Keep the first week small and quiet. Bring your puppy home to a calm house and carry on with the food the breeder was using. Take them out for the toilet little and often, including through the night. Register with a vet in the first few days. Expect broken sleep, and expect it to pass.
What should arrival day actually look like?
The temptation is to make arrival day an event. Resist it. Your puppy has just left the only warm pile of siblings they have ever known, and a house full of visitors will not help. Keep the day small, with the people who live there and nobody else.
When you get in, put them straight down in the garden for a minute. Then let them explore one room and no more, because a puppy given three rooms to learn will not really learn any of them.
Do not worry if they sleep most of that first afternoon, because travel and change are tiring. If they turn their nose up at dinner, let that go too. A missed meal on day one usually rights itself by morning. A puppy who is flat or refusing water needs your vet, and so do runny stools that keep coming. Your vet comes first, always.
Where should a new puppy sleep?
There is no single right answer, whatever the internet tells you. What matters more than the location is that the answer stays the same every night for a good while. A settled routine beats a perfect one.
Most owners pick one of two versions. The puppy sleeps in a crate in your bedroom at first and moves out by degrees, or downstairs in a set spot with someone on the sofa for the first night or two. Both work. What does not work is moving the sleeping place every night because the puppy cried.
A crate helps here if you treat it as a den rather than a punishment. Cover part of it, put the bed inside and leave the door open through the day so they wander in on their own terms. We keep a full run of crates and beds in the directory, and the thing to look for in a first crate is a divider panel so it grows with the dog.
Broken sleep is normal and it is temporary. The first few nights are usually the worst of it, and most puppies work out the shape of a night quite quickly once yours is predictable.
How often does a puppy need the toilet?
More often than you expect. The rule is little and often, and never a timer you have read about. Out first thing, after every meal, after every nap, after every burst of play, and last thing at night, plus once or twice in the small hours for the first stretch.
Go out with them, and do not just open the door and hope. You need to see it happen so you can praise it the second it finishes, because praise at exactly the right moment is what teaches this. Take the treats out with you.
Accidents indoors are not naughtiness, and telling a puppy off after the event only teaches them to go somewhere you cannot see. Clean up with an enzyme cleaner and keep anything containing ammonia away, because an ordinary cleaner can leave a smell that reads to a dog as an invitation to use that spot again.
Should you change the food the breeder was using?
Not in week one. Your puppy has plenty to cope with already without their stomach joining in. Carry on with whatever they were eating on the day you collected them, at the same times and in roughly the same amounts.
When you do want to move them onto something you have chosen yourself, do it slowly across several days by mixing the new food through the old. We have written that out step by step in switching food without upset. If you are still deciding what to move to, our puppy food reviews are scored on exactly the same basis as everything else on the site. Meal counts and portions change a fair amount over the first year, so feeding a puppy month by month is the one to bookmark. If yours is a large breed, controlled growth matters more. There is a whole guide to feeding a large or giant breed puppy covering calcium, portion sizes and steady growth. The breed guides say what to watch for in your own.
What do you actually need ready before they arrive?
Less than the lists suggest. A bed, a crate if you are using one, two bowls, a flat collar with an ID tag, a light lead and something legal to chew. Add a harness that fits the puppy you have now, and not the dog they will become.
The ID tag is the bit people leave until later. In the UK a dog in a public place has to wear a tag with the owner's name and address on it. Microchipping is a legal requirement as well, so order the tag before the puppy is home.
Chews and toys earn their keep that first week more than anything else does, because a puppy with nothing legal to chew will find something illegal by teatime. Two or three different textures is plenty to begin with. Have a look through the toys section for shapes that suit small mouths. If you want the one item that does the most work, it is a hollow toy you can stuff and freeze.
One more thing nobody puts on a list. Keep a towel by the back door for wet paws, because a proper dog towel wrings out far better than the bath one you would otherwise grab. Floppy eared puppies want their ears dried too, and why ears flare up after wet walks explains how.
When should you register with a vet?
In the first week, before you actually need one. Ring round in the days before collection if you can, then get your puppy on the books and booked in for a first check. That appointment is where you ask about the vaccination course, and about worming and flea treatment. It is also where someone experienced puts hands on your puppy and tells you they look well.
Take the paperwork the breeder gave you, including the microchip number and anything about vaccinations already given.
How do you socialise a puppy before the vaccinations are finished?
Vets commonly advise keeping a young puppy off the ground in public places until their vaccination course is complete, and yours will tell you when that point comes for your dog. It does not mean waiting at home doing nothing, because the stretch when a puppy is most open to new things comes early. You just do it with them in your arms.
Carry them down to the school gates at pick up time and let them watch from a safe distance. Let them meet a grown up dog you know is vaccinated and steady, in your own garden, away from the pavement.
Get the household stuff in too. The hoover, the doorbell and visitors in big coats are all worth meeting while everything still strikes your puppy as interesting. The goal is calm exposure, not a tick list, because a puppy who has been frightened by something has not been socialised to it.
Classes are the other half of this and the good ones start earlier than people expect, so asking around in week one is not too keen. What separates a decent class from a poor one is set out in choosing a puppy trainer, with the questions worth asking before you book.
What if the first week is harder than you expected?
Nearly everyone finds it hard and nearly nobody says so out loud. There is a well known dip a few days in, once the novelty has worn off and you have not slept properly, where you quietly wonder what you have done. It passes faster than it feels like it will.
The trick is to lower the bar for the week. Your puppy does not need to be trained or walked or perfect. They need to eat, sleep, empty out in the right place and learn that you are the safe thing in the room.
And take the photographs now, because the size they are in week one lasts about a fortnight.
Frequently asked questions
When can my puppy go out for a proper walk?
Once your vet confirms the vaccination course is complete, and only your vet can tell you when that is for your dog. After that, start smaller than you think. A short potter with plenty of sniffing beats a long march, and young joints do better with a few little outings than one big one. Carried trips and your own garden still count as useful outings in the meantime.
How long can I leave a new puppy on their own?
Barely at all in week one, and you build it up in minutes, never hours. Start by leaving the room while they are settled with something to chew, come back before they get worried, then repeat. The aim is that being alone never becomes a shock. Plan that first week around someone being in the house for most of the day.
My puppy cries at night. Should I go to them?
Go, but keep it boring. Take them straight out for the toilet, say almost nothing, then put them back in their sleeping spot. What you are avoiding is turning a night waking into playtime or a cuddle session, because that is a habit puppies learn quickly. Crying that settles within a few minutes once they are back somewhere familiar is normal in the early days.
How do I introduce the puppy to the dog we already have?
Slowly, and on the older dog's terms. Meet outside on neutral ground rather than in the hallway. Keep the first sessions short, and give your older dog somewhere the puppy cannot follow. Feed them apart and put chews away when they are together. Most adult dogs tell a puppy off at some point, and a fair grumble is normal communication, not a fight.
