Labradors grow up to be big dogs, who require a good amount of exercise and stimulation. When they are puppies housetraining is a real, but necessary, chore. A puppy needs to go after every meal and inbetween times, quite often during the night too. So count on as much as two toilet visits an hour in the early days! Once they get some bladder control, it does get easier but at the very least your dog will have to have to go out several times a day to toilet as well as to walk. You are going to find yourself trapsing back and forth to that garden all day long in the early days and going forward This is hard work and you will have to be prepared to stick with it, in all weathers too!
Is the garden yours? If it's communual you might find that others take offence to a dog hogging it for himself. Plus you are going to have to be very careful to pick up and properly dispose of all his poo.
If you don't own the flat, and you may well do, is your landlord (if you've got one), OK with a dog in the flat?
Could you carry your pup down the stairs for its early months?
Can you cope with going up and down to the garden at all times of day and usually once/twice in the night to start off with ?
You don't have direct access to the garden but is it really close?
Luna spent a few weeks living in a first floor flat with me when about 3-4months old. It wasn't easy. We had a terrace which fortunately she saw as 'toilet' area at night. The floors/stairs were all tiled, there was a lift and she was a little light pup so it was easy to carry her downstairs long into her 2nd year (stairs too slippy and steep once in house). She needed to go out every couple of hours and sometimes the journey down to the street (had no garden) was a long way for a little bladder. I used to have poop bags and lots of kitchen roll stuffed in my pocket so that any accidents could be mopped up immediately. I don't think toilet training was any harder during this period than when we moved into a house with direct access into garden....
Have you thought about looking at a rescue dog that is already house trained and older so can cope with stairs without causing joint worries? Tucker (my rescue) would've been fine in the situation you describe. (But you can't have him! )
Some would say yes you are, but it really has to be up to you, are you prepared for the hard work that will be involved in getting the pup and and down the stairs to and from the flat?
To begin with this will be at least every 30 minutes, also, when the pup wakes from a nap, 15 mins after a meal, after a play session, you`ll feel like your spending most of your life in the garden!.
If you can cope with all of that plus the training and so on that the pup will need then go for it.
The idea is to get the pup out before it starts to pee in the house/flat, it will usually stop when picked up though, trouble may be it won`t finish what its started once moved outside.
As said at night the pup will need to be taken out too as when very young they can`t hold it for too long, this time of year isn`t the best for standing out in the early hours of the morning in the freezing cold, pleading with your pup to "go pee"
A LOT of very hard work involved but the rewards at the end are well worth it if your prepared to put the hard work in
Tucker is going through the KC badges too! He's only 16months old now (had him for 3months) and came to me only knowing SIT! I'm hoping he'll be ok to do his Bronze test the next time our club gets an examiner in!
I have to say that having had a pup and a rescue I am very much enjoying having the slightly older rescue this time around! I wanted a pup when we got Luna but think I will stick with the older rescues from now on. Tucker got started on obedience, agility, gundog training straight away and could join us on long walks straight away. Luna-pups training began from day 1 but the progress wasn't as quick as it is for Tucks!
Picking Luna up and carrying her when young made her less likely to pee but I did get pee'd on too sometimes!
It's great that you are home full-time and there are 2 of you to share the load... will both REALLY be happy to do night-shift!
Don't forget that some rescue labs can be very young... one of Tucker's pals Ellie found her forever home through a rescue at 6months old! Tucker was 4months old when he needed his first home through rescue!
It can be done, I don't doubt, but I personally wouldn't want to try house training a young pup if I had no immediate access to a garden or outside area. Even when they are older, they occasionally need to go out Loo really quickly, especially if they have an upset tum. Would you be happy to have vomit and diarrhea indoors, or possibly all down the stairs as you were trying to run the dog outside in the middle of the night...because s*d law says these things always strike in the middle of the coldest, wettest, windiest nights?
Have a read of this link.... http://www.labradorforums.co.uk/ftopict-36683-.html ...as this is a typical day when you have a puppy at home. This was a fairly easy pup too, with no complications or hang ups. She was clean day and night by 14 weeks old, but you must remember many pups take around 6 months to be totally clean and this will only be made worse if it has many accidents inside or if paper/puppy pads are used indoors.
Have you thought about homing an older pup, or a rescue....one that's already housetrained? As I think in your circumstances, that's the way I'd go. After all they are only cute little puppies for 5 minutes.
YES HB will be doing the nightshift too. He has promised.
Running out of free posts will sign up properly when the right dog comes through the door because however much I have read the books some things you just need others experience.
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