A Guide to How to Prepare for Welcoming a New Puppy into Your Home 

Welcoming a new puppy into your home and settling them in so they can soon feel comfortable, relaxed, become toilet trained and learn to respect your home is important to them successfully adapting and fitting into your life. 

Here we have come up with a few ways you can make preparations to help a puppy settle in properly to your home.

Prepare Your Home and Buy Things to Make It Puppy Friendly

Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0) - Jonathan Kriz

Buying a comfy puppy bed, plenty of canine toys, and a variety of different food and supplies are key purchases to get in and add around your home before your new puppy bundles in through your front door. 

In the early stages when your puppy is not toilet trained and can’t go outdoors much yet, it’s advisable to put newspaper everywhere downstairs to avoid any accidents. Be careful to buy your new friend special labelled puppy food and not give it adult dog food which it will not initially be able to chew and digest properly. If you want to look into buying some supplies so that you are all ready to go with your new puppy, take a look at the puppy food and supplies on offer at the Time for Paws online store.

Protect Furniture or Any Parts of Your Home That You Don’t Want Damaged

It is common knowledge that puppies can easily wreak havoc in a previously neat and tidy home. Gnawing away at sofas, urinating on your favourite cupboards and chest of draws, ruining cream carpets, and tearing down your family portraits hung delicately on glass frames on the wall, the chaos puppies can cause to quiet pristine homes is endless. 

To prepare your home and prevent it from experiencing such damages you may want to look into purchasing handy items such as sofa protector covers for example.  Sofa covers can keep your sofas intact and prevent your puppy from managing to leave your furniture looking unrecognisable with plenty of teeth marks embedded into its fabric and upholstery. For those who are immensely house proud, getting covers to look after your furniture from a playful young puppy is a vital necessity.

First-Time Puppy Owners Should Read Up Lots on How to Train Them

For seasoned dog owners who have had to raise puppies in the past, knowing how to train a puppy will be second nature to you. However, first-time owners should definitely make an effort to read up on the steps they should take to train a new puppy. 

Toilet training is one of the most crucial parts of training a puppy, and when it goes wrong or is delayed by a long time it can cause you a great deal of stress as a homeowner and sometimes cost a lot of money too. So, research, and read up on how you plan to toilet train your puppy. Look at forums and blogs on the matter online or speak to other people you know who have successfully toilet trained puppies in the house.

Another important side to raising a puppy you need to read up on beforehand and ensure you get right is socialising them. Do you have kids? Or lots of young relatives such as grandchildren who will be visiting your home regularly? Then you most certainly will want to make sure your puppy grows up to be friendly and comfortable being around children. Socialising a puppy in the right manner is essential to them developing a good temperament, being friendly, and being safe and behaving well around humans. 

If You Live with Other People Consult Them First Before Buying a Puppy

It’s commonplace that wanting to get a puppy can be a cause for contention that divides households. Do you live with housemates or a partner who isn’t a fan of dogs? Has one of your kids got their heart set on getting a family puppy but the rest of you are sceptical and against the idea? It is definitely an essential prerequisite to consult the other members of your household before taking the plunge into buying a puppy and bringing it into your household. After all, you all share the same collective living space, and a new puppy is a big addition to your home. 

Provided you all work together to try and ensure the puppy is trained properly and adapts well to life in your home, it should integrate just fine into the group. Sometimes bringing members of the household round to the idea of agreeing to getting a new puppy and taking part in training it requires a considerable degree of compromise.

During the pandemic and the lockdown periods that have ensued, we have by no choice of our own all become a bit more housebound and appreciated our living space more. Welcoming a new puppy into your new home is an exciting proposition, just remember that doing so means you must do a lot of research and preparation.