Preparation is Key!
Bringing a new puppy home is a special time for you and ensuring your new friend has the best start to their life is a top priority.
Make sure you’ve got the basics covered – food, toys and accessories. Puppy food is specially formulated to meet the nutritional needs of a growing pup. It is rich in nutrients and provides your puppy with all the valuable nutrients needed to grow. Start with a varied diet with wet and dry food as well as tasty treats to help with training!
Puppy toys are essential, especially if you don’t want your furniture or shoes to suffer! Puppies are inquisitive little things that love to explore everything with their teeth. But their teeth can be delicate, so choosing toys specifically designed for puppies will ensure that playtime is always fun! Puppy toys aren’t just for your new four-legged friend either – playing with your puppy is a great way to bond and strengthen your relationship. Plus it also helps tire them out, so you can get a break!
Don’t forget other accessories for your new family member. When your puppy is ready for its first walk, you’ll need a perfect-fitting collar and lead, and while it’s at home a nice comfy bed for snoozing.
Training from a Young Age
So, now comes the difficult bit – trying to train your puppy. The first thing that springs to mind when it comes to puppy training is toilet training. Nobody wants a puppy to do their business all around the house! Puppy pads are the ideal way to housetrain your new puppy, teaching it where to go to the toilet and helping to save both your carpets and your sanity!
Training your puppy is not just about teaching it cool tricks, it’s about setting boundaries and preventing undesirable behaviour. Training a dog from a young age sets the building blocks for future training and will dictate how your young dog will act as it gets older.
Remember, when training, you want positive reinforcement. By using praise and rewards, in the form of tasty treats, you will be able to motivate your dog to obey you. When it comes to training your puppy, it’s important to start with the basics – housetraining, bad habits like barking, biting and scratching and good behaviour while on the lead.
Baby’s First Vet Visit
Now that your puppy is settled, it’s time for his first visit to the vet. This allows you to check that your new pup is in tip-top shape and also allows the vet to check for any infections or parasites.
We all want our puppies to be healthy and happy, so regular visits are important. As your puppy grows it will need to go to the vets for various reasons, but two vital things are to make sure its worming treatments and vaccinations are up to date.
Puppies need to have a worming treatment every three to six months, and if your puppy has worms they could seriously compromise their immune system and lead to other serious infections.
Just like babies and children, puppies will get sick. Getting your puppy vaccinated when it’s old enough can help prevent it being susceptible to life-threatening diseases.