The first week with a new puppy: what to do, day by day

Before the puppy comes home

Agree the rules as a household. Sofa or no sofa. Upstairs or not. Who does the night shift. Which word means sit. These conversations take ten minutes in advance and cause weeks of arguments if left until later.

Set up the space: a pen or gated area with a bed, water and something to chew, in the room the family uses. Puppies do not settle well alone in a utility room, and the first few nights are much easier if you sleep near the puppy and move away gradually over a fortnight.

Days one and two: keep the world small

Home, garden, and that is it. No visitors, no trips, no big introductions. The puppy has just left its mother and littermates and lost every familiar smell it had.

Take it into the garden every hour, wait, and praise quietly the moment it toilets. Do not carry it back in the second it finishes, because clever puppies learn to hold on to extend the trip.

Days three to five: the routine appears

Now the shape of the day starts to matter:

• ●Wake, toilet, small play, food, toilet, sleep. Repeat all day.
• ●Two or three one minute training moments: name response, sit, coming to a hand.
• ●One carried outing to sit and watch the world for five to ten minutes.
• ●Chew time in the pen while you do something else, so alone time starts on day three rather than day thirty.
• ●Handling practice: paws, ears, collar, thirty seconds, paired with food.

Days six and seven: the honeymoon ends

Around now the shy little thing turns into a shark with teeth, and owners privately wonder what they have done. That is normal development, not a behaviour problem. Biting peaks between about eight and sixteen weeks.

Handle it with sleep first, then substitution: redirect onto a legal chew, and end the game before the puppy gets frantic. Do not yelp dramatically, because in a lot of puppies that raises arousal and the biting gets worse.

The toileting maths

Assume a puppy can hold on for roughly its age in months plus one, in hours, and less than that when awake and busy. Accidents are your timing failing, not disobedience, and telling the puppy off simply teaches it to toilet where you cannot see it.

Clean accidents with an enzymatic cleaner, never anything ammonia based, because ammonia smells like urine to a dog and marks the spot as a toilet.

What not to worry about yet

Recall in a field, walking beautifully on a lead, meeting lots of dogs, learning ten cues. None of that matters in week one. A puppy that sleeps well, toilets outside, likes its pen and finds people safe is ahead of almost every puppy that can do a trick at nine weeks.

Setting up alone time from day three

The households that never have a separation problem are the ones that start alone time in the first week, while the puppy is still young enough to accept it as normal. It is a two minute exercise: puppy in the pen with a chew, you in the same room but not interacting, then you step out for thirty seconds and come back before it notices.

Repeat it several times a day and gradually lengthen. By the end of the second week most puppies will happily settle for half an hour, and by three months a normal working day becomes achievable with a midday break.

The opposite approach, where the puppy is never left for a fortnight because it is small and new, is the single most common route to a dog that cannot be left at a year old.

What to buy and what to ignore

You need a pen or crate, a bed, two bowls, a soft collar with a tag, a fixed lead, an enzymatic cleaner and a supply of appropriate chews. That is the genuine list.

You do not need a cupboard of toys, four different harnesses, or a training gadget. Save the money for the first vet bill and for a session with a trainer in the first fortnight, which is worth more than everything in the pet shop combined.

Common questions

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