Information About Your New Puppy
Training & Behaviour
New puppies need time to adjust to living with their new family, and every family member should be involved in their training from the start.
For most dogs, house training should be well underway at 3 months of age, and be complete by 4 months of age. We recommend crate-training, as dogs instinctively avoid peeing and pooping in the same area that they sleep. When house-training your puppy, the following is important to remember:
Limit the amount of time in a crate to a maximum of 3 hours for an 8-week old puppy
Crate time can be increased by an hour for each month of age
Take your puppy out first thing in the morning, last thing at night, and within 20 minutes of any meal
Always accompany your puppy to the toilet area so they become comfortable with the area
Offer lots of treats and praise when your puppy goes to the bathroom outside
Do not scold a puppy that has an accident in the house - this can make them fearful and distrustful of you
Use vinegar and water, or a good quality disinfectant to clean any accidents in the house
We recommend puppy classes to all new dogs, and advocate a positive reward method. Puppy classes are also a great way to foster socialization and positive responses to other dogs and people. Failure to expose puppies to a variety of dogs and people early on, can cause social and behaviour problems later in life.
Separation anxiety is common in puppies, and can lead to destructive chewing or barking when you leave them alone. To avoid this problem, here are some helpful tips:
Offer your puppy a half-hour of "alone time" while you are at home - either in a different room, or in their crate
Don't make a fuss over your puppy for 15 minutes prior to leaving home, and avoid over exciting your puppy for 15 minutes after returning home
Leave a radio on low volume, and an enjoyable treat - try a Kong filled with frozen peanut butter! - when you are not at home
Chewing is a normal behaviour in puppies as they explore their environment. Puppies don't know how hard their bite is initially, and must learn bite inhibition from their owner's response. A loud cry from you in response to the puppy biting will often illicit a startled reaction. Next time, the puppy will often use less pressure as it learns to hold on without causing pain.
Nutrition
There are hundreds of choices of dog foods available for your puppy, and determining what food is best can be challenging when so much emphasis is placed on marketing. Dog food companies often advertise dietary trends that are popular in the human world - think "grain free", "vegetarian", or "organic". These claims are often little more than buzz words, and do not relate to what is actually healthiest for your pet.
While not the only companies providing excellent nutrition, the main companies that conduct nutritional research to prove the quality of their foods are Purina, Hill’s and Royal Canin.
These companies have created diets to manage many health problems such as obesity, diabetes, arthritis and kidney diease. While we do not advocate for any one company, premium foods from these companies are backed by years of research and can be trusted to offer nutritional products.
We do not advocate feeding raw food diets due to concerns with bacterial contamination.
Raw meats can be contaminated with Salmonella, Campylobacter or other bacteria, which can expose your puppy and household members to potentially serious disease.
The type of dog food you choose, and your puppy's activity level will determine the amount of food you should be feeding. Most foods provide general guidelines, but you may need to increase or decrease the food as required. Please ask us for more information and we would be happy to provide you with feeding directions.
The goal is for your puppy to produce 2-3 normal poops each day, and to have a clean, glossy coat.
Parasite Control
Many parasites have the ability to infect dogs, with puppies being most susceptible. Intestinal parasites include the common roundworms and hookworms, but puppies may also be infected with whipworms, coccidian, and giardia. Intestinal parasites may cause weight loss, diarrhea, blood loss, and vomiting, although many dogs may seem healthy with only intermittent gastrointestinal signs. External parasites include fleas, ear and skin mites, lice, and ticks. Heartworm disease is caused by a parasite transmitted by mosquitoes and infects the arteries leading from the dog’s heart to the lungs. Serious infections can cause exercise intolerance, a chronic cough, heart failure, and death. In Ontario, over 300 cases occur each year, with most in Southern and South-Western Ontario, but cases also occur in dogs that have never travelled outside of the Ottawa Valley. There was an increase in Heartworm infections following the re-homing of abandoned Hurricane Katrina dogs all over the continent.
Roundworms have a particularly stubborn life cycle in dogs. The microscopic eggs hatch following ingestion, and the larvae burrow through the intestinal wall and travel through body tissues for a period of time, an event known as Visceral Larval Migrans. Eventually, these tiny parasites emerge back into the intestines, grow into adult spaghetti-like worms, and breed, releasing thousands of eggs back into the environment. Dewormers only work in the gut so we continue to administer them every 2 weeks until the puppy is 3 months of age, then once a month until the puppy is 6 months of age, as the larvae emerge back into the intestine.
Fleas can be a problem at any time of the year if your puppy meets another animal with fleas. Adult fleas spend their entire life cycle on the animal, but will lay 20 to 30 eggs a day following a blood meal. The eggs fall off the dog and lodge in cracks and crevices in flooring, in carpets and bedding, around baseboards, and outdoors. Within several weeks, if the conditions are right, the eggs will hatch into larvae, transform into pupae, and eventually emerge as young adults looking for a warm pet to call its own. Fleas can cause intense itching, skin diseases, and even transmit diseases. In our region, most flea problems peak in late summer and fall as the number of eggs builds up in the environment.
Currently, we can prevent many intestinal parasites, fleas, and heartworm with safe and effective medications administered once a month. Having a stool sample checked once to twice yearly allows us to identify parasites before they become a problem.
Some parasites can also infect people, especially children and those with lowered immune systems.
For a great resource on parasites, pets, and pet ownership, see the University of Guelph’s https://www.wormsandgermsblog.com
We will recommend a parasite control program for your dog that matches your pet’s lifestyle and circumstances.
Vaccination
All puppies need vaccination to protect them against infectious diseases. Our recommendations for vaccination are based on the most recent American Animal Hospital Association Vaccination Guidelines, available here:
2022 AAHA Canine Vaccination Guidelines
These guidelines recommend that all puppies be vaccinated against Distemper, Parvovirus, Hepatitis, and Rabies. These diseases are highly contagious, fatal or serious, or, in the case of rabies, of public health concern. In addition, we recommend Bordetella (kennel cough) for most puppies, and Leptospirosis to those at risk. Bordetella is similar to Whooping Cough in children, is highly contagious, and can lead to pneumonia in severe cases. We like all puppies to receive basic immunity to this disease. Adult dogs continue to receive the vaccine only if they are considered at risk. Leptospirosis causes liver damage and is spread through the urine of raccoons and skunks, and can also infect people. The organism proliferates in damp soil and following heavy rainfalls. Ontario has seen the number of annual cases increase from 250 to over 1,200 in the last ten years.
We review your puppy’s lifestyle, previous vaccines, and consider his age, breed, and health status before determining what to recommend for vaccines. Most puppies receive vaccines between 2 and 4 months of age, again a year later, and then through life at an interval determined by the vaccine. For instance, Rabies and Distemper/Parvovirus/Hepatitis are given every three years to adult dogs, whereas those dogs receiving Leptospirosis or Bordetella require annual revaccination. For pets spending time in tick endemic areas we may also recommend Lyme vaccination and tick control.
For those owners wishing to use titers in lieu of vaccination, we also provide this service. While becoming more popular, reliance on titers has some limitations that we will discuss with owners.
We can accommodate specific vaccine schedules if requested by the owner or breeder, as long as the owner understands the risks and benefits of changes to currently accepted schedules.
Spay & Neuter
If you do not plan to breed your dog, you should seriously consider spaying her or neutering him. Ottawa has an overabundance of dogs that need homes, so adding to the numbers doesn’t help. We discourage the breeding of dogs just to experience the “joys of birth”, as interesting as it is. Serious, responsible breeders invest a significant amount of money and time on breeding to reduce genetic problems and to promote positive conformational and behavioural traits. Unless you intend to make a career from breeding, you should consider the risks of not having your pet altered.
Female dogs will go into heat two to three times a year on average, during which time they will attract any males in the vicinity. Unexpected breedings account for many of the dogs surrendered to shelters and humane societies. Intact female dogs are at a significantly higher risk for infections of the uterus called pyometra, which can be life threatening, and also for mammary cancer.
Intact male dogs may have a greater urge to “wander”, particularly if they sense a female in heat. Aggression between male dogs can be a problem, as can excessive marking behavior with urine. Male dogs also have a greater risk of prostatic infections and testicular cancer.
Spaying and neutering is usually performed after 6 months of age. Owners who intend to have dogs in sporting events such as Agility, Herding, or Tracking should consider delaying the surgery until the full physical maturity of the dog, the age of which depends on the breed. For most dogs, however, 6 months of age is the accepted standard.
Spaying a female dog involves an abdominal surgery to remove her uterus and ovaries. She will not have any more heats and cannot develop infections of the uterus afterwards.
Neutering the male dog involves removal of both testicles. Both procedures are performed under full anesthesia, but the pets go home the same day as the surgery. We strongly recommend a preanesthetic blood test in the week prior to surgery to assess the kidney and liver function, the blood volume, as well as sugar and protein levels, all of which are important for safe anesthesia. Pets are placed on intravenous fluids through a catheter in their front leg during the surgery to help maintain their blood pressure. Constant monitoring of their heart rate and rhythm, the blood pressure, and the oxygen levels in their blood ensure a safe anesthetic procedure. Following surgery, we advise pet owners to keep the dogs from free-running, jumping, and climbing stairs or on furniture for the following week. The sutures are absorbable and buried below the skin, so there is no need for them to be removed once the healing has occurred.
Microchip Identification
While most pet owners will hopefully never have to worry about a missing pet, the reality is that many pets go astray every year in Ottawa. Even the least expected wanderer may suddenly disappear. We know of a small toy poodle that ran away one July 1st after being scared by loud fireworks, although he was eventually reunited with his family 6 weeks later. My own dog wandered away from our house into the surrounding woods for the first time at 12 years of age, eventually turning up at the neighbour’s house 3 days later - and I consider myself careful! Identification in any form is essential to reunite lost pets with their owners. Tags on collars remain the first and most visible method to provide a contact number or name, but unfortunately, once the collar has come off only the pet can tell you where she came from – and most can’t talk! Since the introduction of microchip technology for pet identification, many pets that would have previously become lost have been reunited quickly and efficiently with their owners. Microchips, with rare exceptions, work throughout the life of the pet, do not fade with time, and do not fall off.
The microchip is the size of a grain of rice and is inserted under the skin, over the shoulders of the puppy at any age, by a needle only slightly larger than that used for vaccines. To “read” the microchip, a scanner is waved over the dog and the number encoded to that particular chip is registered to an owner, so once the microchip number is found, all we need to do is call up the database to find the owner. The databases are maintained 24/7 and microchips placed in British Columbia can be read by scanners in Newfoundland or the US, thanks to standardization of chip technologies.
We highly recommend a microchip for any household dog, even those whose risk of wandering seems low. You never know when your pet may stray!
Pet Insurance
There are several companies that offer comprehensive pet insurance in Canada including: Trupanion, Petsecure, Pets+Us, Furkin and the Ontario Veterinary Medical Association. Pet insurance provides coverage for accidents and illnesses to dogs of all ages and breeds. Some policies also provide coverage for routine health care, such as vaccination, dental care and parasite control.
How much you can expect to pay for monthly premiums for your new puppy depends on how comprehensive the coverage you need. Insurance premiums also can vary based on the level of co-insurance provided. For example, a company may require the owner to pay 20% of veterinary fees, while the insurance will cover the remaining 80%. Most monthly plans are less than your cell phone bill and allows you to help budget for the unexpected.
All companies provide free insurance for a month, and we strongly recommend taking advantage of this offer while you decide whether to use pet insurance long term. Generally speaking, insurance is a great value in the first year or two of a dog’s life, when they are most likely to have accidents or ingest things they are not supposed to. In addition, a dog with genetic susceptibilities to bone development problems such as hip dysplasia, to allergies, and to congenital problems may have life-long health problems for which insurance can be of great benefit. While not immune to health problems, middle-aged dogs will likely need less insurance, but there is increased need for veterinary care with advancing age. Having insurance in place before problems such as cancer, heart disease, or arthritis develop can provide peace of mind for both short and long-term care.
Last updated February 28, 2023.