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Bringing Home Your First Pet

Your First Pet

Disclaimer: Elise Ho, aka “Dr. Ho” is a Holistic Health & Life Coach. Dr. Ho is NOT a medical doctor, licensed therapist, lawyer, or a bevy of other things. Products or services that Dr. Ho believes in are the only ones that she recommends. Dr. Ho may receive compensation, product, or an affiliate commission on anything you see on this site. This is a personal Website solely reflecting Dr. Ho’s personal opinions. Statements on this site do not represent the views or policies of any organization with which I may be affiliated.

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Bringing Home Your First Pet?

Here’s How to Prepare Your Home 

 

Planning to get your first pet, no matter what it is, is always an exciting time in a person’s life. Introducing a new family member to the household and making the commitment to caring for it is admirable, but it doesn’t come without its challenges. Pets are deserving of respect and fair treatment, meaning that you must be willing to create an environment that is safe and comfortable for them to share with you. Here are some ideas on how you can make your home more friendly for your pet.

 

Consider Potential for Mess

 

Pets bring so much joy into a family’s life, but they also bring their fair share of chaos. Dogs, for example, are not always the cleanest members of a household. They often leave their mess in inconvenient places and must be appropriately toilet trained. Similarly, cats will either need to use a litter tray or learn to go outside each time they need to relieve themselves. Small rodents such as hamsters and rabbits will need their enclosures cleaned weekly to prevent a non-hygienic mess from building up. Fish in an aquarium must be closely monitored, so their pH levels and oxygen quality remain optimal.

 

Make Safety a Priority

 

You become entirely responsible for your pet as soon as you adopt it. They rely on you to care for them and provide a safe lifestyle. Here are a few safety considerations you could think about when bringing home your pet:

  • If there are parts of your home that are out of bounds for your new pet, install baby gates to keep your pet from breaking into the wrong areas.
  • You might want to consider looking at aflooringboutique.co.uk for flooring ideas that are easier for your pet to navigate. Hard floors might be easy to clean, but they can sometimes be slippery and cause tall dogs or running cats to injure themselves.
  • If your dog is small and you live in a location with opportunistic birds of prey nearby, consider always keeping your dog on its leash or invest in anti-predator protective gear that makes it impossible for your small dog to be carried away.

 

Set Ground Rules

 

Some people are more than happy for their pets to have free access to every part of their home, including the bed and bathroom. If you are fine with your pet following you everywhere, there’s nothing wrong with that. However, if you don’t want your pet going into particular rooms, it’s important to train them as soon as possible. If you leave this for too long, you have essentially given your pet permission to roam the house freely.

 

When you bring home your first pet, you’ll want to give it everything and spoil it. Instead, keep it safe and teach it the house rules.

Please use the comment section below to share your tips, questions, and/or thoughts about this post.

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Naturally Yours,
Elise Ho
Ph.D., D.N. Psych.
Behavioral & Mental Health Specialist

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24 thoughts on “Bringing Home Your First Pet”

  1. Oh! I wish I could talk about it. I have never had pets but my brother has one. I would love to have one and feel the warm of someone loves without expectations

  2. I’m one of those people who grant access to every room to my pet including the bedroom but I think having grounds rules is important too.

  3. Rose Ann Sales

    Their safety is out priority, these are all really important things to prepare. Thanks for sharing this with us!

  4. This is so informative for a new pet parent. My daughter is so interested to own a pet but its me who is little worried about the added responsibilities. Hope your post will help me in near future.

  5. Pets are loads of fun, but they also require responsibility. I have had to set rules with my girls and stress the importance of cleaning up after them and feeding them. Fortunately for me, my girls take their role seriously.

  6. We found our cat and rescued her from outside so we didn’t have time to prep before she came in. But we did get some of this in place as soon as possible. For the first few weeks, she was limited on where she could go in the house. Now we try to only keep her off the table and counters, and have tried since she was a kitten, but we still catch her up there sometimes.

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About The Author

Dr. Elise Ho

Dr. Elise Ho

Dr. Elise Ho is a Holistic Health & Life Coach with a special interest in emotional health, life alignment, and energy flow.

Elise will partner with you to align your mindset, your energy, your home and your career so that you can live your life's desire with freedom and love.

Elise offers 30 years of experience and multiple certifications and degrees including a Ph.D. in Natural Health and a doctoral degree in Naturopathic Psychology.