Keep Your Puppy Outside? 6 Reasons You (Really) Should Not!
Maybe you think your puppy should live in an outdoor environment like its wild ancestors?
Perhaps you picked up your puppy from a farm where the litter was outside in a barn?
There will be less mess in the house if the puppy is outside, and isn’t that better for everyone?
Could You Keep Your Puppy Outside?
If you built a purpose-built enclosure with a heated shelter, you could keep your puppy like a wild animal in an outside section, but the puppy will not be a family pet in these conditions.
Plus, you’ve ripped your puppy from the warmth and social comfort of its litter and isolated it in a strange and unfriendly location.
It is like taking a four-month-old human baby and locking it away in isolation with minimal care and attention.
Working dogs can stay outside, but they have the social bonds of a pack with other dogs for company. Although working dogs can successfully stay outside, most single dogs working with a human stay in a family setting.
Pack hunters like foxhounds and sled dogs like huskies do stay in outdoor compounds but as a pack and not as a single puppy. Before joining the working pack, the puppies grow in a safe indoor environment with social bonds.
Plus, working dogs spend most of their time outside their compound working with their human handlers.
Why You Should Not Keep Your Puppy Outside (6 Reasons)
Why did you choose to have a puppy?
Most people pick a puppy with the expectation of forming a family bond and acquiring a loyal and loving canine companion for walks and general hanging together.
1. Puppies Are Babies
Although your puppy is more mobile than a human baby, it is still an infant animal and needs supervision and care.
An outside yard is not the best place to put a baby.
Your puppy hasn’t learned how to choose when to seek shade, a suitable sleeping place, or how to entertain itself with toys. Your puppy, like any baby, will learn how to act through experience and interaction with others.
Keeping your puppy outside does not allow your puppy’s interaction to develop family bonds and experiences.
2. Exposure Can Kill
As a small, vulnerable baby, your puppy is at risk from weather that wouldn’t bother an adult dog.
Too much sun can result in sunburn and heatstroke. Wind and rain can rapidly result in hypothermia, and cold weather can freeze your puppy to death while you are oblivious to its suffering.
If your puppy were a wild wolf, adult wolves ensure it is kept warm through body heat and provide the shelter of a secure den and supervised playtime.
Placing your puppy in an outside environment without this social support of mature adults is cruel and neglectful of the puppy’s needs.
3. Predators Do What Comes Naturally
Leaving a vulnerable puppy outside exposes it to the risks of attack from other animals and birds.
Depending on the breed, your puppy might be a suitable prey animal for raptors (a puppy the size of a rabbit is a meal for an eagle), other dogs, and cats.
While outside, the puppy will encounter wildlife in your area, including snakes, rats, and poisonous insects.
All of these can inflict wounds on your puppy, which can cause trauma through infection and distress if not immediately fatal.
Keeping your puppy out at the balcony is no better.
4. Exposure to Disease
Many diseases transmit through contact with other animals and insect bites.
Potential conditions include rabies (mainly from infected bats, but other animals can carry the infection), tick-borne illnesses, and others.
Leaving your puppy outside increases its risk of contracting some diseases. Your puppy has a developing immune system and can become rapidly ill without your supervision and oversight.
5. Theft and Loss
An unattended puppy is vulnerable to theft or someone leaving a gate open and allowing the pup to wander off.
Your puppy has no awareness of the world and may meet with an accident on the road, your drive, or a stranger may decide to rescue a wandering pup.
Either way, your puppy is gone forever.
6. Emotional Distress
Leaving your puppy alone and isolated outside will result in loneliness and boredom.
Puppies need social bonds, and isolating a puppy by itself without social contact stunts your puppy’s emotional development.
If your puppy does not form a strong bond with the humans in its life, it may respond poorly to training and become problematic in its behavior with an aggressive defense of its territory.
What About Short Periods Alone Outside?
When your puppy is young, supervised playtime outside is part of its healthy development and exploration of the world.
As your puppy grows older, you may want to leave it outside for a short time (up to twenty minutes) to let you hoover a carpet, for example.
The key to successfully leaving a puppy in a yard is to ensure it is safe and secure. A puppy playpen with shade may provide a safe outdoor zone for your puppy for a short time.
Ideally, you want to be able to keep your eyes on your puppy every few minutes.
What About Free Access to Outdoors?
As your puppy matures, you may want to give regular access through an open door in hot weather or a pet flap. Ready access to an outdoor space means your puppy can easily take a bathroom break.
If your puppy has access to an outdoor space, you need to puppy proof it by:
- Removing opportunities for escape – fences and a locked gate.
- Removing hazards – objects that can fall on or trap your pup.
- Removing or fencing off poisonous plants.
- Security – discourage thieves and keep your eyes on your pup.
Most dogs with the freedom to go outside choose to be with their preferred human, either inside or out.
It’s the person that matters to your pup rather than the space.
What About Tying Up Your Puppy Outside?
Leaving your puppy tied up has all the risks associated with leaving your pup outside unsupervised. Plus, the risk of strangulation if your puppy gets tangled up with the tethering lead.
You can buy tie-out stakes for when you need to restrict your pup’s movement.
These are ideal if you are working in the garden and need the security of knowing your pup will stay in a defined area and helpful if you want to visit a park, beach, or campsite.
If your outdoor space does not lend itself to fencing, or you have a puppy that will grow into a dog that jumps, a tie-out system will give you peace of mind while allowing your puppy to have some outdoor time without your constant control.
Some breeds, like terriers, channel their inner escape artists and will tunnel and jump their way to freedom. A secure tethering system means you can protect your pup from its inclination to escape.
The best tethering systems allow retraction of the lead or other features to prevent your puppy from getting tangled in the rope.
These tie-down systems are not for leaving your pup outside but restraining it while you work or play in an outdoor area. Primarily they are to protect your puppy from harm while freeing your hands for other activities.
When Can Your Puppy Spend Time Outside Alone?
Your puppy will mature at its individual rate.
When and how long you can leave a puppy in an outside area depends on the puppy’s confidence and available facilities.
If you invest in providing a safe puppy enclosure with adequate protection from the elements, you effectively create a safe zone equivalent to an indoor space.
Most working dogs for police and military start training at around two years of age – rather like a kid growing up at home and moving away for college.
Assistance and rescue dogs start their training at a similar age but usually remain in a family setting.
If your eventual aim is to have your dog as an outdoor pet, you need to choose the right breed, provide a suitable enclosure and protection, and work up to acclimatizing your pup to an outdoor lifestyle.
Most family dogs live with their human family and sleep indoors.
Conclusion
If you feel that you can’t have a puppy living indoors with you, you must question whether a puppy is suitable for your family. Dogs need companionship; even when your puppy matures, it needs regular human contact and plenty of it.
Working dogs may seem like outdoor dogs, but they spend more time with their handlers than the average family pet.
Bringing a puppy home to exclude it from your family by leaving it outside in all weather is neglectful and cruel.
If you don’t want a companion dog, pick a pet that loves living in an outdoor cage like a rabbit or bird.