My lab pup is 10 weeks old and I've had him for a week or so. In so many ways, I know I have it better than most: he sleeps all through the night, and we've only had one potty accident. He's an angel and I adore him, even with a recent advent of puppy blues that I'm pushing through.
I have a question regarding how to spend his awake time with him. I know that puppies sleep like 18-20 hours a day and need to have their naps enforced, lest they become overtired and zany. That's all fine, and although he whines when he gets sent to naptime, he actually naps great for 1-3 hours at a time, easy.
I'm just a little concerned about the waking hours. We have 4-6 blocks of 60-90 minutes where we do food, potty breaks, light training (mostly just name recognition, sit, and playing nice with his lead), and playtime/exercise/mental enrichment. And that's been going pretty well thus far.
But my concern is that we don't spend any time on being calm and nice quiet time during the day. And I know that sounds stupid… He's a puppy, he's GOING to be zany and want to play. But I just don't want it to be a situation where I was supposed to be starting him on getting used to normal routines and instead reinforce rambunctiousness during most of his waking hours in an effort to wear him out for his naps.
And, of course, conversely in worried about the opposite side, where I'm wrong to try and get him to settle during the day and am neglecting him by not playing/enriching him during our limited up-time.
So… Does anyone have calm awake time with their puppies? Is that something you're supposed to work on? Or do you just burn through the puppy energy chaos until they're old enough that they require less forced naps and you can work on calm time then?
submitted by /u/itchydaemon
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