One month in with charlie

I wanted to share my one month experience with my 3.5 month old puppy. It has been a up and down but mainly up. Ive experienced the normal puppy stuff like barking and nipping.

My routine with her is get up 6/7am, immediately goes potty sometimes poop. She then self plays for a bit. I dont feed her until around 8am or an hour after shes up (mind you i dont feed her in the middle of the night). Also we go for a hallway run for 5 mins and then she gets fed. On the days I work i am out the house by 8am.

Pet sitter comes and visits for 1130 and stays for an hour and comes again at 330. Sometimes I only need one visit, sometimes I need two. Sometimes she comes and gets her ans takes her the entire day, it depends. I plan to get the doggy cam/feeder eventually to slowly stop using the sitter.

If I was off, charlie naps from around 9:30am – about 11/noon. So when im working from home shes generally sleeping by my feet. Now when she wakes up, she is full of energy, zoomies, barking on and off. She does settle. She has an evening burst of energy too right before bed..

Our bedtime routine starts around 7pm, dim lights, soothing music. Not engaging in overstimulating play. By 9pm, if im in bed, so is she. We sleep until around 3am sometimes waking up to let her potty once and then back to bed. I am so thankful for this part, she is a great sleeper and really instilling calm behavior/reactions right from the start i think has helped her.

Some people have posted about crate versus pen. Ive used both. She hated the crate and I feel its trauma from the breeder sadly so i ended up getting rid of it. Once I replaced the crate with a 4 panel play pen, decorated it and made it her room. She loves it. If I have to clean up and dont want her in the way, I can put her in and she is calm within minutes.. it was night and day with each.

I just wanted to share my experience because I know having a puppy is difficult but its completely doable if you have the right tools and support.. it is like having a baby right.