PuppyPower®

Following some of the threads on the very helpful Labrador Forums site, I've been looking for useful information as well as the answers to some questions, one of which was: how long should a puppy need to sleep? As is often the case it turns out that there isn't a one-size-fits-all answer; but every person who responded to the concern over a very sleepy puppy also added the advice that people should 'make the most of it' and I'm starting to understand what they meant!


Bingley normally has a very early start to the day, and by the time I stumble downstairs in the morning Jane's fed him and played with him and settled him back down to sleep. And he generally stays asleep until lunch time, which gives me opportunity to catch up with chores, etc. In fact until this week I was a bit concerned about just how much he was sleeping; some days it was around 20 hours!


Ah, the good old days. Now I'm starting to feel somewhat less concerned about his long kips and I'm getting a bit nostalgic about those 20 hours a day. His toilet training had taken a big step forward and he'll now (generally) bark when he wants to go outside, rather than quietly creep over to the newspaper: and that's a good thing of course. But once he's outside, and toileted, he wants to play. And then he wants to play some more! He charges around the yard like a little dynamo, soft puppy ears flapping like Biggles and tail wagging like a wind turbine. He could definitely make a contribution to the National Grid: PuppyPower!


But of course it's great fun really; he's a treasure of a puppy and it's giving me a good excuse not to do the housework. Not that I need an extra excuse - he's not too sure about the vacuum cleaner anyway and whenever I use it it's one of the few times that he howls. But the chores are getting a bit behind; maybe I could train Bing to chase round the house and collect all those dust balls that are beginning to accumulate?