How to Prepare Your House for a Puppy

Many people assume that in order to bring a puppy into your home, you must rearrange it. This is not necessary! You really don’t have to start making huge changes to your house. You can have a nice house, own nice things, and still have a dog!

Always remember that training is more important than removing items. In fact, training is the most important responsibility of owning a puppy. A puppy must be trained to respect your home. Setting clear boundaries and limitations from the beginning will make your pet less anxious and enable you to consistently enforce those boundaries. If you use 24 hour supervisory control from the time you bring a puppy into your home, you won’t have as many problems with the puppy chewing, lifting its leg on the furniture or pooping all over the house. Just remember that accidents will happen, and they are easily cleaned!

Make sure you have the proper equipment for training before you bring the puppy home. You should make sure to have a dog crate or vari-kennel for crate training, along with a pad or towel. Always leave the door open so the puppy has a safe place to go. This will also help the puppy get used to being in the crate for transportation purposes. Puppies will often go into alcoves or other small spaces. This is totally normal. The puppies aren’t hiding. They are just looking for a refuge where they can be alone. If there are children in the house, teach them to respect the puppy when it goes to a safe area. It’s down time and they should leave the puppy alone.

Your goal should be to live your normal life, with your puppy. Puppies must be taught that they are yours, not the other way around. If you compromise your lifestyle for a puppy, you will always be resentful and your puppy will never truly learn how to behave in normal everyday situations.