He’s coming home! – puppies are all about milestones – so many due to pass in the first few weeks and months of life.

So, for my pup, the biggest of big days – he is due to leave the only world that he has ever known and embark (and bark?!) on something completely new and different.

As with the initial purchase, lots went on behind the scenes to prepare for the day. His breeder had already been accustoming the whelps to travelling in a vehicle and, by the time that they were 6 weeks old, had got them used to journeys of up to 30 minutes.

 

When I visited to meet my new puppy, I took scent cloths in sealed bags that I had prepared so that he could get used to my smell on the day and after I left. He came home with a blanket that also had his own and siblings’ smell on and a favourite toy so that not everything was unfamiliar. We so often underestimate how important smell is for dogs. Indeed, smell and heat sensitivity are all that they have for the first 3-4 weeks of life.

I had already bought a sack of food of the same brand that the breeder was using so that he would not get an upset stomach from the change, and I took an empty water bottle so that he could drink the soft water with which he was familiar. Thereafter, I boiled water before gradually mixing it in with tap water as I live in a hard water area and, in any case, a change of water can also cause gastric upset.

The breeder had packed a small amount of food for the evening and the next morning and we somehow managed to get him into the tiny car harness that I had taken with me. How is it that I have no problem harnessing horses but seemingly simpler canine accoutrements stump me? It takes me minutes to work out which way is up before I get within an inch of the dog!

Finally, both of us shedding a few tears and the breeder having a final cuddle, I managed to juggle everything and get him outside to my friend’s waiting car. Oh how he howled as we drove away and oh how my heart sank at the thought of a two and a half hour journey with him shrieking all the way. But as I cradled him in my lap, we made a suitably dramatic exit through the 15thC arch on the edge of town and he settled down, almost as if he knew that there had been an exit through a portal towards his new life.

Next week: First Nights.

Meanwhile, why not check out R+Dog Training Puppy Start Right Courses and register for the new Puppy Social Walk in Chiswick House grounds starting in a few days.