To mark National Puppy Day, we spoke to Maria Murray, Deputy Director of Community Education and Engagement at Dogs Trust, about the new addition to her family and how she is finding the return to ‘puppyhood’ and training.  After working at Dogs Trust for nine years, how easy is it to practice what you preach?

Finding a new puppy

I lost my seven year old rescue pup recently and professed that after 20 years I wanted a break from dog ownership.  Two months of coming home to an empty house later, and after meeting a litter of 11 mastiff-cross puppies who came into Dogs Trust West London for rehoming, we found ourselves welcoming 10-week old Red into our home.

I think one of the advantages I have because of my role at Dogs Trust is that I had a very realistic idea of the stresses of owning a new dog but I was still really, really nervous to go back to puppyhood again.

Puppy training

Knowing Red is going to grow to at least 50 kilos meant that there were elements of his training that we would need to be consistent with from day one to help him fit into our lives. We had a sit down as a family (this was my husband and my step daughter’s first ever puppy) to agree our house rules and set ourselves up for success.

‘If you leave anything lying around in Red’s reach you can’t get upset if he chews it’, ‘if he has something you don’t want him to have then you swap it for something nicer’, ‘if the dog is sleeping, leave him alone’. I was a neurotic nag but they were both very patient with me!

Retraining myself

With the best will in the world, there were still simple things that even I had forgotten about the realities of having a new puppy.  When he would jump on the coffee table and I’d say ‘off’ Red would just look at me, like ‘huh’ – ‘oh yes, I need to teach you that’. I was used to being able to open the back door and yell ‘wee wees’ to an obedient dog, but found myself now out in the garden for 20 minutes in the cold and rain 10 times a day. 

It took two weeks of sofa sleeping and middle of the night wake up calls before Red was used to sleeping on his own downstairs. Now, after two months, we are still only able to leave him for a couple of hours at a time and our social life has taken a total nose dive! 

Our biggest challenge has been what we call ‘the baby shark hour’ which comes twice a day and involves Red wanting to mouth and grab us and our clothes. It is taking a lot of patience and resilience to distract him away and settle him down as I realise this is an aspect of his training that could easily go wrong and lead to behaviour issues in the future. 

Back to (dog) school

I knew the whole family would benefit from some professional help! So we enrolled in Dogs Trust’s Dog School classes. For four weeks we were helped with basic training as well as future proofing us and Red for the challenging times to come in adolescence. 

It was great to also have a weekly check in with other puppy parents and we even met a walking buddy who lives round the corner from us. Seeing the Dog School Coaches weekly meant that we could chat about the things we struggled with and it helped to remind us that everything we were experiencing was normal.

Owning a puppy again has given me a fresh reminder on how challenging this endeavour is, it’s made me read stories on forums again of other puppy owners who are at their wits ends and suffering with the ‘puppy blues’. It’s reignited my drive to make sure we can educate new dog owners to feel properly set up for their new arrival and have the resilience and tools to make owning a puppy the happy, fun time it should be.

Growing together

Red has just turned 16 weeks and is therefore officially an ‘adolescent’. This is the time that we see the highest number of dogs being relinquished to Dogs Trust for behaviour problems as for many it can be the most challenging time.

Dog School run adolescent classes which I think will be a great support mechanism for us over the coming weeks and in the meantime, I am using my best Blue Peter skills to come up with fun enrichment ideas for a puppy already the size of a baby bison! I also need to find some time to shop for new wardrobe essentials to replace those with puppy sized teeth marks in them…

Find out more about Dog School classes and how they can help dogs of all ages

Find out more about Dogs Trust free bitesize training sessions at DogFest

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