You’re going to get a puppy? There are a few things you need to do first.
Want to have everything ready when your new family member arrives?
You’d be crazy not to prepare properly for the commitment of a lifetime.
Here is what you should have accomplished before you bring a puppy home.
Pick a veterinarian or veterinary clinic.
Go back to a clinic you’ve used in the past for other pets, or contact a clinic that’s been highly recommended by friends and family. Read reviews online, of course, but more importantly, listen to what clients say about the staff and service. Your puppy’s initial impression of veterinary care will be imprinted when the two of you first walk into that clinic. You want that impression to be good!
Choose pet health insurance.
Ask your veterinary clinic for a recommendation. Staff may be familiar with the successes and failures of various providers and plans. They may even help you with the paperwork. Do your own due-diligence, too, by asking friends and family what they’ve found good—or bad—in the pet insurance field. Again, online reviews can be helpful, but personal experiences give the best insight.
Enroll in an excellent puppy class.
Ask your vet, your friends and family, breeders and groomers—ask people you meet who have well-behaved young dogs! Yes, look at online reviews, but read the facility’s own website and Facebook page carefully. You need to know what sort of training and instruction will be offered. Pick several of the most likely and ask to audit a class or classes. Then make the best choice for your puppy.
Photo by Denise O’Moore
That seems like a lot of work when I don’t even have a puppy yet, you’re thinking? Yup. That is the whole darn point: once you bring the puppy home, it will be too late!
You will see your own veterinarian, if you can, with your new puppy before the puppy sets foot in your house. Your pet health insurance should go into effect for that first visit to avoid those pesky pre-existing conditions. Once puppy is current on necessary vaccinations and cleared of any health concerns, you should start puppy classes. (Classes which, if they are great, are often fully booked a couple of months out. Plan ahead.) You don’t want to wait for puppy classes: start as soon as possible!
Make a budget for care and feeding.
We haven’t spent a cent yet, and you’re worried that you can’t afford it? Then right now might not be the best time for you to invest in a pet.
Consider fostering for a reputable rescue or excellent animal shelter. You provide the time, energy, and housing for a foster pet, the rescue or shelter pays the expenses, including food, veterinary care, and, in the best cases, extensive support and training for you! Pets are expensive, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have an animal in your life on a temporary basis.
Get all the education you can.
Read the books, watch the videos, audit the training classes, and pick the brains of every successful dog owner you know. (When I say successful, I mean a person whose dog behaves as you would want your own dog to behave, within reason.)
Don’t forget how much has changed about dogs and dog training in the last few decades. Update your knowledge if you believe punishment is necessary. Dogs don’t have to suffer to learn how to behave appropriately. Science has shown us better!
Make a schedule for care and feeding.
You live alone? Arrange days off during the first few weeks your puppy is with you. It’s a great time to take a “vacation” without leaving home. Family and friends may be willing to help when you’re back at work. Enlist their aid and interest before you bring the puppy home.
You have a family? Couples, single parents, and families with children also need to figure, for any moment in the day, who’s caring for the puppy. Be realistic, please. Children can help, but they need lots of direction. Teenagers are often good carers for pets, but their schedules can be hectic, so be sure they have back-up from adults, too.
Build a fence and puppy-proof your home.
Wait, what? That fence wasn’t in the budget! You live in a home with a yard that could be fenced, but you don’t have a fence? Get the fence before you get the puppy!
You’ll still go out with your puppy every time to praise and reward for eliminations and to supervise and participate in play. It’s just much more difficult to do that on-leash . . . and you’re certainly not going to let a baby puppy run around loose, are you? Invest in a solid privacy fence, one that will safely contain your full-grown dog.
Invest, too, in any baby gates you’ll need indoors to keep the puppy contained in a room or sequestered out of a room. I prefer solid plexiglass baby gates, as opposed to the cheap accordion-style wood kind. Search online for all the different heights and lengths. Choose a style or material that suits your home.
Puppy-proofing all the areas a puppy (or grown dog) can reach is imperative—even the lower cabinets. Plan how you’ll keep the puppy out of kitchen garbage, recycling, and any waste baskets in the house!
Unlike human children, puppies are mobile from the day you bring them home. It’s unwise to assume “the puppy can’t reach that” because the puppy will very often prove you wrong, thereby establishing a bad habit that may be repeated and setting up a lifelong behavior issue you would never have predicted.
Your puppy can be happily confined to a few “safe” rooms in your home until good behavior is well established, if you make it easy on yourself—and on your puppy—by starting out right!
You’ve picked a veterinarian, chosen pet health insurance, enrolled in puppy class. You’ve made a budget, decided you are able to afford a puppy. You’ve gotten all the education that you can. You’ve made a schedule for care and feeding. You’ve built a fence and puppy-proofed your home.
Is that all?
It certainly is not!
Next week, we’ll cover the equipment you need before you bring your puppy home!
