Top 5 New Year’s Resolutions For Your Puppy
The new year is just around the corner, and with it comes the age old tradition of setting goals to send you into the new year. While you’ve more than likely set one for yourself, what about New Year’s resolutions for your puppy?
Just like us, our four-legged friends have room to improve in order to be the best canine citizens possible. Below, we’ll share some of the best 5 New Year’s resolutions for your puppy so that you can help your fur baby grow into an impressively well-rounded pooch.
Master The Art of Potty Training
While this seems fairly obvious, ensuring that your puppy masters the art of potty training as soon as possible will be critical to ensure your pooch becomes a certified canine good-citizen. This process can be notoriously difficult depending on your dog’s breed, experience level, and listening skills with the entire process can take anywhere from 4 months to a year.
Don’t get discouraged! The best thing you can do is to watch your pooch like a hawk and take him outside at fairly regular intervals to encourage the behavior. Once your pup starts to understand what you’re trying to communicate, he’ll catch on quickly.
Learn Basic Commands
Teaching your puppy essential skills like “Sit”, “Stay”, “Come”, and “No!” is critical for your puppy’s positive development and safety. A great New Year’s resolution for you and your pup is to make a habit out of regular training sessions.
This will ensure that your puppy knows to look to you for direction, which is a key component of setting your dog up for success. Once your pooch gets the basic commands down, you can gradually add more into the rotation. Most dogs love training sessions and committing to the practice can be an amazing bonding experience for you and your furry bff.
Curb Puppy Biting
Puppy play biting can be cute at first, but can quickly become a nuisance (and more painful) as your dog gets older. Therefore, make it a goal to transition your puppy to biting toys not fingers in the new year. While this process is easier said than done, it will help your pooch learn how to properly interact with other people. With consistent redirection to toys and praise, your pooch will eventually learn to avoid biting your hands or fingers altogether.
Explore New Places
One of the best things you can plan to do with your pooch in the new year is to explore new places. Once your puppy is fully vaccinated, it’s important to introduce him to novel people, places, and other dogs to make sure he grows up properly socialized.
Not only is it great for building socialization skills and tolerance, but most dogs love exploring new areas with their sniffers. Checking out the new park or nature preserve you’ve been meaning to go to can be just as enjoyable for you as it is for your puppy! Use the new year to introduce your puppy to new places and things.
Stay Up To Date On Vet Visits
When you have a puppy, you end up going to the veterinarian fairly often since you have to complete the initial vaccine series. However, don’t make the mistake of letting semi-annual preventative health visits slide in the new year.
These visits are a critical part of making sure that your dog stays healthy throughout his lifetime and serve as screening opportunities to catch other conditions that may pop up down the road. Make sure your pooch stays up to date on all recommended visits to the vet. Don’t forget to schedule your spay or neuter procedure and look into stem cell banking during the procedure with Gallant.
New Year’s can be an amazing time of reflection for many aspects of our lives, including our role as pet parents. Hopefully, these resolutions make it easier for you to bond with your puppy in a whole new way over exciting fresh experiences. Happy New Year!
