French Bulldog puppy: A morning in the life

A day morning in the life

Wakey wakey

My puppy alarm clock has just gone off. I stir and look around to get a gauge of what could have caused my 13-week-old Frenchie to cry. Darkness envelops the room. My body tells me it feels like the middle of the night. After 5 weeks of interrupted sleep the tiredness feels heavier. 

Depending on what time this is, it’s either a sensible time, that she’s held her bladder and needs taking outside to go to the toilet… Or as my dog trainer has explained, she’s still young enough to be scared and need comfort.

As I reach over to look at my phone, it says 4.30am. I do the rough maths in my head – she’s been asleep for around 5 hours – it’s a reasonable time to request needing to empty her bladder. 

I get up, put on some socks. I take her out of her crate and carefully but clumsily carry her down the stairs, holding onto the handrail for extra support. I’m most certainly not feeling stable having just woken up.

Outside she goes for number one and number two. I mentally congratulate myself for making the right call for her.

Remember the training…

We head back upstairs, the training we have had repeating in my head… ‘make this non exciting… no frills… bare minimum contact to ensure success with putting her back to sleep’. 

Some nights this is successful. Tonight is not one of those nights.

Within seconds of putting her into her crate, her high-pitched whine – suggesting that she’s in the most immense pain and distress she’s ever experienced – has begun again.

Then more training tidbits flood into my mind: ‘don’t let her cry it out… see what it is she needs’. I hand her various chews through the crate – a chew toy, a pizzle stick, my fingers. She only has any interest in my fingers to chew on, and even then it’s not working. 

For the sake of trying to get more sleep, I get her out of the crate and cradle her like a baby. Trying to lower her heart rate through gentle swaying and giving her comfort, I can feel her getting calmer.

This time I remember to put on her calming plush toy with a slow repetitive replica heartbeat on, and I pop her back in. Except for a couple of small whimpers (and ensuring every light that had been turned on to enable a safe passage to the toilet had been switched off), it seemed a fairly good chance to get myself back into bed and settled. Of course without making any sound, so as not to wake the puppy.

I glance at my phone to look at the time: 4.55am. I can try to get another hour or so of rest – just need to shut my eyes and drift off.

Night brain

Inevitably, today was one of the days where I could not settle. Instead I was awake, thoughts full of what needs doing for work, while other random thoughts popped up that caused my curiosity to prompt a quick Google to get an answer to the burning question in that moment.

Today’s one – which I found with a quick look at my most recent search history – was “How to leave my dog home alone”, plus a booking confirmation for some theatre tickets in October time. Mental maths says I have 7 months or so to nail this one, so me and my partner can have an evening out together and not feel immense guilt that the puppy isn’t equipped to deal with us being absent for a few hours.

At some point I feel sleepy enough to drift off, so I happily allow myself. 

Wakey wakey (again)

Then what feels like 10 minutes later, the puppy alarm goes off again. This time I know I’m not getting another snooze in… It’s 7am and we need to get up and get ready for the day.

Predominantly this involves prioritising the puppy’s get-up routine first. Then I use whatever’s ‘left over’ to sort myself. The puppy schedule consists of going back out to the toilet, this time with some pottering around the garden. She enjoys sniffing around now that it’s daytime.

Morning routine

I stick on the coffee machine, pull out her fresh food, water and licking mats for the day from the dishwasher, and start the preparation. Weigh out her kibble food and mix in some warm water to soften it up…

The thought bubble pops up that at some point I will address her diet. Needs research and careful gradual introduction, but I’d prefer to get her off kibble onto ‘something else’. The decision has not yet been made around this yet, so we stick with a hypoallergenic kibble specific to her breed for now. 

I place down the food and water bowls and she eagerly tucks straight in. Any longer delay to this and I’d have inevitably seen some ‘unwanted’ behaviour – a tug at my trouser leg, a nibble of my toes. Ouch – they are starting to get much harder than when she first arrived.

I have a brief moment of quiet as she’s eating her breakfast so I seize the opportunity for more preparation: two licking mats – one for now, one for the freezer for later in the day. Today’s LickiMat menu is a dollop of cottage cheese, small dollop of Greek yoghurt, a raspberry and blueberry. I also forgot to administer her probiotic, so I pop the paste onto the LickiMat for extra goodness. 

I then remember I need some training treats for the day, plus that I’d planned to move her away from her pre-packed treats – with ingredients I wasn’t even sure I recognised – on to sprats. I’d okay-ed the sprats with my dog trainer, as I was initially dissuaded by the packaging saying it was only suitable for six months and over. My trainer said they’d be fine if they were chopped up smaller, and that size was the issue from an age perspective. 

So this morning’s glamourous task: chopping up the whole bag of sprats into tiny pieces. As this process took an age (sprats are surprisingly tough), I suspiciously wonder why there has been silence for so long. I wander into her room with her pen. Too late… she’s decorated the floor. 

Disappointed that I’d forgotten one of the obvious training rules: ‘take your dog out as soon as they’ve finished breakfast’. I’d missed the window. I sigh and shrug. That’s another task to add to the schedule this morning, and it needs doing immediately. I grab the poo bags to pick it up, and also grab the antibacterial wipes to wipe the floor.

A thought bubble passes over again – I need to steam the floors today once the day is ‘finished’. In every room it seems like there are handy poo bags, kitchen rolls, antibacterial wipes – just in case.

Clocking in

I glance at the clock, half an hour before I ‘need’ to start my work day. I pop the LickiMat and pizzle stick down as her calming devices, keep her secured in her pen area and rush upstairs. I mentally run through the things I need to do to get myself into a reasonable state of readiness for the day.

My showers have become the bare minimum required. My water consumption must have gone down as there’s no such thing as a relaxing shower. In, wash, out, get dressed. No frills or downtime. It’s now me racing against the clock.

I check the mirror for the first time this morning. The thought bubble washes over again: I look tired and my hair looks a mess. Given the lack of time, I have to settle for a quick brush through and an emergency hair tie in case it just is unworkable through the day. I rush back downstairs to ensure no accidents of any kind. The puppy is relaxed and calm, pottering in her pen and seems ready to settle herself in her crate when she’s ready. 

I log into my work laptop and scan the most recent emails and Teams messages. No fires to put out. I pop on my laptop camera to assess the damage. Today is not a day I can get away with no makeup as I have no natural glow, but am definitely sporting dark circles around eyes and a dullness and redness to the skin. This needs correcting, else I will most certainly be asked “Are you feeling ok?” Not the look I want to convey as a professional working woman. 

My makeup is just the bare minimum to take the edge off, but certainly not to my desired ‘polished’ state. Maybe one day I’ll be one of those people that just has it all come together effortlessly and to a high level of perfection. While my puppy is so dependent on me to give them a stable routine and put their needs first, this is unlikely for a while! 

As I sip on my third coffee of the day and start to look at my work priorities, I realise my tummy feels hungry, and I’ve not yet considered my needs for the day. With the limited time I have, I grab a pre-made smoothie and banana, accepting that will have to do.

Today I remember to take my assortment of supplements that are supposed to help me health-wise. This may be the first time I’ve taken them for a number of days. Not sure if that still counts or the clock resets? That is something I’ll need to remember to Google after my work day.

The puppy is nice and settled and sleeping. I know I have a good two hours of peace to really focus on work. Time to start my day…