I was babysitting when I got the text from one of my friends: a photo of the most adorable black dog I’d ever seen. Young and living at home, I’d never considered taking on a pet, but my friend — after having recently adopted the dog in the photo and realizing he didn’t get along with her other pets — was desperate for someone to take him so she didn’t have to take him back to the shelter.
I’d had an apartment application pending approval, but I felt confident everything would work out. So, I told her I would take him, and a few days later, a happy 6-month-old Trooper was running around my parents’ house watching us pack up my stuff for the move into my luckily approved apartment.
Trooper was my only dog for a few years, and his temperament fit perfectly with apartment living and my college lifestyle. I was fortunate for his easygoing nature, but to make sure that you and your new pup are going to be happy in the space you’ll be sharing, it’s a good idea to take a look around at your routine and overall day-to-day and how a dog will fit in.
Do a Lifestyle Audit
Do you work from home or commute to your 9 to 5? Do you have a big backyard or stay cozied up in a studio apartment downtown? Do you have kids or plan to have them soon?
All of these questions are great for taking into consideration how you’ll be able to care for your new dog, taking into account everything from age to breed to energy level.
With rescue organizations located all over the state and more than a handful of dogs needing homes, heading to the local shelter is a common first choice for many first-time pet owners. I went to CARE: Central Arkansas Rescue Effort For Animals, located on Kavanaugh Boulevard in Little Rock, last year when I was ready to adopt my second dog, Madeline. When I ran across her profile on its website, it listed everything from her estimated age to all of her known health issues.
CARE’s volunteer coordinator Cameron Dill says that its caseworkers include as much information as possible in each pet’s “bio” on the website, making sure to include things such as behavioral traits and whether or not the dog gets along with children and/or other pets. Most shelters also try to list as much initial information as they have available, which can be extremely helpful when your family has decided to adopt a dog of a certain breed, age or size.
Puppies are adorable and may sound fun in theory, but if you don’t have the time to invest in crate training, housetraining and taming their crazy energy levels, an older dog might be the way to go. Similarly, if you live in an apartment and tend to be a homebody, a smaller dog who prefers long afternoon naps instead of 3-mile runs is going to be more along the lines of your ideal dog.
Build Trust & Establish a Routine
That being said, even with a Tinder-worthy owner and pup match, there are still things that every new dog owner should consider.
When I adopted Madeline, all the information in her website profile was compiled into a packet by CARE, along with vet records and a variety of infographics on new pets, including a flyer about the 3-3-3 rule. The 3-3-3 rule is an outline of some common behaviors that pets are known to exhibit within three days, three weeks and three months of being in a new environment. It’s not so much to encourage new pet owners to do anything, but more to just make them aware of reasons why Fido might not be acting as excited as he was the day they brought him home — and of course, encourage them that this behavior will pass once they settle in and become more comfortable.
“Of course not every dog is going to follow [the 3s], but it’s a general guideline on how to help them settle in,” Dill says.
The first few weeks of having a new pup in the house are crucial to building structure for them, especially if they came from another home where things were done a little differently.
“Most dogs could be alone for an entire workday, but if the dog isn’t used to that, it might take them a little bit to get into that routine,” Dill says. “Routine is also very important for a dog, so if they get taken out two or three or four times a day, you probably want to keep on top of that. It can be very confusing, especially to a dog who is new to the home if that is messed up. If you like to party at night and forget to walk your dog, you’re probably going to come home to an accident.”
Another thing commonly seen in the first few days of a new pet being home, especially if the dog is a rescue with a traumatic history, is lack of trust.
Nicole Winstead, owner and founder of WoofCat, a local organic handmade pet treat company, has rescued more than 32 dogs to date.
“Every rescue is different; some take more time than others to adjust, trust and let their guard down,” Winstead says. “Humans may have let them down, abused them and abandoned them. Have lots of patience.”
Bored, stressed and anxious dogs are generally quick to become unhappy and/or destructive dogs. Winstead says one of the ways you can work with your new dogs who are showing signs of anxiety — especially rescues — is to crate train as soon as possible.
“Nine times out of 10, rescues have anxiety about being alone and will chew out of separation anxiety, being upset and not really knowing why, and bored,” Winstead says. “So, for the safety of the animal, your home and nerves, buy a crate, and properly train them so you can leave with confidence. Learn the proper way to crate train. Don’t buy a crate, get the dog and then the next day, stick the dog in a crate for hours on end and think everything will be okay. I have seen dogs injure themselves trying to escape the crate, and I have seen dogs escape crates and do damage to homes.”
Budget for Care
Speaking of crates, it’s one of many investments you’ll need to prepare for financially when you bring your new pet home. The pet industry is overflowing with high-tech cameras for you to watch your dog from your phone at work, along with expensive enrichment toys and food brands that will deliver pre-packaged meals for your pup right to your door.
However, you don’t necessarily need all of the newest gadgets to give your dog a good and healthy life. Over all of the dozens of toys at our house, Trooper prefers the cardboard box he came in, and Maddie would choose a nap over fetch any day of the week. What is important is that you have the ability to afford healthy dog food to provide daily, the annual and monthly required vaccines and disease preventatives, and a way to make sure the pups are cared for while you’re on your yearly beach vacation.
Because monthly flea and tick prevention and monthly heartworm prevention comes in many brands and is dependent on the dog’s size, it’s hard to put an exact number to how much your specific dog will run up in costs, but one thing is for sure: You do not want to skimp out on these two things. One of Dill’s dogs, before she’d learned about the availability of prevention, contracted heartworms, and the treatment was intense.
“I had no idea the financial burden I was about to take on with [my dog] or that treatment,” Dill says. “Heartworm prevention and flea and tick prevention would probably be necessities, especially if you’re in the South, where mosquitoes are so prevalent and heartworm disease basically runs rampant. It is a lot cheaper in the long run to do prevention than to do the treatment.”
Along with necessities are the dog’s annual vaccines, especially the one required by the state of Arkansas — rabies. The others that nearly every veterinarian (and boarding facility) strongly recommends are Bordetella, distemper, parvovirus, parainfluenza, hepatitis and, in some cases, Leptospirosis.
Brian Peters, DVM, chief veterinarian of Lake Hamilton & Hot Springs Animal Hospitals, says that it’s important to know these things beforehand, especially if you’re planning on buying from a breeder, bringing home a puppy or adopting an older dog.
“The common thing we get is, ‘Well I can’t afford that because I just spent $2,500 on the puppy,” Peters says. “What I try to do within three days of [a family] getting the puppy is offer a no-charge type of health check where I’m going to listen to the puppy’s heart, look at its eyes, check its bite, check it for worms and those kinds of things.”
For Trooper, from 6 months to now 3 years old, my annual spend has always been the sum of his monthly preventative care, his vaccinations, however many bags of generic brand $30 dog food he goes through per year and the few weekends that he gets to play at the boarding facility while I’m away. He’s fairly low maintenance. However, when I adopted Madeline, I quickly learned that she was an older dog with diabetes that requires daily insulin injections and a special, more expensive bag of food. Her vet costs were more frequent and more expensive, and she even required an unexpected surgery a few months after I brought her home.
“Dogs can get most of the same old-age diseases that people get,” Peters says. “We want to make sure it’s heartworm-free, we want to make sure it’s intestinal-parasite-free, but I may offer some bloodwork to make sure the pet’s kidneys are functioning normally, their liver is functioning normally, they’re not diabetic, their heart sounds good and doesn’t have a heart murmur. I have seen people adopt them, and then all the sudden they have a dog that’s in complete kidney failure.”
Don’t Let FOBB (Fear of Being Busy) Keep You From the Joy of a Pet
All in all, pets are good for us. They bring us joy and do wonders for our mental health.
If you have questions about the costs or the responsibilities of adopting a dog for the first time, call your local veterinarian and ask questions. Many times, the entire clinic staff is trained to help you get all the answers and confidence you need. Take it from Peters, who says that if you wait until you’re ready, you’ll never bring Fido home.
“I hear a lot, all the time, of, ‘I don’t want to get a puppy because I’m never home,’” Peters says. “But if you look at it, you’ll never always be home, so then you’re going to short yourself and your family of having a pet. Our pets, interestingly enough, pretty much mold into our individual lives. Of course, I want people to be financially prepared, but I also want them to enjoy pets because we know pets are healthy for us and healthy for our psyche and help older people have something to depend on and take care of — all those things.”
SPONSORED BY LAKE HAMILTON & HOT SPRINGS ANIMAL HOSPITALS
