Single and raising a pup? - Page 4

If I had to work 12 hours and be away from my dogs, I would go insane. I may be fortunate to be able to take a dog with me.

Have you thought of dog daycare and/or hiring a pet sitter? You might even be able to use a combination of the two. The pet sitter could pick up your dog from daycare, bring it home, and later take it out for a half hour or so.

The advice to get an older pup (or young adult) in this situation might be a wise one. Do you work more than 3 or 4 days per week at 12 hours?

I worked 4 days a week 10 hour shifts.  But, I had an hour drive to work each day so I was gone for 12 hours.  I lived alone on a farm and had nobody that could let my dog out.  She was almost 4 months when I brought her home.  I cleaned up quite a few accidents, and housebreaking took longer than it normally should, but everything worked out alright for me.  There were some days that I could take her to work with me and some days she went to daycare, but not everyday, maybe once a week.  When I came home from work, we would go outside and take a walk and play ball, in the house we would play with soft toys (or chase cats...)  The days that I was home, we were outside a lot.  I also enrolled in obedience classes, so we had at least 1 night a week of going out and socializing, as it is not very easy to socialize in the middle of nowhere.

You guys crack me up. Its a dog, not a child. Do you think all the top people in the sport stay home all day with their puppies? Hell no. They leave them in the kennel most of the time, just make sure the pup gets quality one-on-one time for an hour or so every day, more on weekends, and club days. I rotate mine through the house at night, let pups sleep in their crates in the bedroom, housebreak... When I was working 12-15 hrs a day, 5 days a week, my dogs were fine. Its QUALITY time more than quantity. Puppies sleep a lot anyway. Put it in a kennel next to the old dog for company instead of together in the same run. 

Sheesh...
SS

Thanks Shelley, LOL!

Your welcome.
:-D
SS

Here is what I think it boils down to:   If you really want to do it right, you can.  Many of us have raised happy well adjusted working line GSDs while working.  The thing is, you have to be 100% committed.  I think someone else already mentioned you can't be  going out for a drink after work and other "extra curicular activities", you can pretty much kiss goodbye  the kind of partying and socializing most normal single people do.  Of course for most of us, this was not difficult....but many of us really aren't very "normal" anyways!

The thing is, most of us here do not know you, or what your level of commitment really is.  Most people when faced with what schutzhund training really entails end up dropping out.  They don't want to go tracking at dawn 3 or 4 days a week.  They don't want to go to club at least twice a week and watch dogs work until past midnight while they freeze their asses off.   They have better things to do as far as they are concerned, and that's fine, it's not for everyone.

Just like a high drive dog isn't for everyone either.  Some people are really tired when they come home from work.  The last thing in the world they want is a dog bouncing off the walls saying "LETS GO LETS GO LETS GO!!!!!!" day after day after day. 

So what happens to the dog if a person decides schutzhund is too much work and the dog is just too intense?  This is why the last line in my original post was JUST BE SURE.

I do still feel 12 hours is too long alone for a little pup.  If you can come home at lunch that would be great.  If he is going to be in a run outdoors, put him next to the adult dog, like Shelley and others suggested.  Personally I would not be comfortable paying someone to take my dog for a walk and I would not take my dog to a doggy day care.  I am too much a control freak especially when it comes to training my own dogs!

Travel time ( now I get the name ), alot of good answers to give you something to think about!



Ronnie, has your girlfriend tried Vagisil?  She might want to, and then you can find a nicer, kinder, less embarrassing name to call her.

I have raised 6/7 of my dogs alone. Caleb had a father figure for about 8 mos., but the rest are mine, all mine.  I work minimum 8 hours per day, and have gone through many periods of time where I worked 12. I have done it lots of different ways. I used my lunch break to let them out for a while.  Really, though, to be totally honest, I noticed zero difference in my dogs from the times I worked as a Realtor and had them with me to when I worked 12 hours per day. It's all about making the commitment to do the right thing for your dogs. You don't roll out of bed at 8 to get to work by 9. You get up at 5, spend 3 hours working with the dogs, then you go to work, come home, and spend another 2-3 hours w/the ones you may have neglected in the morning. I have 7, so I'm sure with only 2, it could certainly be done. I have no cable, no internet at home, and I do literally not much else besides hang out w/my dogs.

It can be done, but not by normal people.

They don't want to go tracking at dawn 3 or 4 days a week.

Me neither! My dogs track when I feel like tracking, which is rarely before about 9am even in summer, usually a lot later. LOL

Pay someone to talk my only pup for a walk? That's a pleasure I prefer to hold for myself! I don't trust many people to do what I want done, do instinctively with my young dogs anyway.

SS