These are my best tips for puppy parents who work full-time.

These are my best tips for puppy parents who work full-time. Hi, I'm Em, I'm a certified dog trainer, and I specialise in helping families raise puppies into confident, well-mannered adult dogs. And I know firsthand how hard it can be to juggle work and friends and family and a new puppy on top of all of that. So let's talk about some things that are going to make your life easier as a new puppy parent. First is prioritising your puppy sleep over constantly trying to entertain them. Most puppies need anywhere from 18 to 20 hours of sleep every single day, and when they don't get that, they turn into cranky little toddlers. So please don't feel guilty if your dog is spending a lot of their day sleeping, because trust me, they need it. Next tip is use their meals for enrichment. What I mean by that is instead of feeding them their meals in a standard bowl, use training or a snuffle mat or a slow feeder bowl or some kind of activity to give them those calories that they're going to have to consume anyway, but make it more fun and interesting and allow them to use some of those natural foraging or problem solving skills. This will also slow down feeding, which will give you more time to do things during your morning while they're working on their food. My favourite is using the West Paw Topple and stuffing it with their food that has been soaked in warm water and frozen the night before. And I have a whole video up on that on my profile. 10 out of 10 would recommend. But while your puppy is enjoying their breakfast, you can do things like change, shower, get ready for work and they will be entertained and kept busy. Next is to create a safe space for your puppy. This is one of my current clients safe space and it's just gorgeous. They've got their kennel set up in there, they've got a food and water bowl, they've got some puppy safe toys and it's a nice comfy space for their dog to spend time without getting free access to just roam the house. This is gonna help your puppy stay safe and set them up for success by really limiting the options for potential habits that they might form, like chewing on baseboards or furniture or getting into things that they shouldn't, or just taking away that option altogether. Next is focus on the quality of your activities over the quantity of the activity. So what I mean by that is going for a short sniff walk or doing a short training session is going to go a lot further than non-stop activity throughout the day. Especially because our puppies really don't wanna be awake and active for that long at a time. Honestly, 10 to 20 minutes of really quality activity can go such a long way in enriching them and tiring them out by fulfilling them, not just like overworking. Let me know if this video was helpful and if so I will make a part 2 because I have a lot of tips up here. But let me know if you have any other puppy training questions and stay tuned for more free dog training tips and tutorials!