Bringing Your Puppy Home

Bringing You Puppy Home

“Puppy Proofing”

Is that really a thing? As much as I would love to say bringing a puppy home for the first time just consists of cuddling and kisses and nonstop FUN, the reality is.. a little different.

It consists of plenty of puppy sweetness, just throw in some poo and pee and chewing and maybe even a little throw up and its a puppy party!

So what can you do before you bring your new addition home to make things a little easier for yourself.

Puppy Proofing 101:

Put all trash receptacles out of puppy reach. This includes kitchen trash, as wells as bathroom, office, and nursery trash. Even the recycle should be put out of reach. Puppies aren’t picky!

Breakable ANYTHING. If it is at puppy level, or on something that is puppy level (lamps, vases, picture frames) it is not safe from being knocked over. Once my puppy was chasing a gnat and knocked over a shelf that had my spice rack on it. There was shattered glass and spices EVERYWHERE, and of course he wanted to eat the spices.. talk about chaos. Your best bet is to put anything breakable on a sturdy, high surface (counter-top) or in a closet or cabinet.

Hide anything small that would be loose-coins, toys, craft supplies. A good stance to take is that if it can fit in the puppy’s mouth, he is going to try and eat it.

Take note of anything toxic to your puppy and get rid of it or lock it away. Cleaning supplies, antifreeze, toxic plants. There are endless resources on toxic items around your home. Utilize them and keep your baby safe!
Protect your puppy from electric shocks! They chew everything when teething. Their mouths are like their hands, they feel and explore by putting things in their mouths (like human babies!) If left unsupervised for any stretch of time, they could get their mouths on something very dangerous like a chord plugged into a wall. Don’t risk it. Make sure chords and outlets are out of reach or covered.

Once your puppy is home there are few things to keep in mind:

Getting them on a potty cycle will make your life much easier. It takes a lot of work initially but the results are well worth it. 21 days is the stretch of time I use in training. If they make it 3 full weeks with no accidents, they get the potty trained gold star! This will take time, so put away any rugs and avoid leaving puppies on carpet unattended. Inevitably.. there will be some messes to clean up.

There are many tools you can use to make the overwhelming job of puppy proofing easier. Using a pen or a crate to limit the space a puppy has to wreak havoc will alleviate your stress immensely. See my crate training post for more information on how to start that process and how to use crates for potty training.