Before your puppy
comes home.

The short version: get everything in place before your puppy arrives — de-worming and flea treatment from your vet, a grooming kit, a kennel and bed, bowls, pee pads, a chew toy, food and storage, a 6ft leather leash and leather collar, and toys. That's the easy half. The half that decides how they turn out is knowing what to do from day one, and that isn't a shopping list.

Most people start getting ready the day the puppy arrives. By then you're already behind — holding a puppy in one hand and shopping with the other.

I'm Shawn. I run DOGPAPA, in-home dog training across Singapore, and before this I was a handler with the Singapore Police K-9 Unit, working Narcotic Detector Dogs. This is the list I send clients when they tell me a puppy is on the way.

Get all of it in before your puppy comes home. Then day one is about them, not about the shops.

1 · From the vet — sort this first

• Complete de-worming pills
• Anti flea and tick solution

Get de-worming from your vet — heartworm and the other worming schedules need their advice, not a shelf recommendation.

2 · Grooming

• Shampoo
• Full grooming kit
• Dryer
• Towels
• Wipes
• Poop bags
• Oral care
• Ear care

3 · Where they live

• Dog kennel
• Bed
• Water and feed bowl
• Pee pads
• Kong or chew toy

4 · Food

• Food
• Food storage

5 · Walking gear

• 6ft leather leash
• Leather collar

Six feet, leather, and a flat leather collar. The length gives you something to work with when you start leash work; leather lasts and doesn't cut into your hands.

6 · Toys

• Toys

The list above is what you buy. These are the ones that catch people out because they aren't things you can pick up on the way home.

Start the licence early

Every dog in Singapore has to be licensed with AVS, and you apply online through PALS. If it's your first dog or cat licence you have to complete AVS's free online Pet Ownership Course before you can apply — about 20–30 minutes. The application also needs your puppy's microchip number, and only a vet can implant a microchip. None of that is hard; it's just slower than people expect, so do it while you're waiting.

Check what your home actually allows

HDB permits one dog per flat, from its approved list of breeds. Condos and private estates set their own rules. Worth confirming before you commit to a puppy, not after — and it's one of the things Before You Own exists to sort out.

Book the first vet visit before you collect

Get it in the diary for the first few days home: health check, the vaccination plan, and the worming and flea schedule your vet wants to put your puppy on.

Ask what they're being fed right now

Start with the same food, then change it slowly if you want to change it at all. A new home, a new routine and a new diet in the same week is how week one turns into a week of cleaning up.

An enzymatic cleaner, not ordinary floor cleaner

Normal cleaner takes the mess up but leaves the scent behind, and the scent is an instruction to go there again. This one quietly decides how fast toilet training goes.

An ID tag, and a plan for the ride home

A tag with your number on the collar from day one. And sort out how your puppy travels home — a carrier or a crate in the car, not loose on a lap.

Puppy-proof one room before they arrive

Cables, shoes, anything chewable at floor level, and any plants you're not certain about. You want one room where you can put a puppy down and not have to watch every second.

Having everything ready is the easy half.

Before your puppy comes home, you need to know what to do. From day one — not day ten or fifty. There's a procedure. You follow that, you set yourself up for success.

The first days set the habits you'll live with for the next ten years: where they sleep, where they toilet, who they look to, what they learn is worth doing. Buying a kennel isn't the same as knowing how to use it on night one.

Dogs are not like humans. You have to teach them every single thing — and none of it is obvious to a puppy who has just arrived in a home full of new sounds, lifts and strangers.

That's the bit that isn't a shopping list, and it's what I do. If your puppy is already home, start with the first week. If you're still choosing your puppy, that decision comes first — Before You Own is built for exactly that.