Out the house for 8 and back at 4. Would certain breeds of dog be happy in a fully enclosed large garden with kennel facilities for this duration? Have an appointment at the local rehoming shelter to chat with someone about our suitability for ownership. Just looking for other input and experiences to learn from.

What are your reasons for wanting a dog?

Because this is what dogs all day.

You get a person like me a Dog walker comes to your house takes him out to play with other dogs puts him back afterwards and gives him/her a treat then they sleep till you come home

Get a cat? They are much less needy and if if you get the right one can love you back. On their terms of course.

Yep dog walker when either MrsG or I are not at home (about 2 days a week average). Dogs seem to love it!

When I used to have to commute, having a thoroughly sealed garden, dog flap and a pile of interesting toys helped. That and a strict routine of up>walk>work>walk really helped. Upset their routine and either dog became quite sad (not owned together).

if I needed to do that again I’d probably get a dog walker to take her out during the day as well.

I watch this thread with interest.

@ cinammon_girl. Partner and I grew up in families with dogs. Would like to give our children the same experience. We live rural so endless walks available. We are active at weekends with all activities dogs would love.

I’ve used webcams before to check on my dog, a hyper spaniel, when she’s be left. She barely moves except to adjust her sleeping position.

A good dog walker can be ace, mine takes her out with a gang of other dogs for two hours, very happy dog.

Sometimes I pop back at lunch, most times she comes to work we me, sleeps in the car and gets a lunchtime walk.

You’ll make it work. But a lot of rehoming places will discount you as working full time so I would be selective about what you tell them….

In a minute you’ll get some nutter along to the thread to tell you that you shouldn’t even consider it. Just ignore them  even if they claim some expertise due to doing work experience at battersea….

As Lee says..

Our two sleep all day too.

i work from home, and all mine do is sleep on the duvet under one of the velux windows in my office all day, but I’d they do need to go out, I can let them out.

If I do have to gonintonmy Clients office, then they go out in the garden first thing, and a longish walk every night. So all’s good.

When I work from home the dogs seem to sleep for 90% of the day. The other 10% is playing a chase game which humans are not invited to play, moving to get to a better sleeping spot, eating and occasionally barking at the fridge or anything that dains to disturb their day (one full stop refuses to dog out mid day during the week).

when they were younger they needed much more attention. They are also a low exercise requirement type dog 🐕

also despite breed characteristics some dogs don’t like being alone so get two shelter dogs 😀

Certainly an older dog that doesn’t need as much exercise could cope with this kind of routine, but in fairness they are social animals and it would be better if you had a pair to keep each company. Also depends on the temperament of the dog – a hound could howl your house down, or some breeds can be pretty destructive if left to their own devices.

Another in the dog walker camp, when i have to travel for work and cant do his normal lunchtime walk they come in and take him out for me.

Our Lucher has been left with shelter water and an enclosed garden from about 1 year old. Not every day but most weekdays…she sleeps all day so the neighbours say. If someones home she sleeps all day too just on the sofa or a bed tbh. She’s walked twice a day without fail. Seems happy enough. Maybe try a lurcher or greyhound, almost cat like in their laziness!!

I walk her for an hour before work. Dog walker does an hour before lunch. Wife does an hour when she gets home. The rest of her time is spent sleeping because she’s so bloody knackered (but very happy).

+1 dog walker.

I walk our two labs every morning, dog walker comes in at lunchtime when we’re at work. Sometimes they don’t even bother to get up when I come in from work!! If I work from home, they barely move all day 🙂

Unlikely re-homing places will consider you if you tell them you work all day. Careful what you declare…

Unlikely re-homing places will consider you if you tell them you work all day.

Always strikes me as odd, they are happy to have the dog left in a kennel on its own all day and night?

You’ll make it work. But a lot of rehoming places will discount you as working full time so I would be selective about what you tell them….

In a minute you’ll get some nutter along to the thread to tell you that you shouldn’t even consider it. 

I’ll be that nutter.  Be absolutely honest with the rescue centre, they ask these questions for good reasons.  Separation anxiety is a real thing with some breeds and you may end up with an extremely stressed dog if left with for that length of time on an almost daily basis.

I work from home and my dogs sleep all day if I’m in the house.  Webcam evidence suggests that if I go out one will not even notice while the other spends her time pacing and howling.  How well do you get on with your neighbours?

Do some careful research and you may be lucky, retired greyhounds could be an option.  And be absolutely honest with yourself, will you be getting up early to take the dog out before work, pay for the dog walker and a quick stroll after you get home even in the depths of February?

Good luck

Partner has just got a Maltese, which is about as small as my cats.

For 2 days a week he is in the house on his own, but he seems to cope OK with it. The desciptions of the breed is that they are slackers and he does sleep readily and not need a ton of exercise over and above the frantic running around the garden periods and the mass excitment and jumping up and down when you get home.

Lovely little dog and very smart. Wouldn’t trade for my BSH cats though 🙂

Out the house for 8 and back at 4. Would certain breeds of dog be happy in a fully enclosed large garden with kennel facilities for this duration?

No neighbours ?

If so go for it.

Dog Walker in at lunchtime unless you are really happy to leave them in the garden throughout winter and high summer with enough food and water, shelter and warmth..

Don’t get Springer Spaniels they’ll go nuts and rip everything to bits in 4 seconds.

Walk ours in the morning and then a quick one when I get home. We had a problem with them being unsettled during the day when they were only being walked in the evening, found that a long walk in the morning and short one in the evening means they tend to sleep all day. Have a webcam to keep an eye on them, also leaving the radio on for them has relaxed them, appear to be less “on duty” now.

Dog walker, as above. A friend found a dogwalker who has her own plot of land out of town; she comes and collects a few dogs, takes them out there and walks and generally entertains them for 3 hours before bringing them back. But even if you don’t have that, a good dog walker that comes at the same time every day, and walks for an hour or more, is great. Tbh, the dog will sleep for a good 2-3 hours after that.

Beyond that, working from home one or two days a week helps, plus things like Kong toys that keep the dog working away for an hour trying to get treats, and have a very regular routine every day.

Edinburgh seems to consist of two types of people in the last few years, dog walkers and people who employ dog walkers.  The anxious middle classes seem quite happy to pay a fortune for somebody to bundle their pooch into a van, it then gets driven for an hour to somewhere they can let it and the rest of the pack shit all over the place.  Then after ten minutes of running around it’s back in the van.  It’s been gone for over two hours so it must have had a good walk, right?  Now I’m.sure there must be some good dog walkers….

fortune for somebody to bundle their pooch into a van, it then gets driven for an hour to somewhere they can let it and the rest of the pack shit all over the place.

Get a smart watch or GPS fitness band and an extra long strap and put it on the collar.

Then you’ll know exactly how far it’s been.

Dog STRAVA!!!!!!

DOM!!!!!

There are some dogs who could cope with this but not many IMO.

If you do go ahead, definitely think about getting two dogs so they have each other for company as well as a daily dog walker.

If I were you, I’d be looking at other ways to spend time with a dog. Something like DogBuddy. Remember, kids often get bored of dogs really quickly and easily and a few hours at the weekend with a borrowed dog might suit them better. Also, family life is busy and kids tend to get busier with age, I imagine that in reality the dog would often be left alone more than from 8 to 4.

Dogs are undoubtedly adaptable creatures and mine is used to spending all day with me. But perhaps worth noting that she was sat looking out of the window when I left to go to the supermarket earlier this evening and sat looking out of the window when I got back. I don’t know what she did in the meantime but I’m pretty sure she didn’t sleep contentedly.

Can only echo what stevenmenmuir said too. Dog walkers sound great in theory but anyone who has seen them (many of them at least) in practice may have a different view.

Can only echo what stevenmenmuir said too. Dog walkers sound great in theory but anyone who has seen them (many of them at least) in practice may have a different view.

Like all ‘tradespeople’, check them them out first and get some personal recommendations. Our village dog walker is amazing.

For years we had our two previous dogs (Springers) in the garden during the working day with no issues at all. Then we moved and for whatever reason one of them started barking while out in the garden. Got a dog behaviourist in. End result was he said that unstressed dogs pretty much sleep all day and if there was no danger of chewing then they’d be fine in the house. Gave them the run of downstairs and he was absolutely right…

Ours will look out of the window when departing or leaving and then just settle down looking at the Web cam. Hard to say whether sleeping or sulking.

Luckily the Mrs is a hair dresser and the girl she runs a salon with has a dog too so they go to work with them most days.

Like all ‘tradespeople’, check them them out first and get some personal recommendations. Our village dog walker is amazing.

Yes this, mine comes to the house and walks the dog from the door no van involved. Given that he is not a people dog he gets on with her (and her family who have also walked him) really well!

Depends on the dog.

Our mutt (a collie/springer cross) does not like being left alone  – and is really unsettled when left for more than a few hours.

I now work from home most days so Muttley can sleep on the bed behind me. We go for a run at lunchtime and Thud takes her for a walk after school. She also has big walks before work and in the evening.

Dog walkers are expensive too. Our current one is £12/hr and the walk is exactly 1hr. The previous walker was awesome though – £8 for 2-3 hrs as she had to exercise her own dogs. She’s retired to be a vet nurse now 🙁

Neighbours use doggy-day care – where the dog gets dropped off in a big industrial unit and plays with other dogs. Also not cheap.

A rescue greyhound make great pets. They are often left for hrs on end in cages waiting to race. They would jump at the chance to lounge all day on your bed ready to go bonkers when you come home. If you have a neighbour or local dog walker all the better. My opinion is some dogs especially rescues have had such a shit life that a few hours on their own in a comfy warm house looking forward to you coming home for walks and treats is a small price to pay.

had 3 black labbies over the last 30 years. still got one now.

30 minutes walk on a morning or 20 minutes chasing me round the fields on my bike

30 minute walk at lunch when the wife comes home for her lunch

30 minutes walk with a friend and dog after tea

all 3 dogs slept between.   routine works with dogs

@ Inbred456: 8 till 4 is a bit more than ‘a few hours’.

Also, I don’t think it’s helpful to talk about ‘rescuing’ dogs. There are loads of examples of people ‘rescuing’ dogs and in some ways the dogs arguably end up in a worse situation. Even if it’s not truly worse, the ‘rescuers’ have robbed them of the chance of finding a better suited home.

It’s easy to think you’re doing a good thing rescuing a dog but it’s not necessarily the case. You only have to read some posts on this forum to discover that.

Similar to others, our two get walked before work. I’m walking them at 6.45 for half an hour (in winter with a head torch) and then the kids walk them in the evening when they get in from school (4.30 ish). They are both young dogs (1 and 1 1/2 yo) and can be very active but seem fine. Grumpy neighbour is quite happy to complain if they are barking during the day and have had no trouble for the last 6-8 months. They have access to the yard during the day via a dog door and we luckily can walk them off lead along the river near us, where they swim no matter how cold it is.

25 years ago dog walkers didnt exist, were digs less happy, they certainly appear to be fatter now.

@the pilot – greyhounds are idle idle dogs. Laziest breed there is. So long as they have a comfy setttee they’ll happily sleep for hours. When we had ours there were days when we left them for a working day. Ok it was never 5 days a week but sometimes 2 or 3.

We now have a cockapoo who is similarly idle. When we’re home she’s running around barking at everything and loves to be curled up at our feet, having cuddles and otherwise being centre of attention . When we come home from a day out more often than not she doesn’t hear us come in because she’s passed out on the bed

It does depend on the dog though. Some suffer from terrible separation anxiety and if that’s the case then it’d be very difficult to make it work. This is where having a dog from a puppy can be useful as you can get it used to being left.

It can be breed dependent also – Weineramers are inherently ‘clingy’ for example.

Our local rescue place wouldn’t let you rehome a dog if you work fulltime .

Owner of 2 dogs here, Springer x lab and Pomeranian.

The SxL has always been quite lazy, as long as he gets a good hour in the morning & half hour in the pm he’s fine.

The Pom needs far more interaction.

I work 30% of the time from home & wife only does 30hrs a week so ours only end up on their own a couple of times a week, for up to 6 hours. On those days we have a dog walker who gives them 90 minutes.

They seem perfectly happy with that.

The one thing I’d be thinking about is that you are already out of the house for 8 hours at a time. Have you got the time to add at least an hour at either end of that for walking etc? What was 8 hours is now 10-11 hours. Does that leave you enough time for the rest of your life? Are there other things you do when you get home from work that will now have to wait? Are you happy to be up a couple of hours earlier? Will you resent doing that even in the depths of winter?

Some owners think they know their dogs are happy when they leave, but from experience with a number of neighbours over years, the instant they’ve gone and the dog is whining or barking, endlessly. The second the dog hears their owner approaching, which can be way off as they can have good hearing, they stop. Owner hasn’t heard anything and is just greeted by an excitable dog. Of course when at home and even in a different room and you’re out of sight the dog may be content and sleeping, so you may think they’ll be the same when you go out the door. Not always the case.

Though also got neighbours some streets away who either are out 24/7 or their dogs just bark, all the time. It reminds me of the Spanish mountains at times where the wild dogs are barking all night. At least it’s in the distance. I’d be going insane if I lived next door.