1) Baby Gates
I cannot stress enough that if you want to keep your pup either safe or out of specific rooms or from climbing or falling down stairs... get baby gates! And I'm not talking about the cheap fake wooden ones. I'm talking about the metal, tall ones that have a door. Your puppy WILL grow, so why not spend the money upfront, one time, instead of having to get a bigger gate later on. If you have a cat or other small animal that you want to let through, get the gate with the small opening at the bottom. We found that Echo could slip through the small hole until he got bigger, but for the most part we have always had two main gates. One at the bottom of our stairs and one blocking off a bonus room that we didn't want him in. Another thing to consider are the moveable cheaper gates for interim blocking... like from the kitchen. Echo had decided to make the kitchen his poo place for the first week, so in order to try and break that habit, we got a smaller plastic gate that we just put up whenever he was outside of his playpen.
2) Play Pens
These are optional, but I highly recommend having two pens at minimum... one in a common space (like the living room) where you can seclude your pup if needed, but keep the pen open where his bed will be so that he realizes that when that pen goes away... this is still his spot. We custom made our living room pen, mainly because I wanted it to be super big and fit in a specific shape based on our living room furniture. We made sure that there was enough space for him to still play, a bucket of his toys and his feeding station and food bin. This became his "home" essentially... in our home. Since I work from home, I also needed a space for him to stay while I concentrated on work. While I'm working, we actually have the TV on to DogTV so he can stay distracted. We do have a baby cam mounted on the wall above the pen as well so that while I'm upstairs in my office I can spy on him and make sure he isn't trying to escape or needs to go potty. I know that not everyone can have this ideal setup and that's totally fine! It is all based on your own preference and just what has worked for us.
The other pen that I could not have lived without is our outdoor pen. We have a fairly big yard and keep in mind that puppies in the beginning will wake up several times throughout the night to go potty. The last thing we wanted to do was have to keep him on a leash at one in the morning and stomp around in the wet grass with him. We also didn't want him to have full access to the main yard yet, not only for his safety, but also not wanting to chase him around in the middle of the night. We got two of these Heavy Duty Pet Playpens and connected them together to give our pup tons of space to still run and do his thing. We attached two ends to the stairs on our deck and viola! You have an outdoor play space for your pup.
3) Wall Outlets
This should be a no brainer... if you have exposed power outlets that don't have things plugged into them, get a pack of outlet plug covers.
4) Power Cords
There are way too many ways to secure power cords, but I can tell you what we had to do. There is a section next to our couch that was exposed and also where the cat scratcher was. All of the power cords running to devices like phones, laptops, etc, were completely exposed and the easiest way for us to secure the area (and give our cat a space to escape to) was to cut that corner of the room off with a baby gate. The other piece of advice I have is to wrap any cords in tubing or cord protectors. When I puppy proofed my office, I had a serious mess of cables to clean up under my work station. I bought some Protector Wire Tubing and bundled up any cables that could be or wrapped them in this wire mesh to keep them from enticing the pup. And if he is still a chewer, the wire will stop him from hurting himself.
5) Anything Reachable
This is another no brainer. Your pup will go after anything on the floor... so either put it up or put it away! Within a couple of weeks, our pup grew out of wanting to play with our shoes, so we were thankful for that because now we don't have to keep them in a closet. As your pup gets bigger though... he will put his paws up on tables, counters, couches, etc... so if there is something that could potentially be dangerous to his stomach... keep it away from the edges. Puppies will eat ANYTHING that is in their path and unfortunately, your pup may develop PICA like ours did and it doesn't matter what it is, he will eat it. It's best to just try and keep everything out of reach.
6) Small Spaces
Our pup continues to go into small spaces. Depending on if you care or not, this could be a good or bad thing. We have a side table next to a bigger arm chair and behind that table is a space that our pup claimed as his "cave". We were ok with this because there was nothing he could hurt himself on back there, however when he started trying to go under the TV stand or under our dining room table base, it could potentially get dangerous. For a bit, I just kept telling myself that he will get bigger and eventually not fit under there. Our dining room table has a square base that sits about 6 inches off the floor and to this day he will still try to sploot himself under there. Now that he is bigger, he keeps getting stuck and we end up having to lift the table. For the TV stand, we ended up blocking the base with a cardboard box because it was just too dangerous for him to slip under there. Within a couple of weeks, we were able to remove the box and the excitement that he had earlier was no longer there. He didn't care about getting under there, which was good, and now he's too big. You may need to get creative in blocking off small spaces, just make sure it's safe for him, which is why we used cardboard.
Until next time!
Jana
(follow us on Instagram for daily pictures! @hearts_4paws)
*All posts by this blog are my personal opinions and experiences. Please consult with a Veterinary or Trainer when it comes to professional advice.
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