What I Wish I’d Known When Getting A Puppy In Quarantine

Chauncey Mozzarella became our roommate a little over three months ago. He’s a four-legged burst of energy. He’s got the longest tongue in the world (we’re still checking in with the Genius World Record on this) and the tiniest legs.

He came into our world in the middle of a pandemic, so by default he joined the “quarantine puppy” club. We’d been holding a space in our heart for a puppy for as long as we’ve been dating. Any time we thought about maybe getting one, we’d come back to the reality that we traveled a lot, more than what would make sense for a puppy. But in the long list of things that 2020 has changed, it nixed our travel schedules. We were suddenly home all the time. We had space, the means, and the time to take on bringing a puppy into the fold.

I also had a deeper understanding of what I would want life to look like post-quarantine. I didn’t have an itch to travel for long stints for work anymore. I’d be fine with straight-the-point trips and working our schedules to make sure we felt good about where we’d be leaving a puppy. I got excited about the prospect of roadtrips or vacations that would include a rambunctious puppy.

Over the last few months, Chauncey has brought so much joy into our lives and taught us so much about who we are as adults, how we cope with stress in our relationship, and overall just how to be better puppy parents.

IF YOU’RE THINKING ABOUT GETTING A PUPPY

I’m not saying anything new by telling you that a puppy is a huge responsibility. Some of the questions we considered when thinking about getting Chauncey were focused on time and cost. Could we afford a puppy? Did we have the time and bandwidth to actually take care of him? Did it make sense to our relationship to bring a tiny puppy into our home? Did we have the space?

For the most part all of our answers were hard yeses and even so we still had so many jitters on the day we met him and realized he was going to be ours.

IF YOU’RE WORRIED ABOUT COST

One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned through getting a puppy is that things become way less scary once you know what you’re up against. If it’s at all helpful, here are some estimates on how much Chauncey runs us every month (on the months without vet visits).

Pet Insurance (we use Nationwide) — $61

Food and treats — $50

WeeWee Pads + Poop Bags — $25

BarkBox* — $20 (a literal total luxury, but an absolute joy to see him get excited)

On months with vet visits (especially if you’re getting a puppy who still needs all his puppy vaccines) our bill could run us up to $200 dollars

products that helped make life way easier

We made a lot of beginner’s mistakes when we first got Chauncey. A ton of them were things that we probably could have avoided if we’d known, so this is my advice to anyone who still hasn’t gotten a puppy and wants to be better prepared than we were.

Puppy Fence (starts at $35, depending on dog size) — everyone will tell you that a crate is super important (and it is) but I’d argue a fence is just as important. It helps make it way way easier to avoid pee mistakes on the carpet (hi) and also to help your puppy earn the home square foot by square foot. We got this on day 4 of having Chauncey and tears may have been cried on days 1-3 wishing we had this.

Rocco & Roxie Stain and Odor Eliminator ($20) — Chauncey has completely destroyed our rug. We love him so we realized early on that we’d just have to take it as a loss and replace it once he was better trained. That being said, in the interim this spray has still been so incredibly useful. I love it the most because it helps lessens the likelihood of having a mistake happen twice in the same spot.

Puppy Puzzle Toys (we have this one) — Wow. Let me tell you that this was a gift from the universe. I learned about these games through a friend who has a dog too and it’s been so helpful in teaching Chauncey to play by himself and honestly to distract him when we need him to stay quiet or calm. It’s also been one of our biggest tools to teaching him to stay alone.

Puppy Ramp (couldn’t find ours, but this is similar $124) — Ours is smaller than the one I linked to, so it’s also a bit cheaper, but Chauncey is also such a tiny pup where I feel most dogs fall somewhere in the middle both in weight and size. I was adamant that I wanted both puppy insurance and a ramp because of an experience I had with my childhood dog. Mila is seven years old now and my favorite girl puppy. A little over three years ago we went through the worst scare when Mila had a herniated disc, had her back legs paralyzed, and ended up in surgery that was emotionally and financially distressing. Her disc condition is one that can pop in weiner dogs too, so any of the things that could help us avoid putting a strain on his back felt incredible necessary.

Chauncey while I was finishing this post

impact on our mental health

Getting Chauncey has averaged out to be one of the best decisions of our lives. He’s so fun and sweet. He is just as comfortable curling up next to me for a nap as he is running around the apartment with Tyler. He is also though, a puppy and like any puppy, he demands attention at sometimes conflicting times. Mostly it’s been an adjustment period for all three of us to learn to live together and function on our regular schedules. If you’re getting a puppy for mental health reasons, I’d set realistic expectations that it will probably be harder for the first few weeks and then slowly start to get easier.

We made decisions a few weeks into life with Chauncey that were completely centered on our own sanity. For instance, he sleeps in our bed because we (1) knew he would eventually end up here anyway and (2) we couldn’t keep doing the cries in the middle of the night from his crate. It wore on me too much and made it really hard to be productive the morning afters. While we knew he wouldn’t sleep in his crate at night, we wanted to be able to put him in there when need be in the middle of the day without him crying so we prioritized making it a place he loved and enjoyed. He’s not to the point where he will go in there on his own accord, but he does love it enough to lay in there comfortably when placed. It makes taking conference calls, filming, or getting packages delivered way easier.

This turned into a much longer post than I expected and it made me realize that I love writing about life with Chauncey (haha) so I’ll pop in these posts every now and then. If you have any puppy-related questions about our experience, feel free to comment below or send a DM over on IG.