Planning to bring home a new puppy or dog? Then it’s important you spend some time to ensure your home is both dog friendly and safe for your dog.
Dog Crate and Play Pen
If your dog is not housebroken or chew-toy trained yet, he will have to be confined 100% of the time when unsupervised. For toilet training purposes, it is best to use a crate. However, as confining a dog for long hours in a crate is both cruel and inadvisable, it is just as important to have a play pen for him.
These are easily available in any good pet shop.
Baby Gates
There may be areas in your house that are out of bounds to your new dog. Your dog will need time to learn these rules. And if yours is a newly re-homed fully grown dog, there is always that chance that he will try to escape from your house at every possible opportunity for the next couple of days. Having baby gates around the house until your dog is properly trained is thus always a good idea.
Toys R Us is a good place to source for these gates
Chew-Toys and Bitter Apple Spray
If your dog is not yet chew-toy trained, there is the danger of him biting and destroying things around the house including your furniture. If there are signs your dog is a compulsive chewer, it is important that you have sufficient chew toys around plus a bottle of bitter apple spray to apply on your furniture legs and other items your dog might otherwise chew. Though not 100% effective, the bitterness does discourage many dogs from chewing inappropriate items.
Bitter apple sprays are available in any good pet shop or at Amazon.com. You can get Nylabone Chew Toys from our online shop.
Get Rid of Exposed Wires
Prevention is better than cure. Comb the house thoroughly for any exposed wires and remove them all before bringing your dog home. The last thing you want is your new best friend electrocuted because he thought the dangling wires on the floor is his latest chew toy.
Flooring
Not all floorings are suitable for dogs. I have marble flooring in my home. It’s far from ideal for dogs. My Golden Retriever, Duke, will lose his footing each time he tries to run and worse still, when any of my dogs vomit, it will always leave a stain mark due to the porous nature of marble. I would thus recommend vinyl flooring instead, if you have dogs and you are about to renovate your home. You can read more about Vinyl Flooring for home at this informative website. They are waterproof, scratch resistant and not slippery and thus in my opinion ideal for a dog friendly home.
The above are just some tips I gathered from years of having and caring for dogs. I’m sure the list above is not exhaustive; if you have tips that can help our readers plan for a dog friendly and safe home, feel free to share using the comment box below. We look forward to hearing from you.
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