Five Tips to Help You ROCK Your First Two Months with Your New Puppy
Ahhhh, you just brought home a new puppy, congrats!
You have dreams of how wonderful and amazing this time will be; filled with puppy snuggles, rainbows, unicorns, and puppy breath and while yes, having a puppy is amazing and can be a roaring good time, the truth is that raising a young puppy is a lot of work.
These five tips will help you make the most out of your puppy’s first two months with you so that your time with your new four legged best friend is a magical as possible.
Make sure they’re getting enough sleep. Puppies need between 16 and 18 hours of sleep a day that means your puppy is only going to be awake for 6 to 8 hours every 24 hours.
Many new puppy parents work under the assumption that the more they do with their puppies throughout the day, the more tired their puppies will be, and therefore sleep better at night. This backfires, causing the puppies to become overtired which leads to excessive nippiness in general “naughty behavior”.
Puppy should only be up for one to two hours max before they’re taking another one to two hour nap. a puppy is getting enough sleep will be much calmer much less nippy much less destructive and overall a more fun companion to be around.
Rotate their chews so they get a “new” one every day. If we have a plethora of chews that our puppy enjoys, and leave them out all the time, your puppy will inevitably go find your slippers to chew because they are more fun and novel.
Instead, pick four or five chews and rotate them on a daily basis so that they get a “chew of the day”. This will keep those chews much more exciting and keep your puppy interested in the chew of the day rather than finding things that they shouldn’t chew because they are bored with the same things every day.
Restrict access. Giving your puppy free roam of your home is a surefire way for them to get into trouble. Puppies are curious and enjoy putting everything in their mouths so if they have free access to your home they will attack your feet as you walk through the house, chew things they shouldn’t, eat things they shouldn’t, pee and poop places they shouldn’t, bark at the vacuum cleaner when you’re using it, and the list goes on and on.
Keeping your puppy confined to a pen or a safe room when you are not actively with them is the best way to keep them from practicing unwanted behaviors and prevent you from chasing your puppy around the house telling them how naughty they are.
Your puppy will nip you. Sure making sure they get enough sleep, making sure you are rotating their chews, making sure you’re managing them, and making sure they’re getting enough mental stimulation will all help but no matter what you do, your puppy will nip you.
The faster you accept this and understand that you’ll have cuts on your hands, holes in your clothes, and bruises on your arms from them nipping you, the faster you can get past the temporary discomfort and start to understand that they’re cutting teeth and the desired bite is just a strong as that of a baby who is cutting teeth. We don’t expect that we can “train “a baby to not want to bite things as their teeth come in so why do we think we can train a puppy not to?
It’s hard to be a puppy. Their bodies are growing like weeds, they are cutting teeth and making new ones, their hormones are changing daily, their ability to regulate their emotions is almost nonexistent, they’ve recently left their mother and their littermates, they are now living in a home with people they do not know and don’t understand the words that they’re saying to them.
My best and biggest advice for your first two months with your puppy is to be compassionate, to understand the difficulties that they are facing, and to help them through this difficult time as best you can.
Sara Sokol is owner of Mr. Dog Training in Brunswick Maine; A positive reinforcement dog training facility, offering both virtual and in person classes, that has been voted best training in Maine for 9 years in a row.
