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Getting A Puppy In Berlin

Everyone’s experiences in getting a puppy, training, and raising it, are very different. The breed you choose, if you get the puppy from a breeder or a Tierheim (pound), and the age are just a few things to take into account.

Our Experience With Pets

I grew up with Labrador retrievers. My first dog, Gladys, was a gentle giant. She was a black Lab, big boned, and loved everyone. My second dog was Hershey, a brown Labrador/Shar-Pei mix. She looked like a Lab, but unfortunately got the Shar-Pei personality. This meant that she was a one-person dog and was not friendly with other people. Both Gladys and Hershey came to us when they were puppies. I don’t remember much about them when they were puppies, but it wasn’t too hard to train them because we lived in the country and our dogs lived outside. We never had to potty train or keep them from chewing our valuables.

Karis’ childhood home in Michigan – sadly we don’t have any photos of our dogs from that time!

Our third dog was Baci, a chocolate Lab. We got her at age 3 from a family with young kids. They were having a hard time controlling her with the little kids in the house. Because she moved from one family to another, she had some separation anxiety. She was also the first dog that lived in the house with us. We had a pretty easy time with her, though. She was very well trained and we didn’t need to do much with her at all.

Besides dogs, I grew up with multiple cats, a parrotlet, a hedgehog, and a turtle. Growing up in the countryside it was always much easier to raise animals! My husband grew up in a big city so was more limited with what he could have. He did have a cockateel named Archie, but was never able to have a dog.

A very old family photo of us with our first cat, Twinkle

After moving abroad, I wasn’t able to have a dog in Kenya, nor in the first few places we lived in Berlin. Our current apartment allows dogs and since we will be here for the long haul we decided it was time to get a dog – before kids!

Our Story

Figuring Out What Breed To Get

In our case, we were not able to go through a Tierheim. Due to my line of work, I needed a breed that was completely trustworthy, friendly with people, and a generally nice dog. I have multiple students coming in and out of the apartment every day, and we needed a dog that would be ok with that. My experience with Hershey taught me that it was risky to get a mixed breed, and getting Baci as an older dog with separation anxiety was also not ideal.

Searching For A Breeder

Because I know the Labrador retriever breed quite well and know that they are friendly, nice, sociable dogs, I started searching Berlin forums and dog owner sites in January 2020. I wrote to several breeders to introduce ourselves, give a little background, tell our story, and why we wanted a dog. Several wrote back and told me that their waiting list was horribly long (over 100 people!). Others didn’t even bother to write back. One breeder in Brandenburg wrote back that they had 11 people on their waiting list and it wasn’t likely that we would be able to get a puppy from their current litter (due in August 2020), but that we would be on the waiting list for the next.

One of the first photos we received of Freya when she was around 4-5 weeks old.

Timeline Challenges

At this point, my brother was getting married in October. We were ok with not getting a puppy because that would mean leaving him or her for two weeks while we traveled to the States. Unfortunately, we encountered yet another snag – the Coronavirus pandemic was still raging on with no signs of stopping, and my visa was up for renewal. Making the sad decision to not go to the States for the wedding, we resigned ourselves to another winter in Berlin.

Suddenly, we got an email from the breeder who had told us there were 11 people on their waiting list. A puppy was available! Did we want a girl?

Since we weren’t going to the States and were stuck in Germany for what appeared to be several more months, we took it as a sign. Yes. We were getting a puppy!

A darling little Freya visiting the lake with the breeders about a week before we picked her up.

Take Into Consideration What Kind Of Breeder To Buy From

We can highly recommend the breeders where we got our fox-red Labrador, Freya. They are a small family, and breeding is not how they make their income. This was important to us as we didn’t want to get our puppy from a puppy farm. They have a couple fox-red Labrador females who have only one litter per year. The litter that year was only three pups. 

We drove out to meet the family with their many dogs, who they train and compete with in obedience and dog triathlons. At this point, Freya was only 5 weeks old. The family worked a lot on socializing the puppies so that they would be prepared for life away from their mother. They asked us what we did for work, and when they found out I was a musician, they added playing classical music to their list of socializing!

Extra Tip: Visit A Few Times Before Taking Your Puppy Home

When Freya was six weeks old, we visited one more time before finally taking her home with us at eight weeks old. The family had taken the puppies on a few car rides, so she was a real champ for the two hour car ride back to Berlin. She slept the whole way there!

Puppies can sleep over 20 hours a day!

Challenges

Illness

As it had been many, many years since I had had a puppy, it took a little while for us to realize that something was wrong with Freya. She would pee almost constantly and we were cleaning up messes no matter how many times we took her out. She was up every hour the first night, too. As we picked her up on a Saturday and this continued through Sunday morning, I began to suspect she had a UTI.

We immediately took her in to an emergency vet. They confirmed that she did indeed have a UTI, gave us meds, and we returned home with a pup who was visibly more comfortable. She was still awake nearly every hour and a half at night, but it was a big improvement from the first night.

Vaccinations

Another challenge was that until her vaccinations were finished, we had to avoid interactions with other dogs. Knowing a dog was vaccinated was a plus, but you never know what dogs may not be up to date. We also had to make sure that she did not spend much time on the sidewalks to keep her out of contact with any contaminated feces. Once she was fully vaccinated we could be more relaxed!

Having A Puppy & Working

The first week, Andreas came home early from work so he could take Freya out to pee and keep an eye on her while I was teaching in the afternoon. As she was able to hold her bladder for longer periods of time, the second week he was able to stay at work while I had her in the crate during my lessons. The best way to entertain her while I was teaching was to give her a frozen Kong stuffed with puppy food. Thankfully, she stayed calm unless I had students who wanted to play with her!

Because a large part of my day is spent at home working, it’s pretty ideal for Freya so she isn’t alone very much at all. We worked on a good play schedule for her to get all of her puppy energy out and she sleeps a good portion of the day to this day. Puppies can sleep anywhere from 15-20 hours a day, which is useful for working from home!

Because she is a Labrador, she absolutely adores people and loves seeing my students every day. I only have a few students with a fear of dogs, but most of them love to play with her so she has a very good experience with people in our apartment.

Freya loves the cello a lot more than the violin!

Sleep Training

The first few nights we had a soft puppy play pen that we put her in to sleep next to our bed. She would whimper and rustle around when she needed to go out so it was easy to get up, scoop her up and take her out. Eventually, she started rolling around in the play pen and chewing a hole in the corner so we moved her to her crate in the living room.

For two nights, we slept in the living room on our futon mattress, then moved to the guest bedroom which was still close enough we could hear her, but she couldn’t see us. We realized she would settle down quicker after having a pee in the middle of the night if she couldn’t see us, which was great for us.

Freya’s favorite spot

About a week after we got her, we finally moved back to our own bedroom. She settled into a good nightly pee schedule of going out at 8pm, 11pm, 2:30am, and then 6am. The trickiest part was putting her back to bed at 6am so we could go out for a run, swim, or a bike ride. As long as she couldn’t see or hear us, she was quiet, but if she knew we were in the house she would get fussy.

Crate Training Is Key!

The older Freya got, the better she was with crate training. Now, she can sleep through the night without going out. We can also go for a run, bike or swim in the morning without her fussing. She is even very good at settling down in her crate at night while we finish things up in the kitchen before bed. Crate training went so well that she will have a nap at all times of the day in there. It is her safe place!

Basic Training

I had a recommendation from a friend for a dog trainer who worked in German and English. She came over two days after we got Freya. She walked us through the basics and made sure we were set up for all the legalities. We worked on hand target practice, and a marker word instead of a clicker. Because Freya still liked to bite as a form of play, the hand target practice didn’t go too well the first few weeks … But she learned her name, and learned that “yes!” means that she gets a treat.

We then worked with another private trainer who taught us the importance of mental training. Dogs don’t need to be physically exhausted or taken on very long walks every day. It’s better to train their brains and give them mental stimulation to keep them busy. We switched from feeding Freya from a food bowl to only feeding her by hand while training or on walks, or giving her a Kong stuffed with food. It also helped slow down her eating so that she wasn’t getting digestion problems. Playing games and getting her to think became very important for her development, too.

Boarding In Berlin

When Freya was 5 months old, we needed to go on a work trip out of the country. We were initially going to be gone 3 weeks. Due to the pandemic, it was extended to five weeks. As we couldn’t take Freya with us, we ended up sending her to board with Tom For Dogs. There, they worked on some other basic training and behavioral issues, such as leaving trash on the sidewalk (“leave it” and “drop it” commands), and lots of great socializing with other dogs at her energy level.

When we traveled to the States for a few weeks for the summer, we also left Freya with Tom for Dogs. I’m sure she had a much better time there than she would have traveling all over the place in a new and stressful situation. We had a great experience with them and we would highly recommend using Tom For Dogs if you are traveling, training, or looking for a daycare for your dog. As a plus, they offer pickup and drop-off services in addition to daycare, boarding, and training.

Photo credit: Tom-for-Dogs

Legalities

Registration & Dog Tax

As soon as you get a dog in Berlin, you need to register them with the Finanzamt. This is a free service. Once your dog is registered you will have to pay the dog tax (Hundesteuer). The tax is €120 per year for one dog. The city will send you a dog tag that your dog will have to wear to show that it is legal in Berlin. You can register in person, or by faxing or emailing your registration form. Make sure you register your dog within a month of getting them or moving to Berlin.

Insurance

It isn’t required, but consider getting insurance as well (Hundehaftpflichtversicherung). In my case, my health insurance also has dog insurance, so it was easy to get that set up. Insurance isn’t just for your dog. It’s for cases in which another dog bites you, or your dog runs across a street and causes a car accident. It’s a good idea to have in a city, especially when it is much busier than in the countryside and incidents can happen.

Veterinarians

Honestly, we really struggled with this one. Due to Freya’s UTI and needing to finish her vaccinations as a puppy, we ended up visiting several vets in our area. In our experience, the private clinics were the hardest to connect to. 

We found the private clinics a very strange experience and had a much better time in the bigger clinics. We would recommend shopping around for a vet as soon as possible to find someone you really click with, who loves your pet as much as you do, and is patient and understanding. Don’t feel like you need to stick with the first vet who gives you an appointment!

Fixing Or Castration

Because we had a female dog, we also found it a bit strange that here in Germany they want you to wait as long as possible to fix dogs. Many male dogs are not castrated, so we were quite nervous when Freya had her first heat cycle. 

Vets will want you to wait until your dog is at least a year old and has had her first cycle before getting her fixed. We understand why for health reasons, but we also think that we would be very poor multiple puppy owners. Owners aren’t allowed to sell or give away puppies if they aren’t certified breeders until the puppies are one year old. Can you imagine raising 12 puppies and you aren’t allowed to give them away???

We know she’s darling, but one of her is enough!

Rules In Germany

Germany is all about rules, and even dogs are subject to them. I couldn’t even begin to scratch the surface of all the rules you will need to know owning a dog in Germany.

Leash laws, for example, are very strict. Dogs are not allowed off leash within Berlin except in a few designated areas. You can, however, apply for a dog “driver’s license” (Hundeführerschein), in which your dog has to pass some behavioral commands in order to walk off leash.

Make sure you pick up your poop! We have seen many owners who do not pick up after their dogs. We’ve heard it’s because they are protesting that they pay a street cleaning tax so they shouldn’t have to clean up after their dog … I think it’s pure laziness. Plus, you can get a hefty fine from the Ordnungsamt if they catch you without a poop bag.

Also, make sure you get a passport from the breeder or Tierheim. This is a vaccination book that you will always have with your dog when you visit the vet. There is a separate book for traveling. Dog boarding places will want to have the vaccination book while your dog is with them in case of emergencies.

Enjoy Being A Dog Owner!

Once you get past the puppy stage (which can be fun, but oh-so-tiring), your dog will truly become a part of your family. We can’t imagine not having Freya anymore. Seeing her happy-dance when she sees me in the morning, or having those big brown eyes trying to telepathically tell you when she’s hungry, or that otter tail wag thumping away when she meets new people are some of the best parts of my day. A dog will teach you great patience, become an unforgettable part of your family, and above all, show you what real unconditional love is like.