[Hurrayitsmk]

Hi! I’m a new spoo owner. My lil pup is still with his mom he’s three weeks old and absolutely adorable. I was looking for some advice I’ve never owned a spoo before and I’m getting my lil boy a week before my classes start up again. Thankfully my schedule this semester is very flexible and I live walking distance to my school so coming home between classes isn’t an issue. If anyone had a new puppy in college and has some advice I’d really appreciate it.


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[Raindrops]

Hi! I’m a new spoo owner. My lil pup is still with his mom he’s three weeks old and absolutely adorable. I was looking for some advice I’ve never owned a spoo before and I’m getting my lil boy a week before my classes start up again. Thankfully my schedule this semester is very flexible and I live walking distance to my school so coming home between classes isn’t an issue. If anyone had a new puppy in college and has some advice I’d really appreciate it.


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Welcome! Not in undergrad but I'm a PhD student. I got mine at the beginning of summer because I knew there'd be a lot of challenges once the year started up. If you only have a week, you'll want to try to pack as much training and socialization in as you can, and then you'll need to return home or have somebody else stop by every two hours or so. Puppies cannot hold their bladders for very long. There's a lot of good info on the forum about crate training, potty training, and socialization. Those should be your focus while you have the time to be home with him. Also be prepared to not sleep well for the next 2-3 months. Pups often need a potty break in the middle of the night.

I would use both crate and x pen. He will need to be accustomed to being alone, so you will need to start introducing that. Research how to deal with puppy crying and crate training. For mine I used a strict policy of cry = ignore. I crate at night and pen when not supervised.

Have some good friends that live close to you and have keys to your place so it is easy to arrange a stop in. I much prefer this to something like Wag or Rover.

Hopefully you are familiar with the grooming needs of spoos. Your breeder should be beginning this process before you get him (shaving face and feet + sanitary trim) but you'll still need to work on building good grooming manners with brushing daily. You can talk to your breeder about how they start their puppies so you'll know what he's used to.

There's tons of info on here, so the search bar is your friend!

 

[Hurrayitsmk]

Hi thanks! My roommate has the opposite schedule for me so if I can’t make it home for some reason she should be there. I crate trained my last dog, crystal, an adorable bichon. So I’m familiar with the sleepless nights although it has been awhile. Crystal unfortunately passed in September after 16 years with me. My school also has the only vet school in the state so I’m very lucky to be so close to a reliable animal hospital. I also feel like comfortable-ish with grooming because bichons have similar hair to poodles. I really appreciate the advice I’ve been searching through the forum for different advice but I wanted to see if anyone had gotten a spoo pup while in college!


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[Raindrops]

Hi thanks! My roommate has the opposite schedule for me so if I can’t make it home for some reason she should be there. I crate trained my last dog, crystal, an adorable bichon. So I’m familiar with the sleepless nights although it has been awhile. Crystal unfortunately passed in September after 16 years with me. My school also has the only vet school in the state so I’m very lucky to be so close to a reliable animal hospital. I also feel like comfortable-ish with grooming because bichons have similar hair to poodles. I really appreciate the advice I’ve been searching through the forum for different advice but I wanted to see if anyone had gotten a spoo pup while in college!

That sounds great! It will definitely help having another person there who can help with the potty breaks. And yes you are probably used to a lot of the same grooming with a bichon. So sorry to hear she passed recently!

 

[lily cd re]

I disagree a bit with Raindrops about the first week. Your pup will be overwhelmed by all the changes, so I wouldn't do anything other than establishing some routines and assuring your pup that you are there for safety and support. Other than that there is good advice about managing getting back and forth to class on as routine a schedule for potty training as is possible.


Beyond that before pup comes home read Ian Dunbar's little books What To Do Before/After You Get Your Puppy. They can both be downloaded for free at dogstardaily.com


Additionally there is a great sticky thread on puppy training here on PF. https://www.poodleforum.com/23-general-training-obedience/137842-how-train-your-new-puppy.html


And since I am a big fan of the good Dr. Dunbar another one. https://www.poodleforum.com/23-general-training-obedience/100970-ian-dunbar-seminar-workshop.html

 

[Starvt]

I agree with Lily, while it does obviously depend on the individual dog, my spoo pup took a good week to settle in. He wasn't eating that well and didn't take treats which meant it would have been difficult to pair positive emotions with new experiences.
I really like Dr Dunbar, and also highly recommend Austerlitz- she has tons of great blog posts, including this one on crate training that I followed for my pup:
https://austerlitzshepherds.com/category/crate-training/

 

[Raindrops]

I disagree a bit with Raindrops about the first week. Your pup will be overwhelmed by all the changes, so I wouldn't do anything other than establishing some routines and assuring your pup that you are there for safety and support. Other than that there is good advice about managing getting back and forth to class on as routine a schedule for potty training as is possible.

Yes I do agree with this, though I guess I tend to start early with beginning socialization because the socialization window is quite short. Simple things like introducing the local sounds, smells, and things he will need to encounter on a daily basis once you start school. But it does need to go at the pace that the pup is comfortable with. My thinking is mainly that the pup will need to be used to certain things by the time your class starts, so you want to be sure that you will not overwhelm him too much by the change.

 

[lily cd re]

I think some socialization at that point is just fine since the window for it is short, but I would also be cautious about flooding the youngest of pups with too much too soon.

 

[tnedator]

After reading the initial post, I was going to post a link to Dogstardaily (Dr. Dunbar), but see it's been done already.

I also HIGHLY recommend following his very simple guidelines.

 

[Hurrayitsmk]

I disagree a bit with Raindrops about the first week. Your pup will be overwhelmed by all the changes, so I wouldn't do anything other than establishing some routines and assuring your pup that you are there for safety and support. Other than that there is good advice about managing getting back and forth to class on as routine a schedule for potty training as is possible.


Beyond that before pup comes home read Ian Dunbar's little books What To Do Before/After You Get Your Puppy. They can both be downloaded for free at dogstardaily.com


Additionally there is a great sticky thread on puppy training here on PF. https://www.poodleforum.com/23-general-training-obedience/137842-how-train-your-new-puppy.html


And since I am a big fan of the good Dr. Dunbar another one. https://www.poodleforum.com/23-general-training-obedience/100970-ian-dunbar-seminar-workshop.html

Thanks I’ll definitely read these before I pick up little echo! I really appreciate the advice. I have a few friends who have gotten puppies while in college and they are great but also have different situations and some of them have send their dogs home to their parents for weeks at a time. Which is good but that’s not what I will be doing. I also understand not overwhelming my pup but some of my friends dogs particularly one Australian Shepard was under socialized and aussies already have a tendency to be more protective and aggressive towards strangers but I’ve know this dog since he was 8 weeks old and I see him on a regular basis and he still spends like 5 minutes growling at me before he realizes who I am.
I definitely don’t want to overwhelm my lil guy. I think it will really depend on how he does the first couple days and what his pace for settling in will be.


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[Rose n Poos]

Socialization is important and is easier done before they learn to fear things, but, I'm going with the let him settle in to new family. home, everything, in the first week school of thought. Remember that everything familiar to him is suddenly GONE. The stress of that is enough for those very early days.

A couple of suggestions to help transition him is to have a towel or small blanket with the scents of his mother (and dad if there) and siblings to bring home with you for comfort. Ask the breeder if this is something they can do for you or if you can send or bring one prior to picking up your pup. You can also send something with your scent to the breeder so the pup can become familiar with your scent.

Something else to consider is the heartbeat snuggle puppy toy

https://www.amazon.com/SmartPetLove-Snuggle-Puppy-Behavioral-Brown/dp/B000C9YHFS

This might help soothe your pup in the night.

This thread was about calming music

https://www.poodleforum.com/5-poodle-talk/272119-music-your-poodle-loves.html?highlight=lullabies

 

[tnedator]

Socialization is important and is easier done before they learn to fear things, but, I'm going with the let him settle in to new family. home, everything, in the first week school of thought. Remember that everything familiar to him is suddenly GONE. The stress of that is enough for those very early days.

A couple of suggestions to help transition him is to have a towel or small blanket with the scents of his mother (and dad if there) and siblings to bring home with you for comfort. Ask the breeder if this is something they can do for you or if you can send or bring one prior to picking up your pup. You can also send something with your scent to the breeder so the pup can become familiar with your scent.

Something else to consider is the heartbeat snuggle puppy toy

https://www.amazon.com/SmartPetLove-Snuggle-Puppy-Behavioral-Brown/dp/B000C9YHFS

We've found our last five puppies (over last 25 years) have really liked the the heartbeat snuggle puppies. You can also put hand warmers inside for them to be warm.

Our new 15 week old is laying across one as I type this.
This might help soothe your pup in the night.

 

[Rose n Poos]

I'm going to link another thread about starting up with a new puppy. I know this pup isn't your first dog, but don't remember if this is your first own puppy.

https://www.poodleforum.com/2-membe...coming-home-july-20-a.html?highlight=supplies

 

[SamieNorman]

Hi! I’m a new spoo owner. My lil pup is still with his mom he’s three weeks old and absolutely adorable. I was looking for some advice I’ve never owned a spoo before and I’m getting my lil boy a week before my classes start up again. Thankfully my schedule this semester is very flexible and I live walking distance to my school so coming home between classes isn’t an issue. If anyone had a new puppy in college and has some advice I’d really appreciate it.


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You've received some solid advice above. Go through the "poodle Talk" sections and the "training" Sections of this forum and you and do a broad "search" for specifics. There are TONS of forums done for new owners.

My best advice is that I would make sure your pup is SUPER tired before you leave for class. I understand the struggle of having a pup and needing to go to class and work. What helped was crate training and making sure Norman was super tired before I left. This way he had a better chance of sleeping the whole time while I was away!! I also had a piece of mind knowing he was more likely to be asleep then crying. Oh and also, put SAFE toys in the crate!! This may be obvious, but some toys are not safe to keep with a pup while you're not able to monitor.

Another thing that I personally think is AMAZING is investing in a noise machine. I did this to calm my SPoo while I was away or during the night. I would play either a clock sound (heartbeat) or white noise, but I found that white noise helped us both personally. Or playing a tv in the background helps "some" pups.

I wish you luck!!! You'll find tons of advice all over this forum and through the awesome members!!

 

[Hurrayitsmk]

We've found our last five puppies (over last 25 years) have really liked the the heartbeat snuggle puppies. You can also put hand warmers inside for them to be warm.

Our new 15 week old is laying across one as I type this.
This might help soothe your pup in the night.

Thanks! I was looking into getting one of these I’m glad to hear that they might help!!! I really appreciate everyone’s advice and articles I’ve been exploring the forum and there so much information it’s an incredible resource!


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[Rose n Poos]

Thanks! I was looking into getting one of these I’m glad to hear that they might help!!! I really appreciate everyone’s advice and articles I’ve been exploring the forum and there so much information it’s an incredible resource!


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I also picked up an inexpensive camera to keep an eye on my boys when out of the house. There's a number of brands and I'm very happy with my Wyze Cam Pan. I can see and hear them, they can hear me, you can get alerts...all kinds of options. Of course, you might have a hard time paying attention to class lol.

 

[kontiki]

The best thing I did was spend 24 hours a day with my new pup until he was about 16 weeks old. (I was so lucky to be able to do so.) As I wanted him to become a Service Dog worked really hard on socializing him the first 16-17 weeks. I calmly exposed him to over 40 other dogs, 40 people of all ages, sizes, races, etc, other animals like horses, chickens, pigs, etc. It was a huge amount of work but it paid off amazingly. Those first weeks are so important.

 

[Hurrayitsmk]

The best thing I did was spend 24 hours a day with my new pup until he was about 16 weeks old. (I was so lucky to be able to do so.) As I wanted him to become a Service Dog worked really hard on socializing him the first 16-17 weeks. I calmly exposed him to over 40 other dogs, 40 people of all ages, sizes, races, etc, other animals like horses, chickens, pigs, etc. It was a huge amount of work but it paid off amazingly. Those first weeks are so important.

I wish I had that time to spend with him! I am planning on socializing him a lot bc I would ideally love for him to be trained into a hearing dog eventually. I am losing my hearing because of a genetic disease. I am also lucky to go to a school that had the only vet school in my state and a ton of training programs offered to the students at a discount. I am so excited to get my little guy! Only two more weeks happy Christmas y’all!!!


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[Hurrayitsmk]

Happy Christmas and happy Hanukkah!! Two more weeks till my little guy is with me! Thanks for all the advice I really appreciate it!!!


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[Johanna]

Be sure to use a top on the ex pen - standard and miniature poodles can climb like monkeys! Besides, a top keeps the ex pen square. My top has two 2' x 4' panels hinged together. It attaches to the ex pen with clips.