Puppy-Proofing Your Home: A Room-by-Room Checklist
PawPicked is reader-supported: we may earn a commission from links on this page.
Get down on your hands and knees and look at the house from about 30cm off the floor. Anything you can see, reach, chew or swallow from there is fair game for a puppy, and most puppies treat the world as a sampling menu. The job is partly about removing hazards and partly about managing access, so that the puppy only has the run of places you have made safe. Do this before the puppy arrives, then check again after the first day, because puppies find things adults miss.
Hallway and living room
Start with cables. Chewing through a live lead is a real danger, so tuck wires behind furniture, use cable covers or trunking, and unplug chargers when you are not using them. Look at low shelves too, for remote controls, shoes, glasses and children's toys. Small parts can cause choking or a blockage, and swallowed socks and corn-on-the-cob cores are a classic emergency for vets.
Check anything that might topple, such as floor lamps or stacks of books. Put candles and wax melts out of reach. If you have an open fire or wood burner, use a fixed guard. A baby gate across the doorway is the simplest way to stop a puppy from wandering through the house unobserved, and it helps with the house-training routine in our house training guide.
Plants deserve a proper look. Lilies are very dangerous to cats, and if your household has a cat as well, remove them entirely, including cut flowers and pollen. Some other common plants and bulbs can upset or harm dogs, including daffodil and tulip bulbs, yew, lily of the valley and foxglove. This is not a complete list, so ask your vet if you are unsure about a particular plant.
Kitchen
The kitchen is where a lot of poisonings begin. The foods most often flagged by UK vets include:
- Chocolate, particularly dark chocolate and cocoa powder
- Grapes, raisins, sultanas and currants, which can be harmful to dogs even in small amounts
- Xylitol, a sweetener found in some sugar-free gum, sweets, baked goods and a few nut butters; check labels
- Onions, garlic, leeks and chives
- Macadamia nuts
- Cooked bones, which can splinter
- Alcohol and raw bread dough
Keep these in closed cupboards or on high worktops, not in a bag on the floor. Use a bin with a secure lid or keep it inside a cupboard, and do the same for the compost caddy. Put cleaning products, dishwasher tablets and anything containing antifreeze high up or behind child locks. If the puppy eats something suspicious, phone your vet straight away rather than waiting for symptoms.
Bathroom and bedroom
Medication is a major risk. Human painkillers such as ibuprofen and paracetamol can be seriously harmful to dogs, so keep pills in closed drawers or cabinets, not on bedside tables or in open bags. The same applies to tubes of cream, vitamins and nicotine products. Keep the toilet lid down, tuck away razors and cotton buds, and shut the bin. Dirty laundry is an irresistible target, and socks are a favourite, so a hamper with a lid is a good idea.
Close wardrobe doors and think about what is at floor level: shoes, handbags and anything with a zip or sweets in it. Close bedroom doors if you want the puppy kept downstairs.
Stairs and doors
Stairs are risky for young puppies, who can fall or injure growing joints, so fit gates at both the top and the bottom. Make sure the gate is the right size, has no gaps a head could be pushed through, and is secured firmly rather than simply pressure-fitted at the top of a flight. Tell visitors and children to shut doors behind them. A puppy that bolts through an open front door is in real danger, so start recall practice early as well.
Garden and shed
Check fences and gates for gaps, and patch any a puppy might squeeze through. Remove slug pellets, rat poison, weed killer, fertiliser and chemicals from reach, as well as anything in the shed such as paint or engine oil. Cocoa-shell mulch is a hazard because it contains the same compounds as chocolate. Cover ponds or water butts, and watch for compost heaps and bonfire ash. Stagnant water and mouldy food can also cause illness.
Safe chewing
Puppies chew, so give them something better to chew than your skirting board. Offer a handful of appropriately sized toys and rotate them, rather than leaving everything out at once. Swap the item they have grabbed for one of their own, and praise them when they take it. Our article on puppy teething has more on what is sensible while adult teeth come through.
A last check
Once everything is done, sit and watch the puppy for ten minutes and see what it goes for. You will probably find one or two things you missed. Keep the number of your vet and an out-of-hours animal hospital stored in your phone. The general rule is simple: if you are not sure something is safe, put it away.