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While you wait for your new puppy or dog to arrive, there are things you can do to prepare your home.  Just like babies, puppies and even sometimes adult dogs will go around your house and yard and explore the new scene.  Think like a dog and look at what is at their eye level and what smells.  Keeping your new pet safe is most important.  Wires on the floor?  Buy a cap that goes over them or tuck them under a rug.

But before we go over these things, let’s talk about Training.  The most important thing you can do for your pet dog, or any dog for that matter, is to train it.  Why you ask?

A dog left to his own learning will be more apt to have issues in the long run.  They cannot communicate with you effectively, so they may try to get your attention by doing naughty things, or they may just quit trying to communicate with you.

Spending literally 15 minutes a day for the first year working with your dog ensures a bond of communication unparalleled to anything you may have known in the past.  A dog knows you better than anyone else.

Our favorite resource, beyond a doubt, is Puppy Culture.  We use some of their techniques when we raise your puppy, but you have the time to give your puppy individual attention that it needs.  If you are interested in shaping your pups training, reach out to us and we will have you come over to work with your pup before it’s ready to go home, as early as four weeks old. Please purchase this DVD and learn the techniques – the DVD goes over all the questions you might have about your pup and how to shape your pups behavior for the rest of its life:  CLICK HERE.

OK, back to getting ready for your pup:    Check your outside fences for any small holes or cracks that a tiny pup might get through or get it’s head through.

Here are some items for you to think about:  Water dish and food bowl: be sure to use stainless steel, not cheap metal as it can leach chemicals.  Plastic can grow bacteria in any scratches.  You want to be able to sanitize the bowls daily or at least weekly.

Collar and Lead:  Everyone has a different preference.  Show people don’t use a collar – they use a slip lead so the hair on the neck does not get broken.  The 6 ft Good2Go Nylon Rope Slip Lead is a nice one.  Hunters use a collar with a nameplate and phone number on it.  Some like to use a harness, but please, if you are getting a harness, wait until you get the pup before buying one and fitting it – preferable wait until the pup is done growing at 18 months old before using a harness.  Here is a great link to a video on how to fit a harness to a dog.  It is very important to fit the harness correctly so it does not impair the movement of the shoulder blades and front legs. CLICK HERE.

Shampoo:  Chris Christensen’s Smartwash and Smartrinse Hypoallergenic works great for the babies. Bath your pup about once a month, dry well, and don’t get the inside of the ears wet (they can get yeast infections if ears are damp – make sure to dry with a towel, not paper towel).  CLICK HERE

Crates:  Use a crate that is just barely big enough for the Beagle to lay down and stand up.  A huge crate is not a good thing as it gives them room to go potty in their crate and they won’t learn.  You want to discourage them from going in their crate.  You might have to buy a small one when they are pups, and then a larger one when they are adults. www.primopads.com has the only mats we have found that Beagles cannot chew up – they are like wrestling mats and you buy the zip ties that go with them, ziptie to the bottom of the crate, and they last forever, easy to clean.  Start with no bedding, and only add bedding if they don’t go potty or chew on it.

We use a 24″ crate for the 13″ Beagles, and a 30″ for the larger 15″ Beagles.  There are many options and we have several throughout our house, some for the car, and some for the trailer we haul around click on the names below to see pictures:

        Wire Crate: Easy to fold and carry, lightweight, and lots of air.

        Impact Crate:  Very expensive but wise to have one if you are traveling with your dog often – think of what a car accident will do to your poor pup.

        End Table Crate:  These are great to incorporate into your living room and next to your bed.

POOP BAGS. Just google them.  You will need a lot of these.  Use a poop bag to pick up any of your dog’s poop when you are in public or someone else’s home.  Not only is it polite, but dog poop can carry all kinds of parasites and disease, and the longer you leave it on the ground, the easier it is for all of that to transfer into the ground and make another dog or yours sick.  Keep it picked up as soon as you can.

TOENAILS:  Dremel – So the Cordless Dremel #8220 is the one we recommend and you can get it at any Home Depot or hardware store.  It comes with a sandpaper band that will work for dog’s nails, or if you want to get fancy and not have to buy sandpaper bands all the time, you can buy a Diamagroove diamond plated bit that is amazing and you will love it.  They are pricey, but you only have to buy it once.  You can get the standard bit at https://whitmans.biz/product/diamagroove-pinnacle-2.  See the artcle on doing toenails HERE.  See the article on No Foot No Dog HERE.

Food and Nutrition:  From time to time, we change what we use for dry dog food.  C2R pups are started on raw goats milk and raw tripe (cow stomach ground up), along with supplements and probiotics.  We then transition them over to dry dog food (kibble) with probiotics.

Dry dog food (Kibble), is made all the same way – they cook down a meat source until it has no nutrition, and then spray on vitamins and minerals and preservatives and fats in the form of man made chemicals.  Its the equivalent of feeding your child cereal it’s entire life.  There is no government regulation on dog food companies – they can put whatever they want in the bag and the outside looks all flashy and pretty, but it may not be what’s actually in the bag!  So we like to add supplements and change foods sometimes.

For dogs, it’s important that they get a balanced diet – they eat anything so they get their nutrients from multiple sources.  Start with a good quality dry kibble that names its meat source (chicken, beef, lamb, etc.) and has as few fillers as possible – soybean can be toublesome as well so stay away from that if you can.  We mainly use Pro Plan Puppy food (chicken and rice).  It’s important when the puppy is under a year old to give them ample nutrients specifically for puppies, and not to get the calcium and phosphorus out of balance as their bones are growing. So puppy kibble is fed as the basic nutrition and then supplements on top of that.

Then we add to the kibble – we always add probiotics.  Probiotics are a must to help the dog digest the kibble properly.  We also use G and C Raw Dog Food  about 10% to the kibble, adding tripe and other meat, red krill powder, and Ultimate vitamins as well as eggs and sardines sometimes.  Spirulina is a great addition to any age dog.

Fat is super important in a puppy and adults.  The fat in dog food goes rancid very quickly. We keep our dog food in air-tight containers, and we use red krill powder to improve the fat in our puppies diets.

Just keep an eye on the weight and condition of your dog and that will help you determine what he needs in his diet.

As always, if you have questions, reach out to us and we can help you work through it!