A puppy-proofing house checklist (2026)

Walk on your knees. Anything chewable below two feet is theirs. Meds, bags of food, bread bags, and the dishwasher pod drawer. Trash in a can they cannot tip. Toilet lids down if they drink bleach water. Cords: unplug, cover, or gate the office. Houseplants: lily is a cat emergency; sago, grapes, and xylitol are dog emergencies — confirm plants, do not guess from this sentence.

Stairs: a gate at the top and bottom until they have the body and the brain. Pet stairs for couches if they are small or brachycephalic. Crate or a pen so they are not loose in a six-room buffet. Pads only as a temporary target, not in every doorway.

Bedrooms: socks, underwear, hair ties, earplugs, kids’ Lego. Nightstands eat puppies. A camera tells you they found the closet; it does not close the door.

Garage: antifreeze, oil, fertilizer, mouse bait, sharp tools, the gap under the door to the street. They will drink a drip. Yard: cocoa mulch, compost, mushrooms, the neighbor’s cocoa hulls, sharp fencing wire, the pool with no ramp. Life jackets are not a babysitter. Decking gaps eat small paws.

Fence: walk the whole line. Latch height a toddler can open is a toddler and a puppy problem. Wireless fences are training plus a shock conversation, not a move-in day install. Escape artists: chip, tag, GPS. Hot weather: no closed cars, shade, water.

Balconies and decks: rails a small dog can slip. Small-breed bodies fit gaps you would not believe. Screen is not a wall.

Kids’ rooms are an ER aisle. Guests leave purses with gum and Adderall. Holiday chocolate. Multi-dog resource fights over a dropped sandwich. Rescue week adults still eat socks in a new house — moving.

Toys: Lab toys and chewers that are sized so they cannot swallow the chunk. Rawhide as the cheap toy is how first years explode — first-year cost. Nail grinders in a drawer they cannot open.

Skip proofing after they arrive. Skip “they’ll learn” on antifreeze. Skip a flexi in an unfenced front yard. Skip assuming a senior-proofed house is puppy-proofed — they reach different shelves and they eat faster.

Do the walk-on-knees pass twice: once sober, once with a flashlight for the garage drip. Put the crate where it will live, not in the hallway you will trip over. Buy enzyme before the first miss. Pads only if the elevator is the leak — a house with a yard still wants a door clock, not a pad farm.

Tell the household the rules: closed doors, no chocolate on the table, kids’ rooms gated. A camera in the pen is optional. A gate is not. Rescue adults get the same pass — they eat socks in a new kitchen too. Moving into a house you have not proofed is how you buy an ER the first night.

Yard: pick up mushrooms after rain, close the pool gate, walk the fence the morning they come home. Hot weather if it is July — shade and water before you unpack boxes. First-year cost includes the foreign-body week you are trying not to buy.