o Presents are by definition a surprise and a dog should never be a surprise. Before adopting a dog a family should spend lots of time thinking about and researching the type of dog that is best for the family and their lifestyle. Everyone in the family should meet the dog beforehand and agree that it is the right dog for the family.
o A new dog should come into a calm household with minimal visitors for the first week or so. Christmas is a notoriously hectic time of year with lots visitors and traveling.
o A house should be dog proofed prior to bringing home a new dog, so that there are minimal opportunities for the dog to fail by chewing or breaking prized possessions. All the decorations that come out at Christmas time are a doggie disaster waiting to happen.
o When you are trying to house train that new dog, the last thing you want is a tree in your family room.
o House training a dog means the humans in the household have to spend a lot of time outdoors, supervising and rewarding the dog for peeing and pooping outdoors, and taking the dog outside first thing in the morning and last thing at night. Not too many people fancy popping outdoors for ten minutes in their jammies in January.
o Christmas is prime season for cookies, chocolate, and other potentially dog-toxic or harmful goodies to be left out on tables and countertops.
o Once your new dog has had a week or two to acclimate to his new home, you’ll want to give him lots of opportunities to meet people and other dogs on long walks around town. Spring, summer, and fall, with lots festivals and farmers’ markets, are a much better time of year for that than January.
o Dogs tend to respond in kind to our moods. When you bring a new dog home, you and your family should be at your emotional and mental best. Christmas can be a stressful and/or depressing time of year for many people. You don’t want your Christmas time emotional baggage to jeopardize your new dog’s chances for success.
o Christmas is meaningless to dogs. Shelter dogs don’t have Christmas wishes for a new home. That cute shelter dog would be just as happy to be adopted in November or January, and its chances of success in a new home would be much higher.
o Santa already has his hands full without a bunch of squirming, barking puppies in his toy sack.
Send your dog training and behavior questions to [email protected].
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Georgina Bliss says
Excellent article Shawn who is the original “Dog Whisperer”!
Hope Brustein says
Adopting a puppy is a serious decision and commitment any time of the year. At Rescue Village we have adopted out scores of puppies this holiday season. We rarely if ever get puppies returned and follow-up shows these commitments made during the holidays stick. While there are some downsides to holidays, or winter, or heat waves, and other circumstances, we have been rescuing puppies from abuse, neglect, and from shelters that euthanize for space. The 15 pups we adopted in the past two days were from Tennessee and had we not rescued them and transported them to the shelter they would not have lived to see Xmas day. So the decision to adopt a pet is to be taken seriously. And our decision as your shelter, to adopt over the holidays is about serious life-saving.