Do Puppies Make Good Christmas Gifts?

I don’t know that I’ve ever actually seen a holiday card picturing a puppy and a toddler draped all over each other amid a sea of crumpled red-and-green wrapping paper. If I did see such a card, I would buy up the entire stock and burn it.

Despite the image peddled in those holiday cards I’d so happily torch, puppies and busy holidays aren’t a good fit. And neither, generally, are puppies and small children. Here’s why.

Housetraining your puppy is harder during the holidays

Regardless of your newly adopted puppy’s exact age, you must meet certain needs if he’s to have the best chance of growing into a beloved and friendly companion. Housetraining is the first of these. Many young dogs lose their homes because they’ve never clearly learned where pee and poop should go.

Now, the key to housetraining success is to confine or diligently supervise your puppy in between frequent toilet breaks. The ideal is that your puppy never has a chance to eliminate in the wrong place.

For the youngest puppies, “frequent” toilet breaks may mean “hourly” — whenever the puppy is awake.

And wait, there’s more!  Excitement and activity—you know, like what goes on during holidays?—get that puppy bladder and bowel zipping right along. Furthermore, up to the age of at least four months, your puppy will almost certainly need an overnight outing as well. That is all sounding so compatible with going to Grandma’s house, and having the neighbors over for eggnog, and staying up late with your kids as they assemble every lego set they got. Isn’t it?

The more times your puppy eliminates where you don’t want him to, the harder it will be for him to learn what you do want? 

Puppy socialization is harder during the holidays

If I could get every adopter to do two things for their pup, careful housetraining would be second. Good socialization would be first. You can pretty much always repair a dog’s bad manners, but the behavior problems--chiefly fearfulness and aggression--that are caused by poor socialization cannot be undone. That’s as close to an...

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