Getting Your Home Ready for the New Puppy

We finally made the plunge and decided the kids were ready for a puppy. I always joked I would get a pet for them when I was ready to take care of it. As sweet as our kids are, and all the promises they have made to help take care of the puppy, I knew it would come down to when my wife and I were ready for a 4^th child.  And yes, he is like a new baby.  The second we took him out of the crate we knew it was go time! We are probably the last house on our street to have a dog, and possibly our neighborhood. We knew very little of what we were getting into. After hours of YouTube videos were definitely more up to speed. I wish we would have prepared a little more beforehand but being the holidays it wasn’t at the top of our list.

Here are some helpful things, through our initial experience and research, to prepare you for when the adorable puppy takes his first steps of freedom out of the crate. One of the videos we watched recommended that we take him to a designated potty spot in the backyard. You can use a small baby/dog pen to help define the space. That way there will be less distractions when you are trying to get your puppy to use the bathroom in a reasonable amount of time. Puppies tend to get distracted with all the new smells, so it’s important to give them a designated space for their business . This also helps with clean up. Once your puppy has gone potty you can bring him/her into the house.

If you have children, it is recommended to have them not sit on the floor so the puppy does not feel the urge to jump on them. Have your children not make any sudden movements or loud noise, as this may scare the new puppy and provoke a reaction. If you have a larger family, consider introducing your puppy to everyone in smaller groups.  

Before you bring home your puppy decide what area you will isolate him/her to. This should be a small space that can be easily blocked off with gates. This small area will help with potty training and minimizing/containing potty accidents, as well as minimize stress over learning all the new house at once.  We made the mistake of giving our puppy free reign of the first floor instead and a fun chase ensued. After several laps around the first floor of the house, and tons of laughter, we got him under control.  What we learned in that moment were all the areas that were just too enticing for him not to terrorize. This sweet little 6-pounder went berserk.

One of the first things he went after were the door stoppers at the bottom of the door, not the chew toys we bought for him.   Our door stoppers are older with the rubber tips, so we knew right away that was something we were going to have to fix.  His next target were the shoes.  The kids quickly learned when the parents say put away your shoes you better put them away.  Those rubber pink Crocs are a wonderful treat for a puppy.  We have designated bins for the shoes in our laundry room and finally the kids are now putting them away. 

The next target the dog went after was the hall rug.  It has tassels on the ends and he was ready for tug a war. He went after it like it was an enormous dog toy.  I tried picking it up off the floor and he was literally hanging on the other end of it. NO decorative throw rugs for now.  He just does not understand no, and won’t for a while.  The next target was the low hanging Christmas ornaments.  We should have known better and actually had planned on moving them up but we dropped the ball.

Thankfully, we were able to react quickly.  He also went after the strand of lights hanging from the tree that plugged onto the wall.  I recommend plugging them into a surge protector so they are less enticing and not hanging. Cover the outlet and surge protector if you can with a small sheet of plywood if it remains a target.   We quickly discovered we had more work to do with the outlets. 

Our wireless Ring power source and network was the next victim.  He went straight for it and started chewing on it. I relocated it to a higher outlet and removed the temptation. The next target was the kids toy bin. We have a small bin in the living room where the kids can keep a few things downstairs.  We thought it was tall enough but he was still able to climb in. We emptied that quickly. A faux plant on the bottom shelf of our entryway table was the next must see and play with for the little pistol. The plant soon became sprawled all over the floor. This was in a matter of seconds and I was right there with him, lol. Puppies are fast, REALLY fast.

I’d recommend putting up baby gates if you have stairs in the house. Our puppy got the courage to run up the stairs after the kids on his second day with us. It is not yet safe for puppies to go up and down stairs. They can tumble down and get hurt. If your second floor is carpeted like ours I would recommend that being off limits for now. Cleaning up accidents on the carpet is no fun.

Again, keeping him in the small designated space until he has proven he can be trusted will be helpful. This will also help with potty training. Puppies don’t want to go potty in the space they sleep. You can start to introduce him/her to new rooms in the house once your puppy has not had any accidents in their first space. We now have a baby gate at the bottom of our stairs.   Our children are still young so we went with a baby gate that is easy to open and close. I wish we would have kept our gates we had from when our kids were babies. The first thing we did after the little one had his way with our house was a trip to the Wake Forest Petco.  They got me all set up with more chewy goodness for the puppy.  He has plenty of his own stuff now to keep him occupied.  The small toy bin in the living room that was emptied before is now filled with his toys. We signed up for the free Petco rewards and saved five bucks right away.

The big advice I can give here, from a rookie puppy owner, is don’t leave your puppy unsupervised, EVER! They will find mischief. We are getting a pen to put him in so we can isolate him in the house when I need to make calls, or prepare meals, or just need a break.  We had a plastic one that was a loaner from a friend, but with his nails, he was able to climb out using the corner of the pen.  We will be getting a metal one with vertical bars. Before you have that big yard sale to sell all the old baby stuff you may want to hold onto a few things if you don’t have a puppy yet.  If you have kids, there is a really good chance you will be getting a pet. Baby gates, play pen, etc. will save you some cash from not having to buy them again.

If we could have this much adventure in a matter of minutes imagine what an unsupervised puppy can do.  Never let them out of your sight and watch hours of the good YouTube trainer videos.  Also, seek advice from other pet owners.  There are a ton of them out there that have “been there done that.”  We got some great advice from a friendly pet owner in the pet aisle at the Wake Forest Target over the weekend.  He had some fantastic training advice for us. Some other quick advice I can give are remove any food stored on the ground in the kitchen, especially in the pantry.  Any loose hanging drapes tie them up if they are touching the ground or within reach.  Soft pillows with tassels can also be vulnerable. Highly recommend crate training. Anything that can be chewed remove it, anything! You can reintroduce it later. 

Matt Maynard
            Kima Real Estate Group
            919-805-5699