I’m a first time dog owner and there are four mistakes I made… now he never stops chewing & can’t settle either | The Sun

A VERY honest woman has shared the mistakes she made as a first time dog owner that has left her frustrated. 

Britt, from Orange County, California, in the US, is the proud owner of a very sweet Golden Retriever called Winston – or Wince. 

But being a pup owner for the first time isn’t a choice to make lightly and Britt discovered a few mistakes she made after bringing him home. 

And in a bid to educate people online, she took to her social media account to reveal all… 

Posing in the back of her car with Wince, she told viewers: “As a first time pet parent, I do not claim to have anything figured out, so I wanted to share the four mistakes I think I made in the first year of my dog’s life.” 

Britt explained that the biggest mistake she made was never allowing her puppy to be on his own to entertain himself. 

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While puppies tend to sleep a great deal, anytime Wince was awake Britt felt the need to play with him or training him. 

“And I feel like this really caused him to grow up to be an adult dog that doesn’t know how to settle and constantly expects entertainment and engagement from us,” she said. 

“Which has made it really, really hard to just relax around the house.” 

The second mistake she thinks she made was taking Winston to a dog park. 

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While they’re great for teaching your furry friend to socialise with other pooches, this can also lead to a few issues. 

Britt explained: “When he was around six months old we started taking him to the small dog park that was in our apartment complex.

“Within a month, we had multiple incidents where dogs were basically attacking him or on the verge of attacking him.” 

The third mistake she made was focusing on training Winston to do tricks instead of teaching him useful skills like recall or settling down. 

Britt said Wince picked up on how to sit, stay, and more, but she wishes she’d taught him how to settle instead.

She continued: “This last one is the fact that we expected our puppy was just going to simply grow out of certain behaviours. 

“From our experience, they do not simply grow out of behaviours, if anything it gets worse as they get older as you continue to reinforce these behaviours. 

“Then they get bigger and these behaviours just escalate on a larger scale.” 

Britt added that Wince was a “mouthy puppy” and they didn’t do enough to redirect this behaviour, which they’re now still working on. 

TikTok user @whata_bout_winston ended the video by adding that she’s doing the best she can and that no puppy is the same. 

In the caption, she wrote: “Let's be real, I had to narrow it down to just 4 but the list goes on and on”. 

People flocked to the comments section to share their thoughts as one person wrote: “Wow! You just described my 18 months old Golden boy. I made the same mistakes that you just mentioned. My Golden is super sweet but still so mouthy.”

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Another shared: “We made all the same mistakes. I wish we would have socialized him without meeting every human and dog we saw. Now he thinks he needs to meet everyone”. 

While a third added: “Thanks for being brutally open and honest. Too many pooch parents that think their precious pooch will out grow undesirable behaviours.”

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