Congratulations! You got a puppy!

Now what do you do?

Raising a happy and balanced puppy is not easy. They come into your home and will likely cry for the first few nights (or weeks!), they’ll pee inside, they’ll nip you, chew on your shoes and just in general get into mischief!

Puppy owners often get very frustrated and very overwhelmed by their new and adorable little addition to the family. But now take a minute and look at it through the puppy’s eyes. Little Fido was just taken away from his mom and all of his litter mates who he spent all day and all night.

He might have also gone for his first car ride or plane ride on his way to you. And now he’s in a brand new environment without his family- so he too is overwhelmed, over stimulated and probably lonely and a little scared. And if that’s not enough, he is still just a baby!

The first thing we want to do with our new puppy is slowly and positively introduce him to his new surroundings and teach him how to live in our human world with our human rules. After all, he is a dog! He won’t come to you already knowing it’s not OK to pee on the floor. Or that your shoes aren’t toys. And he is used to play biting with his litter-mates, so why can’t he play bite with you? It’s a big world your puppy knows nothing about.

It’s your job to be patient and teach him these things. And to show him how to behave in our world by praising and rewarding behaviours we want to see and providing him alternatives to his ‘bad’ puppy behaviours.

And just be thankful it is a lot faster to potty train a puppy than it is a baby!

Find our article in Experience Delta on Bringing home a puppy