When to start thinking about puppies

[Emily]

OK, OK calm down... We're not planning on a new puppy! Yet.

But, I have started thinking about when might be the right time to start thinking about the right time for another puppy.

Did you remain a one dog house and only get another pup after being Lab-less for a while?

Or did you get another pup when your dog decided they'd become a sensible grown up? (ha ha).

The pandemic has seen waiting lists blow out, prices sky-rocket and lots of new "breeders" in town. It's got me thinking about when I should start researching breeders and tentatively putting our name down for future years.

 

[Stacia]

I had my second dog when the first one died at 14 years old. When the second dog was a year, I had another!! Kept repeating dogs about 2 years apart. Am back to one, my very last one. 2 years apart seems ok.

 

[Natalie]

If you are going to have two dogs at the same time, my experience with Monty is not to leave it too late. Actually, Monty would probably have preferred being an only dog, though it's clear he sometimes enjoys Bear's company and they are often snuggled up together. Monty was six and a half when we had Bear, and now, with Monty at eight and Bear not yet two, the age gap is really apparent as Bear still is full on puppy / adolescent at times, and Monty is looking like an old dog - though I guess we have to take into account his bad joints. In ideal circumstances, we'd have had Bear at least a year earlier, maybe even two years. However the pandemic timing with OH being around a lot was also crucial, we'd never actually have had a puppy if we were both still out at work 4/5 days a week. I do think Bear has learnt a lot from Monty too, and is a more confident chap having grown up with a sensible adult dog.

 

[David]

Second dog about 8 months after our old girl died. It helped me move on - sounds daft but there was a huge sense of loss when we had to put Lady to sleep.

 

[Atemas]

Don’t wait too long. Sky was 10 when we got Red and we totally got it wrong initially about bringing a puppy into the house. Looking back we should have done it years earlier….but hindsight is a great thing!

It all worked out right in the end and of course it made losing Sky just that tiny bit easier having another dog. As @David says, there is a huge sense of loss

 

[Cath]

Fred was 18mths when we got Annie and they love each other to bits.

 

[Jen]

NEVERRRRRRR!

Big Stan is more than enough for me. I’ll still be recovering from those puppy years long after he’s not here

 

[HAH]

I'll be watching this with interest @Emily While we're not 100% set on another dog, we've thought for a while that Kipper would enjoy the company of his own species, and we know him well enough now that we can hopefully make this a successful transition. He’s 4 now, more settled than ever and who knows how his mobility will develop - so we want to give him the best chance to handle a puppy while he can.

And we definitely don't want to be without a dog ever again, so I imagine we'll cycle through 2 or 3 at a time until we're incapable. We'll probably need to move to somewhere with a bit more space, and maybe get a few more jobs to pay for it all...

 

[Anne123]

We started with one, she had problems with her sight when she was 8. Our vet recommended another lab to accompany her. She didn’t want to walk that far, and as I started having back problems we thought it was a good idea. So we had Euan. He was a nice and sweet lab, also for our Doerak. She died when she was 14 and Euan was by then 6 years old. We decided to have another pup. So Finn came when Euan was 7. Finn was quite a handful for us and Euan just accepted finn, but never became good friends. So it all depends on the characters of the dogs, and you have to research quite thoroughly.….

 

[MellowYellow]

We got Poppy when Bones was really quite an old dog, and I would never do that again. It was too much for him, like an elderly grandfather suddenly having a hyper toddler around all the time! Poppy dealt much better with Merlin when we got him; she was five and kept him well in check!

I must say though, much as I love having two dogs I am thinking that if we lose Poppy first ( ) I don't think I'd get another puppy quickly. We might just decide to stick with one dog for a while... but hopefully that won't happen for many years to come.

 

[SwampDonkey]

I thought that when Moo died...... one dog will be fine. We lasted 18 months. Rory missed a friend and so did I.

 

[M.F.]

I’m sorry we didn’t get a second dog when Snowie was 2 years old. We were offered his 10-month-old half brother* for free because the owner couldn’t keep him anymore. I said no because Snowie was a handful (I hadn’t found the right trainer, so I was useless!) and the advice was to get Snowie under control first. In hindsight I think a friend would’ve been the best thing for him. He was just being a normal Lab adolescent but the dog school I was going to made me feel he was impossible. (They weren’t a positive rewards dog school and the trainers had German Shepherds and Collies that were ultra responsive.)

It’s too late now. Snowie is 10 yo. I’d not impose a puppy on him even though he is so patient with them. Too patient—my cousin’s labradoodle crocopup was hanging off his ears and he cried but did nothing. I had to rescue him.

* I see his half brother on Facebook. Stunning dog! Eat my heart out every time I see him!

 

[Lab_adore]

NEVERRRRRRR!

Big Stan is more than enough for me. I’ll still be recovering from those puppy years long after he’s not here

This. Anytime puppies are mentioned so is divorce.

 

[SwampDonkey]

This. Anytime puppies are mentioned so is divorce.

Yeah I used get that ever time but he's stopped now weve had 4 dogs and 2 cats. He's accepted his fate and is glad I no longer have horses. He's very aware of my thing about goats and twitches when I mention them.

 

[MrChew]

We are also thinking about a puppy, but the human puppy is too much of a handful at the moment and I don't think I can handle another "baby" in the immediate future. Probably once our renovation is done but it will depend on whether Chewie still loves puppies at that stage. I suspect he will.

 

[Candy]

Second dog about 8 months after our old girl died. It helped me move on - sounds daft but there was a huge sense of loss when we had to put Lady to sleep.

Doesn't sound the slightest bit daft to me. You had lost a much loved family member who played a big part in your lives.

 

[Shamas mom]

Shamas was ten

we originally made plans for when he was 9, but both puppies we went for fell through. Would have been better for him if we'd done it a year earlier. This year he started losing mobility, and is missing out on some of the walks.

 

[snowbunny]

I’m not sure I could manage a dogless home. Going from the routine of walking and feeding and cuddling and playing to nothing sounds terrible. My sister always has one dog at a time and I know she really struggles with those things when she loses one.

On the other hand, it can be a lot to manage and time consuming when you have one dog who can no longer walk far alongside another(s) who still have their full mobility.

I don’t think there’s a one-size-fits-all answer, you have to know yourself and your dog.

 

[Emily_Babbelhund]

I got Brogan from a rescue litter within three months of Duncan dying. I already had Jodhi as a foster dog and my devil dog Tavish the toy poodle, but I had magical thinking that Brogan could be Duncan coming back to me (counting gestation days from Duncan's death, it worked out perfectly). It was a crazy way of thinking but Duncan's was the hardest death in my life before or since and I was going down hard.

Of course poor Brogan was not Duncan and then I spent a good two years regretting getting him so soon after Duncan died.

When Brogan got older, I swore to myself that I would wait longer until I could appreciate the next dog on his own merits and not compare him to Brogan.

Well, I waited too long. I'm not good without a dog and the three years of being dog-free were not good. Also the more I thought about it all, the more terrified I got about the pain of losing another dog, to the point where I decided not to even get another dog. So no magical thinking this time around, just being miserable and sad.

Then Carbon landed in my lap ("No, I'm not getting a dog - he's a foster!"), it took me 10 months to admit his was my dog ...and I still compare him to Brogan all the time. Not in a bad vs good way (whereas I think when Brogan was a puppy it was in a bad way), but I do think of the differences between them.

What all that taught me is that I'm just not very good without a dog and in the hopefully EXTREMELY distant future, it would be best to get another dog within a few months of losing Carbon. And to accept that I'll probably have all those feelings AGAIN about how Carbon was better at xyz than the 'new' dog, and then laugh at myself because I'm an idiot.

If I could have multiple dogs, I would. I really enjoyed that. The age gap between Mama Jodhi and Brogan was perfect. It was 8 years but Jodhi as an 8 year old was a dynamo and could run Brogan into the dust. She only really started to slow down at 11-12. By the time she passed, Brogan was still in his prime and having him really helped me accept that she had had a good long life and it was just time, vs being so desperately sad.

 

[MrChew]

We are also thinking about a puppy, but the human puppy is too much of a handful at the moment and I don't think I can handle another "baby" in the immediate future. Probably once our renovation is done but it will depend on whether Chewie still loves puppies at that stage. I suspect he will.

To add on to this, we know that Chewie does love puppies because he met the little collie from down the street (they have two little kids and a border collie. Omg) and he was all wigglybum and so very excited. Basically, when he meets a pup he starts acting like an idiot puppy himself. Like when he met the insane NINE YEAR OLD Labradoodle who also thinks he is a puppy...