Episode 11: Bringing Home a Puppy - First Steps & Common Issues

Summary

In this episode of Ted the Vet, Dr. Ted Burghardt and his wife Wynn, founder of Wynn's Kitchen share their experiences and insights on bringing home a new puppy. They discuss essential topics such as health checks, parasite awareness, puppy-proofing the home, establishing a routine, choosing safe toys, potty training, and nutrition. With practical tips and personal anecdotes, they aim to empower new pet owners to provide the best care for their furry companions.

Takeaways

• It's important to take your new puppy to the veterinarian for a health check.
• Fecal exams can help identify parasites like Giardia, which is common in puppies.
• Puppy-proofing your home is crucial to prevent accidents and damage.
• Positive reinforcement is key in training and behavior correction.
• Establishing a consistent schedule for feeding and bathroom breaks is essential for puppies.
• Accidents during potty training are normal and should be handled with patience.
• Choosing safe toys is important to prevent choking hazards and foreign body ingestion.
• Home-cooked meals can supplement a puppy's diet but should be balanced with kibble.
• Puppies need a diet rich in calories and nutrients for their growth.
• Regular veterinary check-ups are important for maintaining a puppy's health.

Transcript

Ted The Vet (00:01.708)
Welcome to Ted the Vet podcast, where pet owners are empowered with insightful tips and advice to give the best care to their furry companion. Hi, I'm Dr. Ted Burghardt, owner of Companion Pet Care in Encinitas, California. Today, we're here with my wife, Wynn, to talk about some tips about bringing home a new puppy. Wynn is the founder of Wynn's Kitchen, a natural Asian sauce brand.

Last weekend, we got a nine week old puppy that we named Dolce. Having her now reminded us of how much fun having a puppy can be and also the kinds of trouble they can get into. Today we want to touch base on a few topics to prepare you for getting a new puppy. Thanks for being here, Wynne. Thanks for having me, sweetie. I'm excited to be here and to share our experience.

with having a new puppy again. It's been a long time. It has. It's exciting. It's very exciting. In the week that we've had this puppy, it's already grown. It's crazy. Yeah, she's grown a lot, I think in size and then also her personality too is really starting to come out, which is really fun. Yes. Well, she's definitely a good eater. Yes. That's really important as we want them to grow and

have a healthy diet. So one of the first things that we wanted to make sure is that she's in good shape and healthy. Yeah, I'm lucky I have a veterinarian husband, but can you share like what like when because I have so many friends that are getting puppies right now. I feel like it's puppy season. So can you share like, what is the first step like someone gets a puppy? What should they do?

Cause I know I have an advantage. Yes. Well, first thing I always recommend is going to a veterinarian, make sure that all the health indicators are there, that they're in good body condition, healthy teeth, no signs of parasites. And on that note, I always recommend doing a fecal exam to make sure that they didn't come with any parasites or have any.

Ted The Vet (02:20.162)
bringing any parasites into the household, especially if they're kids. Right. What kind of parasites are we talking about? These are typically we do a fecal exam to check for GI parasites. Giardia is very common. There are other types of, well, obviously worms or other microscopic parasites that you may not even see. So our confession is our puppy came positive with Giardia.

I mean, is that like a normal thing or it's very kind freaked me out. It's very common. We we do see it all the time. It's passed through the feces. And so a lot of puppies, if one has it, they're all running around together. OK, it can get on the feet and then get ingested. And that's how it gets passed around. OK. Yeah. And so what what's the treatment for? So they so if someone brings home a puppy, shouldn't freak out.

their puppy has Giardia. Yeah, Giardia is something that can get transferred to humans, but it's uncommon for that to happen. But there are treatments that we definitely want to get started to take care of it. Giardia can be pesky and it can take multiple treatments. really? Yeah, it can be a tough one to get rid of. And especially if some puppies

eat their own feces and they can reinfest themselves. did have a Chihuahua a long time ago that did that. Yeah, that was pretty gross. It's called coprophagy. Well, luckily Dolce doesn't have that problem and she's, you know, so we don't have to worry about that. Well, along with eating that kind of nasty stuff, it seems like they're prone to eating everything. Yeah. Yeah.

We're starting to our puppy is starting to try to eat our couch. Luckily. She's only four probably four pounds now. Yeah Yeah, they get their nose and mouth anywhere they can to chew on things. So puppy proofing the house is also really important That includes finding anything that they can chew including cords shoes clothes our little one was trying to grab the

Ted The Vet (04:38.444)
branches off the Christmas tree this time of year. Yeah. we have plenty of toys. We have lots of chew toys for her. know she has, what did we get from, what did we get from Pet Power? It's like a dehydrated tendon. That's, that was really good. Yeah. She loves the tendon. It's soft for the teeth, but natural and healthy.

So encouraging them, especially if they're trying to bite your hands or human toes or anything, encouraging them to play with the toy is the best way to deter that. I always go with positive reinforcement and show them what they should do versus telling them what they shouldn't do. Yeah. And we're crate training too. think that's, I've always crate trained all my dogs. So I think that's been a game, you know, that makes a huge impact.

Like we have one in the bedroom and one in the living room and then making that positive too, right? Definitely. Yeah. It adds an element of control to help keep them on a schedule so they can eat and then have their time in the crate. And when they come out, we take her right outside to go to the bathroom. So she knows that's where she should go. And then we give her a lot of treats to encourage her to go outside. Yeah.

Let's talk about schedule. we, think this week we're starting to learn what works for her. But, I think that that first night.

She was so exhausted from traveling that it, did. Um, she like slept through the night and we were so excited. then the next few nights were tough. There's waking up and cleaning her crate in the middle of the night. So, so will you touch base on kind of like the schedule, like how important it is to have a schedule and, and yeah, it's been a bit of a rough first week trying to figure out her schedule and trying to get her on our schedule. She came from.

Ted The Vet (06:50.64)
Georgia, which also there's a time difference. So her schedule was off from that too. And pretty much they need to go to the bathroom every three to four hours. So at night we have started waking up and taking her out in the middle of the night. We were trying to do the potty pad training. It just wasn't working.

It she started on the pads and then all of sudden she didn't care about it anymore or doesn't know what it's there for. Yeah, I've seen some dogs that are left with the pads for too long. They may start eating the pads too. Oh, so they can become a foreign body. So that's something else to watch out for. Oh, wow. But scheduling for young puppies, I recommend feeding three times a day. They need to keep their sugars up with how active they are.

And if they play really hard, it's good for them to eat some so they can replenish their sugar sources. OK. Otherwise they can become hypoglycemic. And what's that? They look really tired, really drowsy. They can, in the worst cases, become comatose. wow. So that can be pretty severe in some cases. Wow. If they don't eat enough. Luckily, our puppy has no problem eating. Yeah. She's a good eater.

But, yeah, I think the schedule has really helped a lot. think daytime is it's more manageable. Like her potting is not still not quite on a schedule. But I feel like every time she wakes up from a nap, like I take her out, you've been really good at that. Putting, putting the leash on right after she comes out of the crate and taking her outside. Okay. So Dr. Ted, I have to say that I think that I'm the one that's more strict.

What? With her. Because I don't let her out of my sight or if I'm doing something and she's out she's like on a leash in the house so that she does has no chance or very minimal chance of going to the bathroom. I might give her little too much freedom. I think so. I think so.

Ted The Vet (09:09.934)
Good cop, bad cop. I know. I feel like we have like different parenting styles and I'm always the bad cop. do. Well, one other thing I wanted to mention is the types of toys that we give them because some of them can become foreign bodies if they swallow a big piece. And the other thing is strings. If they destroy a toy and swallow a string,

That's what, if it gets stuck in the intestines, it's what we call a linear foreign body and it can, it can be a major problem and lead to surgery in some cases. Yeah. Cause I mean, we have a small puppy. She's, she's a small breed, but I do think that, especially the larger breed.

dogs that are really prone to chewing up their toys very quickly. But even our dog, she likes to eat a lot of twigs and stuff. So I'm always kind of careful about that.

Got to watch what they're chewing on and ingesting. Yeah. When we were shopping for toys, there were a couple that you were like, that's a no. and they were more like rope toys, but some of them were like loose. Remember that? Yeah. Loose strings can be a problem. Yeah. I think they were any size. Yeah. hard toys also like antler horns, can be too hard even for adult dogs and puppies. I don't.

recommend antler horns like yak cheese is very hard and I've seen a lot of patients come in with broken teeth from chewing on we know a few friends that they had to bring bring their dog into you because of their broken teeth from

Ted The Vet (10:57.378)
the antler horns. Yeah. Cause I know they love, I don't know what it is, but they love the antlers, but yeah, definitely a no no. Once the tooth's broken that it usually needs to be extracted. So it can be a bad deal. things that are good. think greenies are actually good for the teeth. They're kind of soft. So a little more durable chew toy would be a nylon, a nylon bone. They're pretty good. Any kind of hard rubber would be preferred over a, you know,

too hard of something. And you can put peanut butter in the Kongs and freeze it. Some peanut butter has xylitol in it, which you want to watch out for. That can be toxic for dogs. Organic peanut butter usually does not have xylitol. yeah, those are some things. That's awesome. Yeah. We're really excited to have our puppy. Thanks for joining me today.

You're me out? No, I'm not kicking you out. You're welcome to come and stay as long as you want to. Well, I wanted to touch base a little bit more on the potty training. Okay. I feel like that is probably the hardest part of having a puppy. I don't know. think maybe share a little bit about...

what we're doing or what you recommend for the potty training? I always recommend crate training so that we can keep them on a schedule. Giving treats and trying to have positive reinforcement. Taking them outside and when they go outside giving them treats is a positive reinforcement for doing the right thing.

Growing up, sometimes I would see families that would point at the accident on the floor and say no and try and chastise the dog. I don't think that's as effective as giving treats for doing the right thing. Right. So just more positive reinforcement. And I think understanding that accidents are going to happen. Definitely. I think we've been really good at that.

Ted The Vet (13:17.094)
Yeah, we have. Yeah, and since we started treating her GI parasites, her stools have gotten a lot better as well. Yeah, well, awesome. I hope this is helpful. I mean, I definitely think that having a puppy, it...

I always forget how much work it is and we're both a little sleep deprived from it, but she's bringing so much joy to our house. Yeah. You know, one other thing that's been great is the extra cooking that you've done at home to supplement her diet. I love it. And, uh, the vegetables, um, meats, cooked meat.

that we give her, think is really beneficial. one thing we can get into diets and everything in another episode, but we also want to manage the teeth and having some kind of chew or kibble or topper on top of the home cooked diet is good for the teeth as well. we're, even though I make her food, like I do like ground beef,

first week and then I did some chicken with rice and some herbs. I mean, I love to cook, you know that. it's super exciting to cook for our puppy.

Um, but, but we do serve, kind of, what kind of kibble do we have? We kind of use the kibble as like a topping and we, always have it available for her too. snacks on it. There are a, there are a few brands that I like better. Um, science diet's been around a long time. Purina and Royal Canine. Um, for puppies, I always recommend a puppy diet that has more calories, um, more nutrients in it for the growing bones and muscles that puppies need. Okay.

Ted The Vet (15:08.154)
we're feeding her right now, Purina puppy. lamb, the lamb, lamb and rice. Yeah. Awesome. It's a good base and then adding some of the extra home-cooked food is really healthy for her as well. Yeah.

Well, awesome. Well, I'm excited for that episode. I'm going to invite myself back on the show. Definitely. We'll have you back to talk about diet and puppies and dogs. So, well, that's a wrap for today on Ted the Vet podcast. Thanks for joining me. Thanks for having me. And together we can take great care of your pets. To learn more about my veterinary hospital, you can head over to our website, companionpcvet.com.

and connect with us on Instagram at companionpetcare. The links are also available in the show notes. If you enjoyed the episode, please be sure to subscribe, leave a review, and share it with your fellow animal lovers. I'm Dr. Ted Burkhart. Until next time.