Adopting a new dog

A Guide for taking home your new dog

This Guide offers you tips that will help make the transition of bringing home your new dog easier so that you can start your life together successfully.

Here’s a note about the Author:

Bio:
Julie Bjelland Lokhandwala is the founder of webDogTrainer, LLC and has created an Online Dog Training Guide and Consultation: www.webdogtrainer.com. WebDogTrainer, LLC donates 10% of profits to Charity with a focus on helping shelter/rescue dogs get adopted successfully. Julie formerly trained at Guide Dogs for the Blind as well as owned a successful private dog training business.

A Note from Julie:
Because you are reading this I know you are a dedicated dog owner and plan to give your dog a good home. I rescued my own dog, named Fax from German Shepherd Rescue and he is wonderful! I adopted him when he was about two years old and he was a big (almost 100 lbs), untrained dog who had a lot of behavior issues we had to work on right away to make the transition to living with us go smoothly. I’d like to pass on some of those tips to you.

I wish the best of luck and joy with your new dog and hope that you’ll contact me through my website if you need any extra assistance. Good luck and enjoy your life with your new dog!

-All the best!

Julie

Rules to follow for a successful adoption:

Have your supplies ready. You’ll need a leash, collar, food, bowls for food and water, toys, bones for chewing. You’ll also need an identification tag and rabies and license tags. For medium to large dogs I also recommend using a head collar called The Gentle Leader® for walking your dog without pulling. (If your dog’s snout is too short, like bulldogs, for example, you can try a body harness.

Try to be home with your dog for the first few days to a week if possible. A little extra effort early on makes a big difference! Taking time off work now will pay off in the future because you were able to be there for your dog to establish all the rules early on before they made the mistakes. If you are guiding and leading your dog successfully from day one, they will know the rules and follow them from the beginning before bad habits develop. A new house/owner means new rules so old habits from previous homes can be broken immediately if not allowed to do them in your home from day one.

BEFORE you bring your dog home the very first thing you should do is take your dog for a really long walk (about an hour or more for medium and larger size dogs that are younger than age 5 or so; small/toy size dogs and senior dogs will need less) before you even go into your home for the first time. The idea here is that you are establishing yourself as their leader, as well as tiring them out and draining some of that pent up energy and nervousness they may have. Your goal from now on should be to make sure to exercise your dog at least twice a day until they are tired out (meaning they lay down to rest after the exercise). If they are still running around after the exercise you know it wasn’t enough.

Then, when you do get home keep them on-leash for the first two weeks. Keep your new dog on-leash for a couple weeks initially so that you can teach them what is good behavior and what is not acceptable. Attach the leash to yourself and have the dog be with you all day and go where you go within the house. For example, if in their previous home they chewed furniture, ate things off the counters, got into the garbage, urinated on the carpet, etc they’ll learn they can’t do those things in your home because your timing for correcting it is instant when they are on-leash.

Make a trip to the Vet. You’ll want to be sure your dog is healthy and up-to-date on their vaccinations. Also, get your dog spayed or neutered as soon as you can if they are not already. You don’t want to contribute to more unwanted pets!

Create rules and goals you expect from the dog as a family ideally before bringing the dog home, but especially before allowing the dog off-leash in the home. It is a good idea to have a family meeting with everyone that lives in the home and discuss and agree on what your expectations are of the dog. Will they be allowed on the couch, the bed, and all rooms of the house? Where will they sleep and eat? Who will walk the dog and clean up after them? Etc. As a family you must all be consistent with your decisions or you will confuse the dog and cause inconsistency. Inconsistency on your part means your dog probably will not follow your rules.

To stop a dog from doing something you don’t want them to do you need to catch them in the act. If they urinated on the carpet or got into the garbage and you don’t actually see them doing it you cannot correct them for that behavior because you are too late and they will not understand why they are being disciplined and will also not trust you in the future. That old myth of bringing them to the spot and telling them they are bad does NOT work. Instead, since they are on-leash in the beginning you will be able to quickly tell them No and move onto something they can do. Make sure you are praising your dog when they are behaving well.

Get some Training Guidance. Having a well-trained dog is really a wonderful experience. Dogs that are trained well are happier and get to go out with you more and are a joy to have around! Be pack leader to your dog. Dogs naturally need a leader in their lives and if they don’t find one, they try to become one and that can lead to behavioral problems. Dogs are happier with you being a leader because our human world is stressful to them if they don’t have clear guidance and rules to follow. To become leader practice obedience, set rules and be consistent with them and walk your dog without pulling every day. Everything you need to know about training your dog and becoming leader can be found at www.webdogtrainer.com You can even talk with Julie, the trainer personally there through live chat to answer specific questions about your dog!

Enjoy your Dog! With the proper care and training your life will be filled with joy with this new addition to your family!