How long do you leave your Pug during the day?

[Mom2Trudey]

Trudey is 8 months old and no longer has to stay in her crate...she roams free in the house. She rarely has any accidents...unless we are at home (go figure). Anyway...will I always have to go home at lunch and take her out? I was hoping that I would be able to eventually leave her all day. Is this possible? If you work, do you always go home at lunch? If not, what works for you?

[Chamo]

I was actually wondering the same thing. Chamo is 6 months-old today and we leave him in the bathroom still, but I come home during lunch. I also wonder if at some point it will be ok to leave him alone during the work day. He can still go potty because he is litter trained. Any suggestions?

[Lemon]

While she's sleeping, Lemon will hold it forever. But I doubt she could hold it all day -- or if she could, it might be uncomfortable. I'm curious to hear what everyone else says, but I suspect you might be setting Trudey up to fail by expecting her not to go for at least 8 hours.

We have a dog walker who comes in the afternoon, but before we had him, we left wee pads out for whenever Lemon needed them.

[Pugdawg1]

Winston is the only pug i have crated.. crated him when he was a puppy when i was working. I came home on lunch and let him out to feed him and let him potty. Total crate time during the day was 6-7 hours at the most. After he was doing well, housetraining wise, at about 15 weeks, I stopped using the crate, though i kept it and left it open because he liked to sleep in there, but i did keep him in my bedroom (i had a roommate at the time and i trusted her with a loose puppy about as far as i could through her grrrr). I soon moved, and they (oscar & winston) had free roam of the house, and during the day i had a friend come over and let them out about halfway through my shift. Worked out well. With my current situation, a very good one for the spoiled monsters, they are almost never left alone. Not crated, free to roam the house. I am home most of the time. When I have to leave for whatever the case may be, I enlist my dear old mother to pugsit for me. She loves it - loves the pugglies.

[lashwish]

I'm sure some people will think me a bad mommy for it, but I've talked to other pug owners offline about this & they have similar situations. I'd love to be home with him all day, but in order to pay for all his toys, etc... I gotta work.
Let me say, I really felt guilty for a long time, esp. after reading everyone's posts about coming home at lunch & only leaving their pugs for 4 hrs max., etc...

Oscar is home for about 8 hours, sometimes 9 hours, sometimes less & he's perfectly fine. He is crated during that time. He gets a walk & a trip to park in morning to play with friends, a longer walk & trip to park to play with friends in the evening & yet another shorter walk after dinner. He gets plenty of exercise & he sleeps non-stop, probably more than the cat.

That was pretty much the concensus among people I talked too, people who had web cams set up to watch their puggie & all he did all day was sleep.

I came home at lunch until Oscar was around 9 months old.

When I come home from work, he's not bursting at the seams to pee. He does his usual, let me smell the flowers, eat the dirt, look for dropped food on the ground, etc...Then when we come in, he runs to his crate, grabs his kong, brings it to living room floor & proceeds to try to dig out whatever little bit of peanut butter is left in it, while lying on the floor. He's hardly a ball of energy that one might think he'd be. I guess it also depends upon your pug, Oscar is not a high energy pug, like some I have seen (and read about)

[ScootersMom]

We keep the girls locked up in the kitchen while we are out. They seem fine with it. I go home everyday at lunch to let them out. Lately I was thinking that maybe it's time to start letting them roam around. I'm paranoid. I don't want them to get into something that could hurt them and I don't want them to do something that may upset me when I get home. Not that they are destructive, but you never know what kind of mischief they could get into. Scooter is about 14 months and Lulu is 9 months. Am I a bad mom????????? Should I let them putz around????????????

[momluvzozzy]

I dont think your bad at all. My girlfriend just recently last year let her Pugs roam the house (ages 2 and 4 (I think).

They still get into things though, luckily she has a baby so the house is pretty much child proof.

My babies are alone for sometimes 4-5 hours depending on our schedules, but i let them out each day at lunch (I only live down the road so I am able to do this) I know I wont be able to let them roam the house for a long time. Mine have occasional accidents still & get into everything in front of me. I cant imagine what they would do if I wasnt home. Maybe if I just had Ozzy I could, but the 2 together are monsters.

[M129]

Frodo can hold it just fine while he's crated during the day for up to 8 hours while we work. He's now about 1.5 years old and been able to do this for some time now. He has to be crated or else him and the evil cat get very destructive.

[Rosco34]

I think every pug is different. Rosco is not a big drinker. In fact he rarely goes through a bowl a day. I never even hear him drink the rabbit type feeder in his crate. He goes out at 7am then again at 1pm and sometimes gives my husband a hard time and won't pee, so we make him wait until the next time out which is 6-6:30 and he is fine. I would rather him go, but sometimes being outside for 45min to an hour is long enough! Rosco used to poop occasionally at the 1pm walk, but much less frequently now. We probably could do away with letting him out at 1pm, but its more for him to stretch and get out.

my brother is getting married in August and its a day wedding and we will be away from the house from 9-6 and we may have to leave him all day in his crate. Every one I know and trust will be at this wedding. My husband won't let a dog walker in the house because he is a cop and trusts NO ONE. The one family friend who walks dogs we agreed to use her and my brother invited her to the wedding. Luckily, the reception place is literally 5 minutes from our home and could run home if necessary, but thought that would be so rude since we are in the wedding party. Haven't figured out what to do yet, but I just may have to get him VERY tired the day before so he can snooze all day on that Sunday.

[ruebella]

I am gone a lot. I work 8 hours a day, plus I go to school two nights a week. Because of this, the boys don't always get me to take them out (thier preferred method of going potty).

On the days that I know I am going to be gone over 8 hours, I put extra puppy pads down (one in each room) so that the boys can go potty if they need too.

I know it's not the best solution, but it does work for us.