About Ready for Puppy
Who writes this
My name is Yan. I live in Brazil, I have four dogs, and I have spent most of my adult life around them.
Two of them are what Brazilians call vira-latas — street dogs, the ones nobody planned for. Three of the four are rescues. There is also a boxer, and a border collie, which is its own kind of education: a dog that will reorganise your entire week if you let it.
Years ago I ran a kennel. Before that I trained as a biologist, and later moved into engineering. That mix is most of what this site is. The biology taught me to read research properly. The engineering taught me to distrust a claim with no number behind it. The kennel taught me what actually happens at three in the morning when a ten-week-old puppy decides the crate is a prison.
Why a British site, written from Brazil
The honest answer first: I am not in the UK, and I will never pretend otherwise.
Dogs are the same everywhere. Markets are not. British prices, British brands, British delivery, the particular set of subscription companies competing for your money, the sizes actually stocked in British shops — none of that transfers from anywhere else. Most advice a British owner finds online was written for an American market, with American products, in American measurements. That gap is why this site exists.
What I bring is the part that does transfer: knowing dogs, knowing puppies, and knowing how to work out whether a product is worth its price.
How I decide what to recommend
I want to be exact about this, because the internet is full of “we tested 47 products” pages written by people who tested none.
What I do. I read the full specification, not the marketing copy. I compare sizes against the breeds they are sold for. I check what a thing actually costs in the UK today, including delivery. I read what British owners say in forums and reviews, and I take seriously the complaints that repeat. Where I have used a product category myself — crates, pens, feeders, leads, training treats — I say so, and I say what went wrong as well as what went right.
What I do not do. I do not claim to have physically tested every product on this site in a British home. I have not. Where a recommendation rests on specification and research rather than on my own use, the page says so in plain words.
What I always include. Every comparison has a section on who should not buy the product. A recommendation that suits everybody suits nobody, and it is usually a sign that someone is being paid to like it.
How this site makes money
Some links here are affiliate links. If you buy through one, I may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. It does not change the price you pay, and it does not change what I recommend. The full explanation is on the Affiliate Disclosure page.
Getting in touch
If something here is wrong, tell me and I will fix it. If a product has changed since I wrote about it, I would rather hear it from you than from a reader who wasted forty pounds. You can reach me at contact@readyforpuppy.co.uk or through the Contact page.