From the Desk of Dr Toni Lodge #023

Pinch and a punch for the first day of the month - no returns! Happy FEBRUARY! Sorry but where the fuck did January go?!

This weeks’ blog was at the request of someone from our Champion Tarper livestream last weekend: who asked to see my Pippa + Puppy Preparation presentation. They didn’t call it that, obviously, and the note that exists in my iPhone notes is actually called Doggy To Do.

Obviously, I am a Doctor, but not a real one. So I guess I should add some sort of disclaimer that I am not some DOG GENIUS or PET THERAPIST - you obviously don’t have to do ANY of this, and some of it wasn’t even applicable to me, but this is just a massive collation of things I read about online that I wanted to look into before getting Pippa.

Doggie to do

• Research food for pup
• Pick a training app
• Research plants poisonous for dogs / double check our plants are fine
• Research food poisonous for dogs
• More research on training times per day
• Pick a regular vet
• Pick emergency vet
• Bathroom bins with lids
• Baby gate
• Puppy preschool
• Breeders association

• Training Clicker
• Shock absorbing lead
• Harness
• Collar
• ID tag
• (Apple air tag for collar?)
• Doggie car seat
• Barney bed + normal daytime bed
• Crate
• Nose balm
• Blankets
• Rain Coat
• Shoes
• Slow feeder bowl x 2

• Porch potty
• Enrichment toys
• Squeaky toys
• Teething toys

• Training treats
• Normal treats

I’d say that as a shopping list or something, this is obviously overkill, but these were all of the things I was mindful of beforehand. And it ended up being a bit of a blessing that we got Pippa so quickly, because I had enough time to do all of this research and know what we wanted to do, but didn’t have enough time to BUY it. And I just wanted to buy it because I was SO fucking excited, but everything played out perfectly well for us.

A great example is us not crate training Pip, because she was almost one and had good bedtime and separation manners (not anymore of course, she sleeps in our bed and Taubs and I are on the edge lol).

Again, I’m not a pet genius, this was just what I looked into!

Is there anything you’d add? Take away? Any necessities?!

Love ya!

Dr Toni Louise Felicia Lodge; Author, Doctor, Bread, Muscles, Mum, SUP Queen

xxx