Top Tips for First Time Dog Owners

- in World News
1074
Comments Off on Top Tips for First Time Dog Owners

Bringing your first puppy home for the first time can be an exhilarating and rewarding feeling. You may have been waiting for years to be in a position in which you can take on a puppy and give them the love and care they need, and that is a great achievement. Whilst puppies don’t come with an instruction manual, there are a few key things to know when it comes to being a first-time dog owner.

10 First Time Dog Owner Mistakes to Avoid - Inside Dogs World

Bringing Them Home

You may have spent the last few weeks mentally preparing for your new puppy, thinking of all the wonderful walks and playtimes you’re going to have with them, but have you considered your home and how to prepare that properly? Well, it’s essential to ensure you’re bringing your puppy home to a safe and secure environment for them to live in. Before you go to collect your puppy, make sure you’ve puppy-proofed your home, which covers everything from safeguarding the home to ensuring you have all of the puppy essentials required to give them the best start in life. You can find a great post on how to puppy proof your home here, along with some of the best puppy essentials to stock up on here!

Early Stages

Over the first few weeks of having a puppy, you’ll experience completely new things and face certain challenges that are completely normal with having a new dog. Puppies are just like children, so you need to have eyes in the back of your head and be prepared for almost anything. Be sure to give your puppy plenty of time to settle properly into their new home, as this will all be extremely new and often slightly scary for them. Make sure they feel loved and safe, with plenty of cuddles and some exciting new toys to play with. It’s also important to enforce certain rules straightaway too; for example, if you intend for your dog to sleep in the kitchen in the future, then you should start by positioning their puppy crate in the kitchen to ensure they get used to this and don’t get used to a different routine which you plan to change further down the line.

Vet Checks

Whilst you may not feel like your puppy needs any medical treatment, puppies require a lot of initial vaccinations and jabs to make sure they’re protected and healthy. Making sure your puppy gets plenty of initial vet checks is really important to keep an eye on their progress, weight, and so on. Check-in with your vet frequently to ensure you’re ticking all of the boxes and they’re happy that your puppy is as healthy and happy as can be, then you can go down to less frequent visits as they grow older.

Basic Training

From the moment you welcome your puppy home, you need to implement basic training to ensure they learn and absorb commands from a young age. Simple commands like ‘sit’ and ‘stay’ are extremely useful in the initial few weeks, as this can help you teach your dog patience and so on. Take a look online for some useful videos and articles to help you with your basic training; you’ll be amazed how much fun you and your puppy can have with it!

You may also like

Functional Freeze: Battling Foggy Brain and Low Energy

Functional Freeze is a term that encapsulates a