How your Dogs' Daily schedule could work:
So having gone through getting your two puppies who are crated and have been to Puppy School and who are now starting to walk about two kms per day, what comes next.
Now you get up every day including Sunday, at 6a.m. and head off for a walk with the dogs. On week days they get breakfast when they get home and go in their outside kennel and run arrangement, unless it is very cold and wet in winter, when they go in the garage with their crate doors open.
Before you leave for work, you throw two 'kongs' in with them which you have stuffed with peanut butter or wet dog food or whatever or a mixture including cooked liver and they will spend several hours trying to lick them out. Kongs are quite large rubber/plastic dog toys that are hollow in the middle but they have a place where the dog's tongue can fit in there and lick. They are quite wonderful. Now you could have left them with a big juicy bone each... well I wouldn't. Even cannon bones, big and solid as they are, may be able to break off and stick in throats or jam on teeth.
You could have a toy box that you have several favourite toys in, you will then know when you get home that they have been playing with toys, as with all children, they get them out but seldom put them away.
You could also cut a large branch off a fruit tree and leave it in their enclosure. No small branchlets, just the trunky bit, they will chew on it for hours, it might stop them demolishing their bedding or their kennel or any other wooden parts of their run. It does have its dangers as they can chew bits off and swallow them, although this has not been my experience with fresh wood, they tend to just gnaw away at it. Do not use dry firewood or anything that can splinter.
I always advise all my friends that I have puppies and if they are throwing away towels, bedspreads, floor rugs or anything else mildly warm and cuddly, that I will take it over. I find that shredding the bed is a favourite pass time when I am away, so the bedding will get destroyed regularly to the point where it is dragged from the sleeping space, chewed, torn and ends up mixed up with the day's poos and piddles and basically is just going in the rubbish by the time I get home.
This is 'normal' dog behavior even if it is a pain. Until a dog is about three I would never buy a designer dog sleeping arrangement for it, as I say above shred the bed is jolly good fun.
So while I am out there earning money to pay the vet bills and buy quality dog food the dogs have sucked on their Kongs for about an hour and maybe gone back to it for a bit more time, chewed on the tree, pulled all their toys out of the box , played tug with the bedding and slept about three hours - so I can account for about six hours of activity. By the time I get home they will have been waiting one or two hours for that event.
This is the moment, Ma and/or Pa are home. Good idea, I am going to make them wait another ten minutes while I rush in and change into my dog clothes. I am also going to put my garden gloves on. I will pick up my throw toys on the way into the back yard, open the gate to the run and throw the toys into the yard, they will run out manically and jump at me and bark at me and play - no matter what I do, this is the most exciting moment of their day and I just have to wear it. I really try not to wind them up. But I throw the tennis ball and kick the soccer ball and in a few minutes they wander off and have toilets and life settles down into the late afternoon/evening chores, in what passes for normal in a dog owning household. In summer it is nice to go for a short stroll with the dogs in the evening after dinner. In winter we tend to find things to do inside the house or the garage which are a bit of fun. I might like to do some heel work and sit and down stays, just to make them feel like they are working and important. Some time during this precious evening I need to get that outside kennelling system cleaned out, sometimes in winter, by torchlight, refresh the beds, put all the toys back in the box, check the water supply, check the tree trunk and wash out or clean up the doggy do.
Because you want your dog to maximise it's potential you attend a Dog Training Group. This will help your dog to use it's abundant brain and a bit of brawn as well. You do not need to want to compete at top levels to enjoy tracking, sledding, agility, obedience, or any of the wonderful sports available to you in most cities. Just go for the fun of it, enjoy the sociability of being a Dog Sporting Club member, don't think of your dog as a genius, just go along and do your best. It is important for you to enjoy your dog's sense of humour and over a period of two years you will be surprised how bright your dog is and how quickly he learns.
You have now dealt with your dogs' security, exercise, intellectual needs, veterinary needs, diet needs and have owned your dog for about three years. This is when it all falls into place, the dogs have settled into their routine, they love rides in the car, they love walks, they ignore visitors to the house and don't climb on them or try to eat them, they even enjoy going to the Kennels when you go away, and are happy to get home at the end of it, as you are. They understand a lot of words, and can do some work for you like carrying in the mail and/or the newspaper, fetching wood from the shed to fill the wood basket, retrieving things from the yard back to the house, tools etc. They enjoy going to Dog Training and are into Flygility and Agility which you attend a couple of times a month just for the fun of it.
They are your friends and companions and other people comment on how well and happy they look and how well behaved they are, and you know all the troubles were worth it, and by the time they are old and grey you will not remember the puppy misdemeanours or the hours of sleeplessness as new puppy howled in the laundry on his own. They will just be one of the most exquisite experiences of your life, and very possibly when this generation pass on you will do it all over again.
Raewyn Saville 28th August 2012
