Raising a Puppy While Working Update (1 Year Later)

1st Birthday: Raising a Puppy While Working Update 

Because of the interest in our original article, we decided to post about how our dog grew up- a “what really happens when you raise a puppy while working” update.

We got our puppy while working full time, despite the Internet’s general conclusion that you cannot raise a puppy while working. We worked hard on training and socializing our puppy Jackson while keeping our 9-5 jobs.

Since the last post about him was quite a while ago (especially in dog years!), I’m sure some folks are interested to see how he turned out.

Situation Updates

In the time since our last post about him, my husband has been able to start working from home. This transition happened when Jackson was around 8 months old, and now he is no longer home alone all day.

It’s a relief of course, not having to worry about him during the day. It was a good change too, in that he was quickly outgrowing the bathroom area as well!

Raising a Puppy While Working Updated Perks

There are a few behavioral perks to raising our puppy while working.

Jackson has been well trained and is comfortable in his crate. He can be crated for a few hours without going bezerk, so we can still go run errands and know he won’t get into trouble.

Jackson can also entertain himself very easily. While some dogs are constantly seeking attention and interaction with people if not otherwise engaged, Jackson generally can entertain himself quite well.

He likes playing with toys and working on his puzzle treat devices when we can’t pay attention to him.

Not sure if this is just his nature or because he had to entertain himself a lot growing up.

We do like the fact that if a ball goes under the couch, he doesn’t go completely bonkers and make us get it for him. He will try to retrieve it for a long time, but if he can’t reach it, he just finds a different toy.

I want to put in here that we DO pay a lot of attention to him! We love to spend time with him and focused a lot of time on training and socializing him. Dogs raised alone all day can have behavioral problems if you don’t work hard to prevent them.

He’s learned “where’s your squeaky ball?” and will go locate said ball in the yard or house so we can play fetch. He is so kind as to bring the ball directly to us and drop it without us having to pry it from him.

When he gets too tired from running, he’ll lay down with the ball and we all relax until he’s ready for another round.

Despite us bringing him home as a puppy while working and him spending many hours alone, he has become a complete snuggle bug. He’ll sit curled up on our laps on the couch in the evenings.

More Stories From Raising a Puppy While Working

Learning to Swim

We also like to take him to our little river behind our house and go swimming.

At first he wasn’t too keen on not knowing how deep the bottom was. He would awkwardly extend his legs with each step to make sure the bottom was still there.

Getting him to go in the deeper water and actually swim took a little convincing. Once my husband put on his waders and showed Jackson that it was okay, our born water dog showed his true colors.

He now happily splashes in the shallows and the pools, trying to retrieve every stick out of the river for our inspection and appreciation.

Boarding our Dog

One of the big milestones in the past year was boarding Jackson while we went to Wisconsin for a wedding.

He stayed for three nights at another family’s home. We got lots of pictures of him having a blast playing with the other dogs. We started getting a little nervous he wouldn’t want to leave!

When we walked up to the door to pick him up though we could hear him start whining with excitement. He jumped into our arms like we were gone for a lifetime. He was so happy to see us and us to see him.

Our sitter said he minded very well and was a joy to have. She said he can come back anytime. When we left him he was a wrecking ball of excitement running around with their other dogs, so hearing this was great news!

I attribute this to all our work on socializing him.

Getting Out and About

We’ve also been taking Jackson on more hikes and trips with us, now that he has all of his vaccinations done.

We had been hesitant to venture into the soggy wilderness that is the Pacific Northwest until he had his leptospirosis vaccine.

Jackson is proving to be a great hiking buddy and we’re even considering getting him his own pack so he can carry some goodies for himself along on the longer hikes.

Jackson loves the beach, as a true coastal dog must. There is so much to smell!

Despite his overall excellent manners, I never walk him off lead because we haven’t worked on “come” nearly enough for me to be confident to do so.

Jackson’s favorite things to investigate on the beach are crab shells, driftwood, and all garbage. Thank goodness, he is very good at dropping and leaving things when we ask him too!

Beware the Beach…

Most Oregon beaches allow dogs to be unleashed. But remember, they should be able to be managed by their owners!

If your dog does not always come when called, or has any tendencies toward aggression, please keep your dog leashed.

I’ve had a few scary situations where loose dogs run up snarling or ready to fight. I have friends that have had their dog attacked.

I used to be able to just pick Jackson up and carry him to safety. Now I just tell him “leave it” and we walk away before the dog reaches us, usually with the other owners trying to call their dogs to no avail.

Luckily we have not had any serious issues stemming from these encounters, and Jackson seems happy enough to keep sniffing his way down the beach and leave the other dogs behind.

If you are visiting our beaches, keep an eye out for loose dogs and try to prevent encounters before they occur.

Training for Grooming

Another thing we worked with Jackson on was getting used to being touched all over, including having his nails done.

There is a huge number of dogs that won’t permit nail clipping at all. They will act like you’re trying to kill them. That’s stressful for everyone.

I refused to have this occur with our dog, so we worked with him a lot to get him comfortable with grooming. He’s a total dream for nail clipping and will offer his front paws willingly.

When he was little, we would touch his paws and give him treats. Touching his paws was always a positive experience. We made sure to touch every part of the paw including between his toes.

We introduced the clippers gradually over several weeks working our way up to clipping one nail, then all nails on one foot, then all the feet, with lots of treats throughout.

The only time he ever pulled away and refused to have his nails done, I found a thorn stuck in one of his toe pads, ouch! Such a brave boy.

Jackson tolerates grooming quite well, including having his nailed clipped. We worked on this skill a lot throughout his puppyhood.

He enjoys getting his fur brushed more now too, which is a good thing because he sheds like crazy!

We need to work more on teeth brushing. He’s tolerant enough, but it is a bit of a struggle to prevent him from eating his doggy toothpaste and chewing on the brush.

A Word on Spaying/Neutering

Jackson was neutered at about 9 months old.

We waited a bit longer than normal since he was a bigger dog and some vets think that having a little testosterone production helps get their bone growth to a good place.

Since he was bigger it was more expensive, but we are happy with the results.

Jackson recovered very quickly and actually seemed to like wearing his cone. He would drop his toys into it and prance around the house carrying them in his cone. He also would put the rim flat on the ground to smell things out in the yard, which looked hilarious.

Keeping him from getting too excited and boisterous was tricky. All he wanted to do was run and jump around.

Frozen Kongs came in handy again here to keep him occupied and still, and he had surprising little trouble with them despite his cone.

Recap: After Raising a Puppy While Working Update

So all in all, year one has been great.

We’ve learned so much about training. It’s amazing to see how he’s grown and progressed in just a year.

Speaking of growing, he’s about 75 lbs now. His head is about the size he was when we brought him home.

We’re so happy we got him, he’s definitely an important part of our family.

So happy birthday Jackson! Here’s to many more years of getting to share our lives with you!

Want More?

Read our original post about how we used a strict schedule for housebreaking and raising a puppy while working full time here.

Be sure to follow up that post with our puppy socialization and training post, aka Part 2.

Check out my reasons and personal experience behind my firm belief that children should not have puppies as pets here.

Got any questions? Leave a comment below!