What does 24 hours with a 4 month old puppy in Susan Garrett’s home look like? My puppy Prophet’s schedule, daily routine, and training tips are in this video for you! Whether you have a puppy now or plan to in the future, this behind-the-scenes look at Prophet’s day is a guide to how we set puppies up for success.

Transcript Summary:
My puppy turned four months old this week.

So, let me share a little bit about what a day in the life of Susan and Prophet looks like. So, generally I get up around five o'clock in the morning. Maybe a little bit before, maybe a little bit after, but Prophet stays sleeping in his crate. He sleeps in a crate right beside my face. It's probably getting close to time that I put him on the floor in his crate, but I kind of like having the guy hanging out there.

So, he's right at my face level on a nightstand in his crate. I get up at 5 AM. He sleeps in. He doesn't even budge when I get up. I go and do my morning routine, my meditation, my yadda, yadda, yadda. And he sleeps. I come and wake him up somewhere between 7 and 7:30 and we have a little bit of a cuddle because he is a snuggly little boy. We then go outside for him to do his business.

Generally, first thing in the morning, he will both urinate and defecate. And I do have conditioned words for each of those activities. Actually, his breeder started with his urination cue. So, I've kind of stuck with that German cue. And then we come inside, and he has some free time romping around the house. He's just been in a crate all night. So, I will do what I have to do in the kitchen.

He's usually playing with a toy by himself. Occasionally he might try to engage Swagger. It's rare that he gets anything out of Swagger. And that goes on until, I don't know, eight o'clock. It depends on the day. So, some days I work out at eight o'clock in the morning and other days I work out at 10 o'clock in the morning. So, when I go to work out, he goes in an ex-pen or if I'm going to go upstairs to do some work. So, somewhere between eight and nine, he will go into his ex-pen.

In that ex-pen will be things for him to chew on, beds for him to sleep on. I will throw enrichment like a puppy bomb in there occasionally. Like again, remember I said in podcast episode number 239, you want to be predictably unpredictable.

So, there is never a schedule where this happens at every day at this time. I always give you a puppy bomb at this time. Sometimes he'll get a pizzle and a pizzle holder. Sometimes he'll get a food puzzle that he can work through. Sometimes he'll just go in there and play with the things that are in there. So, he's got chew things in there, nothing that he can really destuff. And of course, he's a Susan Garrett puppy, so he has lots of dog beds in there.

So, he stays in his ex-pen, and we deal with each puppy differently if they get distracted by all the things that are going on, we might move their ex-pen away from all the action. I like to have the puppy out in the middle of the action because that's how they learn to deal with all the noises and activity that goes on in the house.

And so 9:30 he gets his breakfast. And that is almost always a training session. So, if I'm working out, I finish my workout. If I'm going to work out at 10, then I'll probably give him his breakfast at nine. And that training session probably lasts for 20 minutes. Now we are not training for 20 minutes straight. We're playing games. For example, this morning training session was cutting his nails. So, that was the last ten minutes of it. And the first ten minutes was doing some fitness exercises.

I’m always balancing anything that is more focus related to him with something that's action and fun with him. Because I don't want to bog down the puppy's brain with things that are just too heavy. Light playful tugging, a retrieve games, along with doing things that are, maybe some target work or learning to sit or stand or down.

There's so many things that we're working on. Forty behaviors we're working on, along with, so far, seven location specific reinforcement markers. So, tons of things that he's learning. After his breakfast, he goes back outside and has a little romp around, depending on the weather.

Back inside, a little run around the kitchen, and then he's back in his ex-pen while I go about my morning routine. He sleeps most of the morning. And then at lunchtime, we go out.

And lunchtime is generally his walk session. Now, I don't walk my puppies very much for two reasons. Number one, they don't need it. Number two, they haven't really learned to deal with all the distractions they might see on a big walk, especially if you're in the city.

But also, they're going to pull on leash and pulling on leash becomes a habit. And I don't want my puppies to have that habit. So, I try to avoid them ever pulling on a leash.

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