The necessities; Most of the truly necessary items for dog care are obvious. If you’ve got a dog you’ll need bowls for the dog’s food and water. Mid size to large dogs have a habit of moving their food bowl around the room as they eat. Buying heavy weighted bowls will avoid the noise and frustration of having to hunt for the bowl at feeding time. I have large German Shepard that likes to carry his bowl over to me whenever he’s ready to eat! A sturdy plastic bowl with a rubber lining on the bottom can be useful as well. The rubber on the bottom keeps the bowl from sliding around as Fido enjoys his dinner.
Unless you have a fenced in backyard, you’ll be needing a leash and collar for walks. Even if your yard is fenced in, you may want these anyway for training purposes. These can be as simple or as elaborate as you would like, but of course, you’ll want to take the size and strength of your dog into account when selecting them. The collar can (and should) be adorned with a license tag or at least an ID tag that provides your name and contact information in case your dog is lost.
If you live in a city environment, you’ll need to purchase that miracle of modern doggie convenience the “pooper scooper.” Most cities have laws against owners simply allowing their dogs to “foul the footpath” or leave little all over the city park. In some cities, there is a hefty fine for such crappy behavior.
Optional; There are literally thousands of optional items available for people to purchase for use with their dogs. Some of these items, like the gravity refillable water dishes and food bowls, serve a very useful purpose; others – the dog bandana comes to mind – serve no real purpose and are just plain fun.
One item that some owners do find very useful, especially those that live in a hot climate, are “doggie booties.” While they may seem like a relatively useless item, they do a good job of protecting the sensitive pads of a dog’s feet from rough terrain, rocky areas, and hot pavement. Stepping on hot sticky asphalt can be very painful for your dog. Those in cooler climates may not understand, but in some places, particularly the desert environments of cities like Phoenix, Las Vegas, and Albuquerque, the summer pavement can literally become hot enough to fry an egg. You wouldn’t walk barefoot on such a surface and neither should your dog.
So before you bring Fido home, make sure you have all the accessories you need to make his and your life easier.
