Your Puppy Prep Sheet!
Here are the food and feeding schedule for your puppy as well as some additional puppy tips and set-up pointers we have!
Water: We allow free access to water at all times until 6:00 PM to avoid accidents.
Food: Purina Pro Plan Puppy Chicken and Rice Formula (solid or canned)
Amount: 0.5 cups of food at each meal (3 meals a day)
Current Feeding Schedule:
Meal 1: Morning: ~7:00 AM
Meal 2: Afternoon: ~12:00 - 1:00 PM
Meal 3: Evening: No later than 6:00 PM (Helps with avoiding accidents at night)
Water: Your puppy has been raised on filtered and bottled water only during their life time.
We recommend comtinuing with filtered and/or bottled water only until your puppy is at least 10 weeks old for the sake of making an easier transistion on your puppy's stomach.
Food Transition:
We have families who use Raw Food Diets, Subscription Based Natural Diets, Fromm and Victor (our favorite).
The best food to choose will ultimately come down to what you and your vet decide is best and are comfortable with.
In addition, here is a link from our website that includes (#10 a general food transition schedule to move your puppy from their current food to your vet's recommended transition schedule)
https://fairytailfrenchies.com/10-great-tips-to-prepare-your-home-for-your-new-puppy/
Some Recommended "Must Haves" That We Utilize:
- Dog Donut Bed (very good for puppies because the raised walls give them something to cuddle in to at night while sleeping
- If you are going to crate train, the best recommendation we have is to be sure you have (1) a play yard fence that can enclose the crate (2) a crate with a divider so you can give them enough space to lay down and sleep (too much room and she will more than likely potty in part of it and sleep in the other - it’s a puppy thing) (4) a good sized stuffed animal (with no accessories - you’ll be surprised what puppies are capable of chewing off lol) for them to cuddle with at night (5) puppy pads semi-close to their crate so at night they can relieve themselves
- If you plan on having your puppy sleep with you, you will need to wake up about every two to three hours for the first week of them being there because puppies can typically hold it one hour for every month old they are - so to avoid accidents, you can try the enclosed puppy area with puppy pads or the frequent potty breaks through the night (we’ve done both, the puppy play area with puppy pads is the recommended of the two for many reasons lol).
- If there is any trouble adjusting to sleeping alone, one method that has always worked for us is to move their crate and play pen close to our bed and then put my hand/fingers in the slots of their crate so they can smell them and have human contact. It helps a lot.
- Puppy treats - Zuke’s Mini Natural Savory Salmon is what we use and are by far our favorite (important: as puppies, we only give 1/4 of a normal treat)
Recommended Puppy Set-up
Below are excellent examples of the perfect puppy set ups from families who adopted from and their version of the set-up we recommend.
It primarily consists of:
- Puppy Play Pen
- Puppy Pads
- Crate (be sure to use the divider that comes with your crate to give your puppy just enough room to turn around and sleep - any more space than that and they will use the extra space to potty)
- Toys
This set-up allows your puppy to have their own safe space to move around but easy access to their puppy pads at any point so they can potty at night or when they are ready.
Once your puppy is old enough to go outside on the grass (typically after all vacciations have been given which is ~12 weeks of age (contingent on your vet and their schedule), you can just move their pen close to the door you want them to use and move their puppy pad closest to the door to get them in the habit of going toward it and then migrate from the house to outside from there.
Another must have we strongly recommend is a Snuggle Puppy (we purchase ours from Amazon - and we receive no comission or kickbacks for this product).
I have recently used one flight nannying our puppies across the U.S. and our puppies have slept the entire duration of the flight.
Another family placed one in their puppy's play pen their first night at their new home and she slept "A full 8 hours"!
They are remarkable and bring extra peace to already peaceful puppies!