Owning a Dog: The Best Dog Gear

It’s hard to believe “Milly Girl”, as we affectionately call her, has been a part of our family for 6 months!!! She arrived weighing in at 10 lbs – and now tips the scales at 55 lbs. Wowzers! It has been such a joy to watch her become a part of the family. She is absolutely still a puppy, and has had some very naughty moments (Hello, digging up a 30 year old peony bush?!?), but for the most part we love having a dog. If there was any confusion about who takes on the job of feeding/walking the puppy, I want to make it very clear to parents considering getting a pup everywhere, although your kids tell you they will take care of the dog, they in fact will not. I repeat, they will not get up at 7am to let the puppy out when it is whining in its crate. Milly sleeps in her crate every night, and seems to be happy there. The idea of a dog sleeping in with the kids is sweet in theory, but I think she is just still too young and not ready to settle down when they go to bed at 8pm. Milly and I have become serious walkers, and try to clock an hour walk 4-5 times a week. Her favorite things are walking the golf course when she can go “off leash”, and having puppy play dates with her other buddies who are about her same age from around the neighborhood. I underestimated how important puppy play is for dogs until I was told by our trainer how much it teaches them about boundaries and bite strength. When playing with other pups, dogs start to understand what it feels like to be chewed on, jumped up on, and tackled. All good things for them to understand when a 2 year old jumps on their back and tackles them regularly. On the dog walking front – I have also found that a training harness is a great way to get them to heel. When I used to tug on Milly’s neck she would just fight against me. Now that I direct her to slow down by pulling back on her chest, it works so much better. The harness I chose is below, along with a batch of our other favorite puppy things. And if you happen to know any tricks about how to get your pup to stop digging in the garden, please do post it in the comments below. 😉

{PetSafe Easy Walk Harness, Orvis Deep Dish Dog Bed, Cadet Bull Sticks, Blue Buffalo Puppy Food, Shark Handheld Vacuum, Ball and Rope Toy, Dog Combo Brush}