Behaviour
The first 30 days: what to buy for a new puppy or kitten.
In progress
This essay is being finished. The opening below is the real draft; the full piece arrives soon.
A new puppy or kitten arrives, and within the first week the household acquires forty new objects. Most of them are not needed. Some of them are needed but are the wrong version. A very small number are needed and are the right version. The difference — between the list the internet will give you and the list a considered owner actually needs — is about three hundred euros and a great deal of cupboard space.
Here is the version we give friends.
It's short. It's specific. It assumes you'll buy a few more things in month two, which is fine, because by month two you'll actually know what your animal is like.
What the rest of this piece will cover
- The essentials (buy before arrival)
- The first-week additions
- What to wait on
- What to not buy at all
- A note on quality vs quantity in month one