I can't give you any advice because I'm wondering the same thing myself. I plan for my pup to be an inside/outside dog. Inside while we are home and outside while we are away. I know that I need to treat the pup with this mindset from day one. So I will be using the crate for sleeping at night time to help with toilet training and while we are away I will have it outside in a dog pen with a kennel and a shade cloth or shade sail of some sort. Also plan to leave it with a Kong or similar toy to keep it busy while we are away. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gayle. Posted January 30, 2011 Share Posted January 30, 2011 (edited) With puppy number one, he was a big robust boy and the weather was mild when we first got him so he went in the backyard with our old Lhasa Apso. With puppy number two, we fenced off a section of the backyard which contained a shady tree, added a kennel, toys, water bowl and she went in there. She could interact with the other dogs through the fence but was safe from harm as she was tiny and Benson was huge. With puppy number three, we had moved to a rural property with loads of space. For the first few weeks, we sectioned off the tiled entrance to the house and the long hallway and he stayed in there with a crate (door tied open), toys, water, food. He stayed there for 8-10 hours a day and he was fine. Once he could hold his own with the big dogs he was turfed outside too. He could see out the glass front door down the driveway, and could also see into the backyard and the other dogs area through a bay window. ETA: they all grew up just fine and none of them have issues about being left outside when we go somewhere, or suffer from any separation anxiety. Edited January 30, 2011 by GayleK Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scarlett Dog Posted January 30, 2011 Share Posted January 30, 2011 We are fortunate to have a large deck and outside laundry. Depending on the weather we have section of a small part of our yard that connects to the deck/laundry. That way she has somewhere to toilet or lay in the sun but plenty of shade/shelter. We just made sure there's no where to get stuck or hurt herself and no icky plants or anything like that. We spent the few weeks getting her used to the area and spending more and more time out there by herself. She's only home alone for 5 hours and even when she has access to the house she still likes being in her own area. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Baileys mum Posted January 30, 2011 Share Posted January 30, 2011 With the puppies I've had, if we had to leave them, we attached a puppy play pen to their crate & set it up in our family room. We got cheap lino from bunnings to line the play pen to protect our floor, put food, water & toys in the pen & some news paper or wee pad in the corner of the pen in case they have to go to the toilet. We always make sure the puppy has a nice long play before leaving them & find that they sleep for alot of the time any way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sas Posted January 31, 2011 Share Posted January 31, 2011 We have coverted our spare room into a puppy room, thankfully it has wooden floors and air con and we just use a baby gate. We have used playpens before with Lino or a tarp under them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tilly Posted January 31, 2011 Share Posted January 31, 2011 (edited) 5 hours isn't too long if the puppy can hold that long. My GSD puppy was going about every 4 hours initially so it was about 9-10 weeks before he could sleep the night through without needing toileting. When he went outside during the day (when I returned to work) I provided extra shade on his side of the yard by securing a tarp over the top of the clothes line. He has a securely fenced grass area, about 5 different water supplies/containers, kennel and the extra shade from the tarp ... plus a range of toys that I changed daily. Edited January 31, 2011 by Tilly Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
whiskedaway Posted January 31, 2011 Share Posted January 31, 2011 We got Akira in May, so it was getting cooler. She was put outside when we were at work. She's always preferred being outside to inside though. Halo now has a puppy pen inside the house on the lino, with a piece of artificial grass and a towel underneath for toileting. Today was her first day by herself (five hours) and I just received a phone call from the OH saying that she'd broken out of the puppy pen while he was out. When she's big enough to hold her own with Akira, she'll go outside during the day as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
erinonthefarm Posted January 31, 2011 Share Posted January 31, 2011 I think five hours in the middle of the day would not be terrible, my puppy is 4 months and asleep on and off between 9am and 3pm and doesn't do much when he does wake up. Before and after that he has hypo episodes and would go destructo if I left him alone then. My last dog as a puppy was left in the laundry while I went to work for a couple of hours and did take longer to toilet train than my new boy, but she seemed reasonably happy and didn't totally destroy things. A good food stuffed chew toy or a bone will keep puppy busy for a while and I'm sure they will just chill the rest of the time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deltoid Posted January 31, 2011 Share Posted January 31, 2011 (edited) We have a 9wk old Silky puppy. We created a playpen for him in a corner of our dining room. We bought some cheap lino from bunnings ($12/m) and some steel fencing. We then zip tied the fencing together. Works great. If puppy has an accident we just wipe it off the lino (we have wood floors but didn't want anything getting in the cracks). The main thing is to get your puppy comfortable in the pen and happy to be in there. If he cries while he is in there ignore him. Feed him in there, give him some treats in there, make him think it is a great place to be. Lock him in the pen for different lengths of time both when you are at home and when you have to go out (start with short times and lengthen). Our little guy has settled into his pen really well. 99% of the time he doesn't cry when we put him in there and is calm 99% of the time when we let him out. Both my wife and I were gone for 9 hours one day last week for work. Being the first day we were going to leave him on his own I setup a webcam so I could watch him from work. He slept the first 6 hours (I was really surprised how long he slept considering he'd just slept all night already). Then he played for a couple of hours. Then fretting/trying to get out for 30 minutes. Then spent the remaining time between sleeping and playing. He did renovate his pen though moving his bed around and all his toys. Edited January 31, 2011 by deltoid Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kirst_goldens Posted January 31, 2011 Author Share Posted January 31, 2011 thanks for all the tips guys SHe is coming home in the first week of May most likely so should be too hot, but i wasnt planning on her staying outside all day tillshe is a big bigger, i think i will go the play pena nd crate inside for a little while - WIll it effect her toilet training if she has an accident or 2 while im out? i dont want it to become a habit as i wil probs get a ccrate pen for while we are at shows and i dont want her to use it as a toilet :S Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deltoid Posted January 31, 2011 Share Posted January 31, 2011 WIll it effect her toilet training if she has an accident or 2 while im out? i dont want it to become a habit as i wil probs get a ccrate pen for while we are at shows and i dont want her to use it as a toilet :S Our little guy either holds it or only goes on his puppy pads when he is in his play pen. However, when he is just wandering around the house with us (even though he has access to his pen and puppy pads) he seems to just go whereever he wants. We take him out every hour but yeah, he seems to think our whole house is his toilet. I don't think the toilet problem is related to the puppy pen though, I think he just doesn't realise he shouldn't be going in the house. As promised, here is a picture of his play pen. He is all tuckered out from playing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kirst_goldens Posted January 31, 2011 Author Share Posted January 31, 2011 naw so tiny!! thats like what i was thinking of setting up but i have a sun room i could set up and section off for her and put lino on the floor Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deltoid Posted January 31, 2011 Share Posted January 31, 2011 naw so tiny!! thats like what i was thinking of setting up but i have a sun room i could set up and section off for her and put lino on the floor The lino is really good, we were using newspaper at first however the puppy was getting confused about where he should be going to the toilet. We put down the lino and a puppy pad and he uses the pad everytime now. It was cheap too. We bought 1.5m at $12/m. We just give it a wipe down every couple of days. We actually used tomato tressles for the fencing (the steel mesh and/or chicken wire looked a bit too ugly to go in our dining room). However, last night while at a pet shop I saw this nice black steel fencing they have for these play-pens. It'd do the job very well. I have only seen it at one pet shop though so might need to look around. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kirst_goldens Posted February 3, 2011 Author Share Posted February 3, 2011 yeh i think il get the bunnings compost bins wire pen... if she si a jumper ill put a lid on it but she should be fine for a few weeks at least... they look good and i have heard all good stories from them Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Katie P Posted February 3, 2011 Share Posted February 3, 2011 With Chase, we got a doggy flap and built a dog pen which connects to the house outside. That way he has access to inside and out. We therefore never had to worry about him having accidents as he was acustomed to going in and out of the flap from day one. He has the option of lying on the grass under the trees in the shade or the cool laundry tiles for hot days. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
parrotpea Posted February 3, 2011 Share Posted February 3, 2011 yeh i think il get the bunnings compost bins wire pen... if she si a jumper ill put a lid on it but she should be fine for a few weeks at least... they look good and i have heard all good stories from them I heard those bunnings ones were good too - but start looking for them now, I couldn't get any for Ruby as they were out of stock, and they didn't know when more would arrive. I ended up getting a vebopet one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stonecutter Posted February 3, 2011 Share Posted February 3, 2011 With Chase, we got a doggy flap and built a dog pen which connects to the house outside. That way he has access to inside and out. We therefore never had to worry about him having accidents as he was acustomed to going in and out of the flap from day one. I was wondering how hard it would be to train a pup to use a dog door - good to read it's doable. We'll be doing the same - crate and closed laundry and doggy door to the side of our yard which is mostly granite path but will include a 2m2 grass area and a bark section we'll try for toilet training. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kirst_goldens Posted February 3, 2011 Author Share Posted February 3, 2011 i would love to do a doggy door but i have an indoors only cat who will be out it like a flash! so until i can sort out if i can run the doggy door into the cat run and they can share or something similar she has to be out or in not both! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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