How Hard Is It to Raise a Puppy?

How Hard Is It to Raise a Puppy? Raising a puppy is arguably one of the hardest jobs that you’ll ever love.

Unfortunately, people often confuse living with a dog and raising a puppy. From the outside, living with a pet dog is a magical experience that everyone wants.

But, in reality, it takes a lot of effort, money, and responsibility to make a good boy out of that puppy.

If you’re adopting a puppy for the first time, you should know that it’s not an easy process, but it’s very much doable. We’ll show you why it’s hard and how to make it less demanding.

Why Is It Hard to Raise a Puppy?

Here are the things that make raising a puppy a more complicated process than you think:

Diet

Dogs can eat so many types of food. Yet, not everything they can eat will be beneficial to them. Sometimes it may even cause more harm than good.

Not only you’ll need to know the foods that your puppy can safely eat, but you should also form a balanced diet for your puppy to thrive.

Many commercial dog foods are available in the market, and they contain most of what your puppy needs. You can rely on those entirely if you feel like it.

Still, you may want to provide a variety of food for your puppy to prevent him from getting bored. Human food is the answer to that.

Many types of our food are safe for puppies to consume. Just make sure that you learn the types of human food that dogs can eat.

Health

Keeping your dog healthy requires three main things from you:

1.    Physical Health

You should check your puppy’s physique regularly to make sure that there’s nothing wrong. Puppies are full of energy and are as careless as human babies.

They may end up hurting themselves when you’re not looking. The difference is that puppies can’t complain to you about it.

Whether your puppy is showing signs of physical issues or not, you should take him for regular vet checks.

2.    Mental Health

Dogs require a large (and sometimes excessive) amount of attention. Unlike you, dogs don’t have many life distractions that can stop them from missing you.

That is especially more obvious when they’re puppies. Just like human toddlers, all they’d want to do is spend time with you.

We understand that life is time-consuming, but you should still spare time to cope with your puppy’s mental needs.

Do your best not to ignore that requirement from your puppy, especially if they’re overly attached to you. Otherwise, your puppy may get separation anxiety. 

3.    Expenses

Maintaining your puppy’s physical and mental health will probably be the most expensive aspect of raising a puppy. You should be aware of that before getting one and be prepared beforehand. 

The most financially demanding aspects are:

• Food
• Vet visits
• Vaccinations
• Toys

Socialization

Your puppy will grow in your home and get used to you and all of your family members. This may initially sound enough, but unless you train your puppy to socialize, you’ll have a scared puppy.

You should start to socially train your puppy from as young as four months old. The longer you delay the social training, the harder it will be and the more time it will take.

Socializing your puppy isn’t an easy task. The puppy may be fearful or shy of meeting new people, just like a young child. It may take some of your energy, but you need to be persistent enough until you get there.

Training

Whether you’re raising your puppy to be a hunting dog or a home companion, you need to housetrain your puppy.

An ill-trained dog will be stubborn, destructive, and sometimes aggressive. For that, you shouldn’t skip housetraining.

Generally, you can train dogs at any age. The younger they start, however, the easier and the faster the training will be.

Barking

Barking has to be one of the most annoying aspects of raising a puppy.

Barking for a puppy is like occasional crying for a baby. It can and will happen, and it’ll mostly be for no reason.

That barking will take a good chunk out of your sleeping during your dog’s puppyhood. You need to be patient and composed as you train your puppy not to bark for no reason.

Destruction

Puppies, like children, still have no clue what’s right or what’s wrong. Most of their behaviors revolve around satisfying their curiosity.

Puppies use their mouths and claws to explore the world around them. The world around them is your defenseless house. So, keeping your puppies from damaging or breaking anything at home could be difficult.

How to Make Raising a Puppy Easier?

Below are some tips to help you ease off some of the puppy-raising headaches.

Baby Proof Your Home

If your wife blesses you with a baby, you’ll need to do what you can to prevent your baby from hurting itself or damaging your home.

You’d remove fragile objects, pad any sharp protrusions, and provide many distracting toys to keep your child occupied.

Having a puppy is no different than having a baby. Your puppy’s playground is your home. So, you need to make the playground as safe as possible.

Avoid Negative Reactions

Puppies are babies. They will make mistakes no matter how much you try to train them. It’s just bound to happen in the beginning.

You need to contain yourself and not yell or lash out at your puppy at the beginning of his life. If he starts to fear you, it becomes difficult to earn his back trust.

Moreover, a scared dog won’t follow commands and will be very sluggish during training. We all lose it from time to time, but you should do your best to avoid any negative reaction toward your puppy.

Know More About Dogs

It’s very tempting to adopt that unbelievably cute puppy and then learn how to raise him as you progress. This can work, but it will be quite difficult for you.

Before adopting a puppy, it’s best to learn about his breed temperament. You may also take classes to learn how to better take care of a puppy.

After all, you won’t expect a child and learn how to raise him as time goes by, right? You’ll mostly have some basic information beforehand.

Paul S.

Paul has been creating content for the dog niche for many years. The information he shares comes his first hand experience growing up in dog lovers household and then owning multiple dog breeds of his own as an adult. Paul enjoys doing the hard research to collect, analyze and present our dogtemperament.com readers with the best answers to their questions.