Friday, September 20, 2013

Adorable Instruments of Mass Destruction Part II: Return of the Puppies.

Behold the epic cuteness:
Check me out.
The Puppies Are Here. 

And this time they brought friends:

Let me introduce you to my little friend.....

We have a plethora of pups available both at our Milpitas Animal Community Center and through our foster program. All of these ridiculous piles of adorable are waiting for good homes. There a couple of things to know before you decide to bring a pup home. The biggest being:

Puppies Will Ruin Your Life For A While. In The Best Way Possible. 

I'm so glad you're home. Someone broke in and pooped in your shoe.

Why? Puppies are a lot like babies. They don't have a great amount of bowel and bladder control so they need to go out a lot while they're growing. Figure about five to ten minutes after they eat or drink anything, it's outsy time. Losing patience with pups over housebreaking doesn't work - they honestly don't have the capacity to hold it. This means being home a lot while you're getting this squared away. And understanding that accidents happen and being able to let it go and move on.

In addition, they also need a lot of guidance and a lot of your time. The more time and training you put into your pup, the better a companion they'll be. But like toddlers, they shouldn't be left to their own devices for long periods of time.

Puppy:1 Big Screen TV:0 Must do the victory dance!

Puppies are also a lot like lawnmowers. Drunken lawnmowers. They stumble about gnawing on whatever they find in their path. They don't do it because they want attention or because they love that look on your face when you discover what the inside of your iPhone looks like. They do it because they're teething - puppy teeth are coming out and big-dog teeth are coming in. And because in the absence of thumbs, it's how they try out the world around them. Kids grab everything. Not having hands, puppies put everything in their mouth. They also do it because they're bored.

Luckily there's an easy fix for this - making sure they have enough toys and picking up anything you don't want to wind up inside their gaping maws. Not only is this good for your sanity (and electronics) it's also imperative to their health. The wrong thing (or too small a piece of anything) introduced into a puppy's gut can hurt them. Badly.

Yes, it's 4 AM but it's imperative I show you this odd squeaking noise RIGHT NOW.

Like college kids, puppies rarely keep bankers hours. When bringing home a new puppy, you should anticipate a few sleepless nights or midnight wake-up calls. Sometimes it's because their bladder doesn't agree with an eight hour rest, sometimes it's just because it's 4 AM and something in puppy's brain is saying 'Squeaky Toy Party. Right now'. Either way, you're going to get woken up a few times.

The good news? With some structure, puppies will generally get on a sleep schedule pretty quickly. Though it might not seem like it during 4 AM during Squeaky Toy Party, puppies actually sleep a lot. If you can keep them awake (or better yet get them playing hard) for a few hours before bedtime, they'll generally start crashing when you do. Also make sure they have a chance to do their business prior to bedtime. And no matter how nicely they ask, absolutely no bedtime snack.

I come home with you now?

That said: nothing is more fun than a new puppy. And we can help you get through the rough bits. We offer puppy and older puppy training classes to help you both get off on the right foot. Or the right paw. For pups adopted from us, we offer lifetime access to our behavior helpline and an adoption counselor who can help talk you through things and answer questions, even after you bring your pup home.

With that sort of support and this many pairs of puppy dog eyes, who can say no? To see some of our pups in action, check this out.

Little Mia and big sis Beatrix are both available at our Milpitas Animal Community Center. 
So is Natasha, who hasn't actually pooped in anyone's shoe. 
Taco never destroyed a big screen TV and he's available through our foster care program - click here.
Elton will be available shortly at our Milpitas Animal Community Center. 
Rusty will be available through our foster program as well.










No comments:

Post a Comment