Hi all,
I'm looking for some sound advice here. I'll be getting a new dog in March, a female shih tzu, she'll be about 9 weeks old. I have never had a puppy before, my husband had dogs growing up and he has more experience with dogs than I do.
I plan on changing a lot about my day when the dog comes. I currently work 7-3:30, home by 5. I work remotely one day a week. My husband works 6-2, usually home by 3. I plan on changing my schedule for a while, at least while she's little, from 10-6. I'll leave just before 9 so she'll be home alone for about 6 hours. I am also taking 1 week to be home with her while she acclimates.
I know puppies need to eliminate often, so I plan to leave puppy pads and try that while we simultaneously housebreak her. I still think even with the schedule change, and the fact I'm home one day during the week, it's still not enough. I'm looking into doggy daycare, the one up the street won't take dogs younger than 18 weeks (give or take a few weeks depending on the dog). I'm kind of stuck as to what to do in the interim. My father-in-law is retired and offered to help and check in the middle of the day, but I don't want to rely on him too much. I looked into a dog walker as well, and those PetCube cameras just to keep tabs during the day.
My husband is not keen on daycare or a walker (just his dad visiting is fine with him). He views doggy daycares and dog walkers as a foofy first-world-problems sort of thing. He's of the mindset that "it's a dog, not a child", so it doesn't need the extra (extra) helicopter pet-parenting. His dogs were alone while his parents worked f/t out of the house, so he feels this dog should too. I feel like at least when the dog is little, she needs SOME sort of extra attention during the day or she'll get lonely and pee everywhere.
Am I overthinking this or just being extra paranoid? What did you all do, for those who have experience with puppies and namely small breeds?
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from Pets https://www.reddit.com/r/Pets/comments/akqix3/how_can_i_best_care_for_my_puppy_while/
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