My First Week with Apollo
On 3/20/21, we brought home an 8-week-old English cream golden retriever. This is how the first week went.
At 6:00 AM, my phone alarm went off. Without a moment’s hesitation, I hopped out of bed, knowing that by the end of the day, there would be a subspecies of wolf living in the house. Even though our appointment with the breeder was at 11:00 and it was only a 2 hour drive, I felt like having extra time in the morning wouldn’t be a bad idea.
I made a quick breakfast of avocado toast and bacon, and before I knew it, three hours had elapsed (which mostly consisted of me doing nothing). Preparing a few toys, treats, a leash, and a laundry basket for the car ride back home, we left a few minutes early. With very little traffic, we arrived quite a bit earlier than expected. However, just like the nearly three hours of padding I gave myself, the extra minutes that we had quickly passed and we headed into the breeder’s house to meet our new family member.
Meet Apollo, the fattest puppy in his litter. Okay, he’s not that fat, but he was definitely the largest puppy out of the selection we had made a few weeks earlier:
Apollo is the one all the way in the back. It’s very subtle, but compared to his brothers, he has quite a bit of tan fur on him, whereas the other three in this photo are entirely white. It was kind of crazy to see how much he had grown in just a few weeks — when we first saw the puppies, they were barely able to walk. Out of all the puppies, Apollo actually showed some of the “weakest” movement, as he dragged his hind legs along. Though it might have looked concerning, all of the puppies had a very hard time walking in their first few weeks; the leg-dragging was not indicative of an injury or birth defect.
We also got to catch a glimpse of Apollo feeding from his mother at the end of our first visit to see the puppies, and that showed a very promising sign. Since Apollo was the biggest of his litter, it was very easy for him to muscle his way right into the middle of the feeding frenzy. When the puppies all swarmed their mother to drink milk, Apollo always found himself in the center.
This size also made Apollo the centerpiece for warmth; that is, when we first got to see all of the puppies lying down on their blanket and huddling together for body heat, Apollo was right in the middle. Every other puppy was contacting him in some way, and the same couldn’t be said for anyone else (though the picture above doesn’t show this).
Before we could leave, Apollo peed a couple of times, foreshadowing the many accidents he would have in the upcoming week. We put his leash on, and let him walk around with it dragging behind him so he could get used to it. We knew it would be difficult for Apollo to leave his family so quickly and adjust to a new home. I actually felt pretty bad taking him away from his home and putting him in a car filled with strange smells with new people all around him so suddenly. Apollo didn’t get to say goodbye to his family (it just makes it worse if he gets to see them one last time) and was suddenly whisked away…
We first set up a few pee pads in the back of the car and tried to put him in a laundry basket (some puppies find this comfortable). He immediately showed a disliking to it, and we decided that he would just sit/lie down in the back with someone. Since I was doing the drive back, my brother sat in the back with him, comforting him and holding him for any harsh brakes.
The first 10–15 minutes of the drive was somewhat painful, hearing Apollo cry and whine. I rarely looked back, but from all of the whining, I could tell that he was very upset. Who wouldn’t be?
However, Apollo quickly calmed down, and within half an hour, he was completely silent. This peaceful silence continued until about approximately 30–40 minutes before getting home, when he began whining again. Since he had been quiet for over an hour (having fallen asleep to the calming rocking of the car), we suspected that he needed to pee. We decided to stop at a park just in the nick of time because after some struggling with the leash and getting him out of the car, he immediately ran over to a grassy area and peed. It was quite fortunate that we didn’t get any pee in the car.
Apollo also stepped in some mud as we headed back to the car, but he cleaned his paws off soon after by walking over the asphalt of the parking lot. We also stopped at the supermarket right before we got home to pick up a couple of cans of pumpkin, something that helps a lot with indigestion and stomach problems for puppies. Even though Apollo remained in the car with my brother, he started crying just a few minutes without all his new family members. Once I got back to the car, Apollo looked very relieved.
It was a very exciting process to get Apollo into his new home. We knew that introducing the whole house would be overwhelming, so we got ready to let him in through the front door and go right to the room that we prepared. We picked him up to get him up the stairs at the front door and he happily bounced into the house when we opened the door.
We immediately got him into his room, in which the ground is partly covered in tarp in case he goes to the bathroom inside, has a dog gate at the entrance, and has his crate connected to a playpen. We needed to both feed him and ourselves (we hadn’t even eaten lunch at it was already 2 PM), so we put him in his playpen and tried to get everything ready. Apollo showed clear discomfort, whining, crying, and slamming his paws against the playpen. We had to let him out.
I remember that when I filled his first bowlful of water, I poured in way too much (at least for his small puppy size). He drank that water very quickly, and we found out that he is a certified hydro homie. We also got his food ready, measuring the appropriate amount for the meals he had been eating while at the breeder, along with four tablespoons of pumpkin to help him digest. We gave him his water and his food, and he completely annihilated it. He then promptly defecated on the tarp. Good thing the tarp was there. We cleaned that up and tried to get him comfortable with his new home by introducing just a couple of toys to him. The first was a squeaky raccoon, which he instantly fell in love with. The second was a plushie of Gumby, the clay animation character that you may have heard of. He didn’t show so much interest in Gumby on the first day.
Potty training on day one honestly wasn’t so bad. When he started whining at the gate after his meal, we assumed that he needed to go pee. We put him on leash and took him outside. He promptly peed in the front yard. He got a treat for being a good boy who did a good pee! Of course there were many accidents in the house, but many more occurred on the days following the first.
We also noticed that he didn’t really sleep that much during the day, which we now understand is due to too much excitement in a new environment. However the short 20-minute naps that he took intermittently was nothing compared to his first night of sleep.
Bye bye, sleep schedule
Apollo’s first night was not very pleasant. Our plan was to close him in his playpen (but still have access to his crate) and have him go to sleep after his inevitable crying. Though his bed was outside his playpen, he barely even slept on it during his naps earlier in the day. The reason he wouldn’t go to sleep was not because he didn’t have his bed, but because there was a barrier between him and his people. While he was locked in his playpen, my brother and I were sleeping nearby on a futon, within eyesight of Apollo. But just seeing his people was not enough. For an hour straight, Apollo cried, whined, and slammed his paws against the playpen. He was showing no signs of tiring out.
We eventually realized that it was too harsh to try and get him to sleep in his crate/playpen without someone else on his first night home. He showed that he was completely willing to sleep in the playpen when I lied down in there with him, but without anyone sleeping in direct contact with him seemed impossible at that moment. We let him out of the playpen, and he ended up sleeping next to us. Many times, he tried to cuddle next to us on the futon, but we politely pushed him off — it’s a really bad idea to teach your puppy that it’s okay to sleep next to you. If you’re not the alpha, they are. It’s much easier to teach your puppy that it’s not okay to sleep with you, and then when they grow up, selectively tell them to sleep in your bed (only by your command).
When we woke up, there were three individual puddles of pee (all on the tarp, thankfully). After cleaning that up, we slowly got our day started, making sure that someone was always in the room with him. We also found out the hard way that after he eats, he poops pretty much right away (as with his first meal in his new home). We quickly avoided most poop accidents in the house.
The first few days felt the busiest. We were still adjusting our schedules, figuring out Apollo’s eating/bathroom schedule, and overall still adjusting to the new circumstances. But we kept working at it, even with passing thoughts of “is this even worth it?” The answer to that is yes, and most people can answer yes to that question after the first one or two very difficult weeks.
Sleeping + Socializing
We quickly found out that puppies nap. They nap a lot. Apollo barely napped on his first day or two in his new home, but once he got used to the environment (and once he got him to exercise), he started started sleeping about 18–20 hours a day. A key part of getting a puppy to go to sleep is to tire them out. And making your puppy go to sleep makes your job a lot easier, since you don’t have to do anything when they’re asleep, and when they wake up, that’s your cue to take them out to go to the bathroom.
Tiring out Apollo was relatively simple, although it did come with its obstacles. Much of his energy was focused on our “walks” (he’s not leash-trained yet), which involved him chasing whoever took him outside while he was leashed. This is a lot easier with multiple people, as he is far more reluctant to get exercise when it’s just one person taking him. My guess is that his brain thinks something along the lines of “My people are leaving me! I have to catch up!”
But going outside came with its own problems. First of all, we had to keep Apollo away from other dog poops (he still needed vaccinations) as well as pesticide-treated lawns. We also had to struggle with going a few meters down the sidewalk when he heard other dogs barking at him. This usually resulted in him running straight back home.
Luckily, Apollo found two friends — Teddy, a white Labrador, and Cairo, another golden retriever — dogs of some of our neighbors that are almost entirely quiet. They almost never bark, and as a result, Apollo has a lot of fun with them. This also ended up being a very easy way to tire him out, since the dogs would end up exercising each other, and we could just relax. Apollo, being much smaller, couldn’t do too much, but he still found ways to have fun with the 80–90 pound dogs that knew how to control their strength.
After running him around, Apollo will often poop (if he has just eaten) from all the digestion and go right to sleep. One time, we almost had to carry him home after Cairo tired him out. Most of the time, Apollo is able to make it home and pass out. Once he wakes up, he goes outside to do his inevitable pee.
Crate sleeping, peace at last
Though Apollo refused to sleep in his crate for the first few days, by the fifth or sixth day or so, he actually ended up sleeping in his crate. Having gotten much more used to his home (and the crate specifically), he now actually sleeps in the crate, only crying when he needs to get out and pee. Of course, it still takes a little bit of encouragement if he’s not too tired (in which case he just passes out and we move him into the crate). If he has a little bit of energy left and wants to put up a fight in the crate, we just do the simple crate training exercise of closing the door on him. We simply open the door, and close it when he tries to leave. Doing this over and over will teach a dog that opening the door means nothing, and that his/her owner is in control. It also stops them from whining, as they both get what they want (the door open) and get to learn something (stay in the crate and get comfortable with it). Even with these conditions met, they don’t get to leave the crate, since the door is closed on them. Enough repetitions of this will now always get Apollo to relax, but everything takes time. In the first three days, I desperately asked myself how we would ever get him to sleep in the crate with all the crying he does when he’s separated from us.
Crate training (alongside leash training and potty training) are some of the most important things to teach to a dog/puppy. Crate training makes nighttime much easier, and when nighttime is easier, you get better sleep. With better sleep, the rest of the training becomes easier. I personally feel like it’s the most important one. Crate training also leads into potty training, since proper crate training can get your puppy to sleep and them being asleep means you know exactly when they’ll have to pee. It just makes everything much easier, really.
Apollo after his first week
Apollo is slightly larger now, having grown more than five pounds since his last vet visit (one week prior to us picking him up from the breeder), and he now sleeps in his crate frequently during the day, pees much less in the house, and rarely ever poops in the house. He is much more responsive than his first day and is slowly beginning to learn independence and basic commands like sit. We’re trying to give him less and less pumpkin as his stomach starts handling food better, and we’re getting further and further away from the house on our little walks. I can’t wait to see him grow up, but I know that in the future, I’ll miss the good old puppy days.
