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I blew a lot of money on puppy stuff before I got Penny at the end of June. Out of everything I’ve bought, these are the things I’ve used:
1. Smaller stainless steel bowls with the rubber tread on the bottom.
2. A few toys made out of rope, Kongs (the smallest size) and plushy toys. I bought some Kong peanut butter stuff’N to fill up the Kong toy with as a treat. She hasn’t shown much interest in Nylabones or anything that’s too hard and plastic. She also likes to chase toy balls. Instead of rawhides, I give her "Sam's Yams" dried sweet potato chewz. Yep...dried yam treats.
3. Lots of paper towels and a spray that neutralizes the odor of doggy mess. I use the “Nature’s Miracle” brand.
4. Nail clippers—the guillotine type—and styptic powder.
5. The smallest nylon body harness and most narrow nylon leash I could find.
6. Baby/Pet gates to block access to certain rooms/areas
7. Doggy poop bags. I supposed you could use leftover plastic grocery bags instead.
I also bought a grooming brush, but haven’t used it yet. I think I spent too much money starting out. Don't feel pressured to buy every type of toy you see like I did.
Ask your breeder what food he/she currently feeds Panda. That will probably create the least amount of digestive disruption and make the food decision easiest for you. I also bought a tall, plastic food storage bin at target to keep her food in.
I assume Panda will be flying in a crate provided by the breeder. That is how my puppy was shipped from Oklahoma to Minnesota. The crate was 24” L x 16 W x 14” H. When I asked the vet if she thought the crate was too big for crate training, she said no. That was nice because it saved me from having to buy a crate.
Bring towels and maybe a thermos of warm water in case you need to clean up a crate mess at the airport. When Penny arrived, the breeder put some shredded newspaper in the crate. Penny did poo/pee during the flight, but it wasn’t bad enough where I needed to use the towel and water that I brought. I just washed her off using a little puppy shampoo after she had a chance to sniff around the apartment.
As far as getting the puppy acclimated, when I first got home, I let Penny out of the crate and let her sniff and explore my apartment. I’m glad I did this; however, she sort of felt at liberty to poop and pee wherever she felt like it, so watch out for that.
I decided to go with crate-training over puppy papers. For the first two weeks, she was either in her crate or in a controlled area where I could keep a close eye on her during playtime. That way I could catch her right away if she started doing her business. When she was in her crate, she was always close to me whatever room I was in, including bedtime. This made her feel like she was with me.
As far as learning resources, I’m a little anal-retentive and like to think I can prepare for anything. I bought a ton of books about puppy training and Corgis. Out of all the books I bought, you could probably get enough good information out of Puppies for Dummies or Housetraining for Dummies. They were pretty helpful; however, I gotta’ admit that you can read all the books you want beforehand, but some things you won’t be able to learn until you actually get Panda. You’ve also got an excellent resource of real-life experiences at this website. There are things I’ve learned at this site that I couldn’t have learned from a book.
Congratulations on your new family member. Panda will be very loved in her new home.
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