Your puppy will go home eating Purina Pro Plan Large breed puppy. It’s important to keep your puppy on the food we weaned them to for the first month. Changing homes and changing diets is too much for little bodies and minds. We recommend a high quality large breed puppy food like Purina or Royal Canin. Growing puppies need specific nutrients to help them grow at a healthy rate.
We know you want to be prepared for your new family member. Here are the products that we use with our own dogs and recommend that new puppy owners invest in to help your puppy stay safe and ease the training process.
All our puppies go home with a positive introduction to crates. We feel that it is incredibly important to crate train labs. From being safe and comfortable in the car to a wonderful tool for potty training, crates are a great way to provide a safe and calm place. Your puppy will need a 42'“ crate as an adult dog. Most wire crates come with a divider to make allow for the crate to grow with your dog. We prefer a smaller plastic molded crate for the car.
We put these pads in all of our wire crates. Primo pads are easy to clean and chew proof.
Having an exercise pen can be very useful when raising a new puppy. They can be used to block off areas of the house and also attached to the crate to create a puppy safe play area while you are busy or away from home.
Our dogs love Kuranda beds. These beds are chew proof and very easy to clean. You can use crate pads on top of them to make them softer.
There are a lot of wonderful dog training resources out there. We highly recommend finding an obedience class to take your puppy to, but this book is a great resource for new puppy owners. Dog training methods can be controversial. Whatever methods you choose to use with your adult dogs, we feel that positive reinforcement based training is the best for puppies. You are trying to teach them to trust you and it’s difficult to make mistakes when you start with these methods. Each of your puppies is started on clicker training.
Metal bowls are the easiest to keep clean and stick in the dishwasher. As your puppy gets older you will want a slow feeding type. Labs love to eat and this will help slow them down (a little).
Puppies love to chew! Benebones are one of our favorite chews to have around. We like to make sure they have something like these in their crates to prevent boredom and frustration. The tripe is one of the favorite ones, but they do make puppy ones that are a little softer. Keep in mind that they should be recycled and replaced once they wear them down.
