Top of many Christ­mas lists for San­ta Claus is a pup­py, but this can be one of the most thought­less gifts to give. Mums and dads around the world give in to the pleas of their young chil­dren for a fur­ry com­pan­ion and be­lieve the promis­es that the child will take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the care of their new friend. More of­ten than not, this Christ­mas joy turns in­to a New Year res­o­lu­tion nev­er to get an­oth­er pet. The pe­ri­od fol­low­ing the ‘sea­son of giv­ing’ sees the high­est in­ci­dence of pets that are giv­en up to an­i­mal shel­ters.

Con­sid­er the fol­low­ing be­fore you de­cide to get a new pet for the fam­i­ly:

• Have you re­searched the breed of dog most suit­able to fit in­to your lifestyle?

• Do you have a se­cure­ly-fenced prop­er­ty and suf­fi­cient space for the dog to move around freely? It is cru­el to keep an an­i­mal tied up or ken­nelled for long pe­ri­ods since you re­strict the phys­i­cal de­vel­op­ment of the dog as well as cre­ate men­tal frus­tra­tion which can turn in­to ag­gres­sion.

• Do you have the time (at least one hour a day) and are you phys­i­cal­ly ca­pa­ble of ex­er­cis­ing your new pet? “Run­ning around the yard” does not ful­fil the en­er­gy re­quire­ments of a dog.

• Do you have the fi­nances re­quired to cov­er the needs of your pet for his en­tire life-span (dogs can live up to 15-16 years de­pend­ing on the breed and health). This in­cludes mon­ey for food, toys, vet­eri­nary bills, par­a­site treat­ment and con­trol (ticks, fleas and worms) and equip­ment such as the har­ness, leash, bed­ding, bowls, ken­nel, treats, as well as groom­ing and train­ing costs.

• You need to obe­di­ence train your new pet us­ing a re­ward-based form of train­ing, not pun­ish­ment-based train­ing. A pup­py al­so re­quires ad­e­quate so­cial­i­sa­tion with hu­mans and oth­er an­i­mals and needs to be toi­let-trained. Train­ing and so­cial­is­ing your new pup­py should start from 6 weeks old un­til he is at least 2 years old, al­though train­ing should ide­al­ly be through­out the life of your dog – are you will­ing to com­mit to this?

• Dis­ci­pline for a dog should nev­er con­sist of beat­ing the an­i­mal or shout­ing at him. Both are in­ef­fec­tive and de­stroy the re­la­tion­ship be­tween you and your pet. Do you have enough pa­tience to dis­ci­pline your pup­py prop­er­ly?

• Dogs have short at­ten­tion spans and get bored quick­ly. Bore­dom of­ten leads to mis­chief! Are you will­ing to pro­vide enough en­rich­ment to keep your pet men­tal­ly stim­u­lat­ed and bal­anced so he does not be­come bored and de­struc­tive?

• What are the ages of your chil­dren? Any child un­der 13 years old should nev­er be left alone with a dog for the safe­ty of both the dog and the child. Chil­dren can be in­ad­ver­tent­ly cru­el by treat­ing the dog as a doll and pulling the pup­py around by his ears or tail, or pok­ing their fin­gers in­to his eyes and ears.

• Is your child go­ing to as­sist in car­ing for the pet: feed­ing, clean­ing up af­ter, bathing, groom­ing, play­ing with, walk­ing, train­ing – even when school re­sumes in the New Year and in­ter­est in the pup­py wanes?

• Are you will­ing to neuter your new pet when he/she reach­es sex­u­al ma­tu­ri­ty at 6 months of age? T&T cur­rent­ly has an over-pop­u­la­tion of dogs and we sim­ply do not have enough good homes for the num­ber of dogs we breed.

If you can an­swer ‘yes’ to all of the above ques­tions, then you are ready to wel­come a lit­tle one with a big bow on Christ­mas morn­ing! If not, then maybe get a stuffed dog this year and wait un­til you are ready to give your pet all he de­serves.

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