Leaving Your Dog For The First Time? Here are the crucial items you need to leave the dogsitter when you head for your summer holidays

Many of us are looking forward to our first foreign summer holiday since the start of the pandemic, but with over 3.2 million puppies bought over the last couple of years there’ll be plenty of adorable dogs separated from their owners for the first time.

It can be a daunting and stressful experience for both pet and owner, however it’s very much part of life with a dog.

Lorna Winter, Director of the UK Dog Behaviour and Training Charter and co-founder and head of training at puppy training app Zigzag, has provided the ultimate check-list for items to leave with your dogsitter.

These will hopefully make sure that both you, and your pooch, are happy while you’re apart.

Here’s what you should pack for your pup.

A comfy bed or crate

Keeping things the same when your puppy goes to a new house will help them to settle if they have a comfortable place to snooze that they can call their own.

Something that smells of you

Heading off on holiday and leaving your pup behind? Here's what you need to leave them so they don't miss you too much.

Giving your dog sitter a t-shirt that you’ve been wearing will also have a calming effect on your puppy.

Toys and games

Puzzle toys use a pup’s cognitive skills to solve food dispensing puzzles. They're a really fun way for the dog sitter to play along with your puppy and interact with them.

Chew Toys such as Nylabone are great to give puppies and they’ll last a long time.

Lots of chews

Puppies need to chew a lot, pack plenty of chews so that your dog sitter doesn’t get their furniture eaten, or their shoes.

Natural Chews that take a while to get through. Buffalo and Cow ears are good for this and not too greasy as well as ostrich tendons and buffalo skins.

Chew sticks which are softer and easier to chew such as fish skins, venison sticks and turkey sticks are great for keeping them busy for a short while or putting in stuffed chew toys.

Let your dog minder know that they will have an easier life if your puppy can eat out of a stuffed chew toy which will give them hours of fun, just with their regular food moistened and then adding a chew stick. These toys can also be frozen to help pups cool down or to help soothe sore gums.

Treats for training

Your dog sitter probably can’t be expected to do much training with your puppy, but remind them to reward good behaviour from your puppy, as this will help to carry on the good work you’ve been doing. Cut the treats up small so the dog sitter doesn’t need to fuss about with them too much.

Your pups favourite toys

Give them their favourite toy so they can snuggle up to it at night.

For all the latest dog news, chat, advice and information, join our Scotsdog Facebook group here

Read more:

Here are the 13 rarest breeds of dog in the UK

These are the 10 largest breeds of dog in the world - they're huge and adorable

Here are the 12 most popular breeds of adorable dog in 2021 so far - and there's a new top dog

These are 10 adorable native breeds of dog most at risk of extinction in the UK according to the Kennel Club