Determining If You Are Ready For A Puppy

You gave into the begging of your children and got that puppy, and now you have a puppy to train, and things to buy. Several items you need and several you may just want. You need food, a food and water dish, a dog collar, vaccinations and grooming tools. What you might also want are toys, snacks for training, a dog training collar (separate from his normal collar), a dog bed, some chew items (preferable not shaped like shoes), and pooper scoop type object. Most of these are self-explanatory but there are a few items that need a bit more explanation.

While you were trying to decide whether to give into your kids and get a dog you wondered at the costs. They were a bit overwhelming when you determined the full costs. You thought maybe you could avoid certain costs to make it all work, which you can, you just need to be careful.

A dog collar can be a very inexpensive item and you can choose from a manmade fabric dog collar all the way to a very fancy, fully decorated leather dog collar, with stops for a metal dog collar and a natural fabric dog collar. Whichever you choose make sure that you get the right size and expect to replace it with another as he grows or buy the expandable dog collar. While you a dog training collar is listed in the optional items, many people don’t consider them optional. You do need to be able to train your dog, or you will rue the decision to get a puppy every day of his life.

Chew toys sound like fun, and they are good for your dog, but like the dog collar you can easily get into some bad ideas. Chew toys shaped like items you DO NOT want your dog to chew is going to create a problem. He, quite seriously, may not be able to distinguish the difference between the toy and chew toy shoes, from your shoes. Thus, he may not understand why he’s being punished.

The last is delicate and I can think of no easy way to say it except you got to scoop up the dog poop. There are choices here and some depend on your living situation. There are bags you can use to scoop on a walk, they are much more biodegradable than the grocery store bags, with no inconvenient holes for spill through. Great for walks with quite low prices. They have a rake/shovel type tool that allows you to get poop off the grass. Like I said, its choices, if you don’t have a yard, you sure don’t need the rake/shovel tool, but then the bags are not a choice. Most cities have laws about leaving the poop about.