Hi
I'm a new member and I'm a soon to be pet owner of a female bernese mountain dog and I have a few questions :

Me and my partner work from 8 to 6 mon-fri so
what would be the best place in the house for her to stay when we are at work ?

And If I have to feed her 3 times a day until she's about 4 to 6 months when is the best time of the day to feed her ? Since we can't be home to give her food at lunch time.

Should I ask a neighbour to come and check up on her during the day ?

I'll post pic when I have her ... I can't wait
Love this site by the way


Cheers

Stephanie McGrath
Canada

Hello,
Congratulations on your new puppy. I think it is a great idea if you can arrange for a neighbor to come in once, maybe even twice a day (if possible) to feed & take her out to do her business. The work day is an awful long time for your new puppy to be left alone and not be taken outside. Berner pups usualy are loved by anybody who sets eyes on them so your neighbor may be thrilled to come over & visit with your puppy. In the begining when you leave her alone a crate large enough for her to move around in would be a good idea. Good luck and post some pictures for us to see.

Usually, a large breed puppy should be fed 4 times until 12 weeks of age, then dropped to 3 times until 6 months of age....this is important for energy, glucose levels and growth. In addition, 8 hours is too long to leave a puppy without any interaction, or chance to properly relieve herself (you will set yourself back on potty training tremendously).

As suggested, I highly recommend you have someone come in to feed, interact, and potty her.....or get her into a puppy class/doggie day care that can be trusted to not cause issues.

When being left alone for short periods, an x-pen is an optimal enclosure to use - crating during the day is too confining, and becomes punishing (not what you want to to instill with crate training) and a puppy should have enough space to move around and play during alone hours. Giving her a stuffed kong to keep her occupied and feeling "positive" during her isolation is also very helpful.

I can vouch for having family members and/or trusted freinds and neighbors helping out at first. We have a great "support system" in place, we couldn't do out without them. Our Guinness will be 5 months next week, we both work full time but luckily my Mom lives a mile away. When we were feeding him 3x a day she would come over about 2 hrs after we left for work to let him out, come back at noon for his mid day meal and again mid afternoon to let him out again. also as luck would have it, she works Tued & Wed but my mother in law has those days off, so he goes to her house those days. Also my wife is fortunate enough that she can work from home one day a week. so we throw that in the mix too. He's learning that there's nothing routine about our routine, every day is different & he's learning to roll with it.

Now that we're on a 2x feeding schedule, mom comes over for a couple of hours mid day to let him out of the crate to do his business & to play. We figure in another few weeks he won't need to go to Grammy's for the whole day, she can come & let him out midday like my mom does now. He's usually crated in the kitchen, although on the really humid days we're more comfortable with him in the bedroom with AC on low. in another month or so we're going to test out not crating but by limiting him to just the kitchen for just a few hours to see how he does.

Both moms are semi retired & my mom especially likes having "something to do"-- Monday Guinn was sick, & she ended up staying at our house all day-- she's having a blast with her grand puppy. We're thinking we'll continue with the daily visits in the future, we think its good for him having interaction with people throughout the work day.

Hi wow Guinness is pretty lucky. None of my familly is near by my house . And we just moved in a new house. I'm soon going to find someone to come and take care of the puppy will we are working. I'm only getting the puppy in mid November. Thanks for all the feedback

We found a kennel nearby and take Molly to daycare once a week- we started when she was a pup and still do it because we love how it keeps her social and gives her a chance to play with lots of other dogs at least once a week.
I'm in Ontario, where are you?

I'm in New-Brunswick By Bathurst
They don't even sale Bernese Mountain dog's around here . I have to get my puppy In Quebec and it's a 10 hour drive !!

Hi! We will be getting our new pup in January. Can't wait! Having lost a Golden to cancer, a lab to kidney failure and a Bischon with diabetes we have been researching the holistic approach to feeding. I have read the book 'The Nature of Animal Healing by Martin Goldstein, D.V.M. and have learned quite a lot. Can I ask what some of the members here recommend for kibble? At this point we are leaning toward starting our pup on Wellness for large breed puppies. Thoughts?

Hi
I'll be choosing my puppy next monday and i have to chooses by pictures sense the puppy is 11 hours from where is live . I want a female and i would like to have the biggest one .. I have 4 females to chooses from and they will be 4 weeks old.

Does anyone have suggestions on how I should chooses my puppy since I cannot see her moving and her temper ?

Note on that I will be going to pick her up on the 18 of november 2011

We had to pick our pup before we met him also. The breeder sent us videos of the puppies. They were ALL adorable ! Maybe your breeder could send you a video????