Supplies To Prepare For Your Klee Kai Dog
Our Recommendations for Preparing to Bring Your Puppy Home
Your Klee Kai Dog Deserves the Best
After breeding, training, and working with Klee Kai dogs for many years, we have determined the best toys and supplies for your dog to have when you bring them home. Advanced preparation is key for your Klee Kai dog to be able to relax with you and get to know you — and you can get to know them. Having supplies on hand before your puppy arrives is extremely useful.
Benefits to Preparing For Your Klee Kai Dog’s Homecoming:
- No stress about having to go out and get “the right thing” from the pet supply store
- Assurance that you have prepared adequately and have all the tools you need
- Gives your dog assurance when they enter your home and find toys, their crate, and places made just for them
- Keep the rest of your house clean
- Get to relax and enjoy your time with your new pup
- Your puppy will have safe places to go when they need to chill out
- You are providing adequately for the new addition to your home and life
Klee Kai Dogs
Love to play and have fun
Sometimes mistake the wrong thing for a chew toy
Are highly intelligent and creative
Love cuddling, snuggling, and being near their owner
Why Is It Important to Prepare for Your Klee Kai Puppy?
Klee Kai dogs, like many dogs, are highly creative, intelligent and engaging. They want to play, to figure things out, to be mentally and physically stimulated, and to enjoy time with their owner. They should also be socialized quickly so that they are used to other people rapidly. That is a lot for a new pet owner to take on, but if you have the supplies and tools you need, it makes a huge difference in being able to help your new Klee Kai puppy progress, grow, and learn.
Dog Chews & Toys
It’s important that puppies have a variety of different textured toys to chew on, or they might start chewing on your furniture, clothes, accessible body parts, etc.
- We recommend:
- Safety chew Bully Stick Holder 10% Off with Code "KIKA10"
- Outward Hound Fishing Pole ***Our Fav***
- Kong
- Nylabone puppy Chew
- Kong Bear
- Lamb chop plush
- N-Bone Teething Rings
- Himalayan Dog Chews
- Chuckit! Indoor Ball
- Snuggle sheep
- Bully Stick
- Rawhide
Dog Crate
A crate is important in training your puppy as well as taking them to the vet when necessary! Your puppy should love their crate; they should see it as a comfortable place to make their den and keep it clean and comfortable.
- We recommend these:
- Petmate Sky Kennel (21" L X 16" W X 15"H)
Midwest Life Stages Crate (24" x 18" x 19")
Leashes
Your Klee Kai puppy needs a leash so that you can take them on walks and train them! We recommend a variety of leashes for training in and out of the home. For training puppies outside, a thin martingale-style leash works best. A slip leash is also an option, and a good one if you are getting your pup out quickly for potty training! For walks we use martingale-style or show-style collars with nylon leashes. Your puppy is going to weigh under 5 pounds, typically, so a heavy leash isn’t necessary.
- We use:
- Martingale Leash
- Slip Leash
- 4-6 Nylon Leash (3/5" thick)
- 3' Leather Training Leash
Contact us with any questions!
Collars
A collar is useful for training and walking your Klee Kai dog. We use very thin show collars for obedience training and not pulling. These are the styles we recommend:
- Thin "dog show" Stainless choke/Collar (12")
- Thin "dog show" stainless choke/collar (14")
- Thin "dog show" nylon choke/collar You can choose your size. Start off with 10 or 12"
- Martingale style nylon collar Multiple colors and sizes, No buckle for young puppies
- Martingale style nylon collar Mighty Paw brand with buckle For older puppies (12-14")
- Simple buckle collar They can not break these (clip style can be broken)
Name Tags and Puppy Blankets
You may want to wait until you get your puppy home to order a name tag so that you can have their microchip information put on the tag along with their name.
We send our puppies with a small blanket that smells like our home and litter-mates for something familiar. You can purchase new puppy blankets or baby blankets when you would like something new.
Puppy Food
We feed our Klee Kai dogs ProPlan Focus Puppy Chicken and Rice Formula, and transition them to ProPlan Sport Performance 30/20 after they are a year old. We will send them with a small bag of puppy food. Remember to switch foods gradually if you do plan to change your dog’s food.
Bowls
- Klee Kai puppies love to play with their food and water bowls and carry them and their contents all over your home. You can curb this behavior by using bowls that don’t have a lip so they have nothing to grasp. We love these bowls:
- Yeti bowls
- Additionally, if they gobble their food too quickly, you may want to purchase a slow feeder bowl for them so that they don’t have digestive problems:
- Slow Feeder Bowl
- Kong Wobbler
Puzzles and Interactive Enrichment Games
It’s extremely important that your dog receives mental stimulation daily. Challenging their brain and making them solve puzzles is not only great for their brains but highly rewarding for your dog. These are some of our favorites:
- Kong Wobbler
- Outward Bound Puzzle I have the larger one but for one pup you could use this smaller one.
- Everlasting Treat Ball (Starmark)
- Replacement Treats for Everlasting Ball
- Everlasting Treat Bento Ball (Starmark)
- Replacement Treats for Everlasting Bento Balls
- Hol-ee Rubber Ball
Stain and Odor Remover
Your puppy will at some point, no matter how well you adhere to a potty schedule, have an accident in your house. When they do, it’s important to use an enzymatic cleaner that gets all of the odor out as well as removes the stain. Your Klee Kai dog’s sense of smell is extremely keen, and they will pee in that area again and again if they can smell urine there. Make it easy on yourself by using one of these products:
Treats and Treat Pouch
You should begin training your Klee Kai puppy the day you bring them home.Your puppy’s kibble makes for great treats for training when they are still very young, as treats are much bigger and they can easily fill up on them and then not want their food. If the treat is their food, that problem is resolved. When they get older, you can switch to very small pieces of cheese or chicken, or treats like Zuke's Mini Naturals Dog Treats
- Our favorite treat pouch has a magnetic closure instead of a drawstring, making it easier to open and close:
- Treat Pouch
Grooming Your Klee Kai Dog
We recommend a variety of brushes and have created a YouTube video and a page on grooming them for you! Double-coated dogs should be groomed regularly to maintain a healthy coat. Never use a Furminator style tool on your Klee Kai dog, as it will damage their coat. When they are blowing their coats, which happens twice a year, they will require extra grooming at those times.
These are the brushes we use:
Puppy Shampoo and Rags/Towels
The detergents in human products and even some dog shampoos can be harsh on your Klee Kai puppy’s skin.
We like Burt’s Bees for Puppies and Burt's Bees for Dogs Natural Waterless Shampoo Spray
For cleaning up messes, we use whatever we can find around the house. It is important to keep rags and towels on hand for cleaning up after puppies’ messes.
Bedding for Crate and Dog Beds
We’re big fans of inexpensive bedding for the puppy’s crate. Some, but not all, Klee Kai dogs decide that the crate bedding is a toy to rip and shred apart, so we don’t recommend spending a lot on the crate bedding.
We like this Basic Pet Bedding for the crate
For a dog bed, we like a Simple Dog Bed.
As you might imagine, puppies have accidents in their bed, so a washable one is important. Just about anything soft and comfortable can be used as a dog bed, too: pillows, towels, blankets, sheets.
We love talking about Klee Kai dogs and their needs. Contact us!
Pee Pads/Grass Pads/Poop Bags
We introduce our puppies to grass outside, pee pads, and artificial grass. We are big fans of the artificial grass, pee pads, and pee pad tray that stick to the floor so your puppy doesn’t try to use it as a chew toy and drag it all over the place. Same with the artificial grass: make sure you glue it into the tray in all four corners so your puppy doesn’t pull it out of the tray. We use these products:
- Pee pads for Tray
- Pee Pad Tray
- Pee Pad with sticky back
- Artificial Turf
- When your dog is on a walk outside and goes potty, it’s imperative to have doggy bags with you for cleaning up after them. We like these ones:
- Earth Rated Dog Poop Bags
Gate & Playpen
Gates are useful to keep your puppy out of some areas of the house. Remember that your Klee Kai dog is intelligent and creative, and will climb over gates that give them the means to. Get a gate that is at least 28” tall with vertical bars so that they cannot climb it. A baby gate is fine; you don’t have to get a dog-specific one, though you certainly may.
Playpens cordon off areas of the house or yard to give your Klee Kai dog room to romp and play. They are wonderful for giving your dog plenty of room without them being in your space all the time.
We love this particular Exercise Pen & Gate combo. It sticks to the wall, has vertical bars, can be configured into many different shapes, and has a gate with a locking latch. It’s very sturdy and we love it. Additionally, most puppies can not squeeze throughn the bars. All of the ones on Amazon and Petsmart are too big and your puppy will escape!
We also use the baby gate from this same company through Petco. It has close together bars and is extra tall so you can continue to use when your puppy is all grown up Puppy Gate
Nail Trimmer
This Nail dremel tool for dogs nail trimmer is extremely useful. Your puppy will be used to having their nails trimmed every few weeks, depending on how much they are naturally worn down. You can use other basic pet trimmers; we love the Dremel tool.
Puppy Backpack
- Want to carry your puppy with you in any easy, compact way? A puppy backpack is the key. Here are a couple of options:
- Front facing backpack
- Rear backpack
Puppy Vitamins and Reading Material
We give your puppy NuVet supplements and highly recommend that you order them before bringing your Klee Kai dog home. You can do so here: NuVet Vitamins
We recommend reading books and checking out videos from Zak George for assistance and guidance in training. He also has some great information for new pet owners. You can find his work here:
Can’t Get Enough of Klee Kai Puppies?
If you’re like us and you simply cannot get enough of Klee Kai puppies, subscribe to our YouTube channel and catch up with us every Thursday evening from 6-8 pm PST for our LIVE show! We hope to see you there!
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