When you bring home a new puppy or dog there are a few must-have items.
Visit my website at Aly’s Shop and go to see what products I recommend and you can even click the links to order!
List of basic things to have for your dog:
- Crate, Food Bowl, Water Bowl, PLACE bed (raised dog bed)
- Grooming tools and products (shampoo, conditioner, ear cleaner, slicker brush, comb, toothbrush)
- Leads of all lengths. We use 4 to 20 ft. leashes. NO RETRACTABLE LEASHES!!!! Training collars & walking lead (You will receive one collar & walking lead & training tool from Aly at Graduation if you attend IN PERSON training)
- Toys and Chew’s (I like all things Busy Buddies & Kong & Pigs Hooves & Puzzles)
- String cheese for a healthy treat—I use them sparingly! OR dehydrated meat treats, or Zukes.
- Exercise Pen, otherwise known as an EXPEN (like a play pen, made out of adjoined gates)
- Poop scooper
- Food: You can order many of these foods from Petflow.com or Chewy.com or Amazon.com. You choose which food product category that you desire. Here are some of my recommendations in each food type category—remember– recommendations frequently change and you don’t need everything in each category. Select the type of food you want to feed–You don’t need all of them. I do change my recommendations depending upon reviews in the Whole Dog Journal annual review of foods and Dog Food Advisor.
FOOD RECOMMENDATIONS by Category of Food Type:
Kibble Products
- Adults Dogs
- American Journey, Nutrisource or Nutro or Canidae.
- Puppies
- American Journey, Nutrisource or CANIDAE.
Canned Food Products Adult Dogs
- Natural Balance (any flavor)
- Puppies
- Merrick Puppy (any flavor).
Dehydrated foods (should you choose)
- Honest Kitchen, Stella’s Dehydrated (any flavor).
Raw Diets
- I highly recommend Volhard’s Natural Diet Foundation. My personal dogs eat this food. You add water and it makes like an oatmeal consistency and you add your own raw protein of choice. I use hamburger.
- Primal
Supplements
- I give ALL DOGS that eat a kibble product: Endurance (nutrient replacement) and Digestive Enzyme from Volhard.com as well. Another digestive enzyme/probiotic option is DOC ROY’s or Optigest to be used with kibble products only.
NOTE: I rotate my products on a regular basis for a couple of reasons:
1) If there is a deficiency in a particular source from one manufacturer we get it covered in another!
2) For a normal, healthy puppy/dog, the ‘good stuff’ in the gut can be enhanced by a variety in diet. No animal in the wild ate the same protein source, the same carbohydrate, the same fruit, the same veggie, day in and day out.
