Bringing a puppy home: the first week

The first week sets the tone, and most of what makes it hard is avoidable.

Before they arrive

Get the food the breeder is using, enough for two weeks. Changing diet and home at once causes the upset stomach that then gets blamed on the puppy. Set up a pen or crate somewhere quiet but not isolated - hallways are bad, corners of the living room are good. Put down more toilet paper than you think you need.

Day one

Bring them straight home. No detour to meet the family. Carry them into the garden first, wait, praise anything that happens, then go inside.

Let them explore one room. Do not pass them round. A puppy that has been handled by nine people in its first afternoon will sleep badly, and the first night is hard enough already.

The first night

They will cry. This is normal and it is not manipulation - they have never slept alone. The approach that works, and costs the least sleep overall, is to have them near you: a crate beside your bed for the first few nights, moved gradually to where you want it. Leaving a puppy to cry alone in a kitchen teaches it that being alone is frightening, which is the exact opposite of what you want.

Expect one or two toilet breaks in the night for the first fortnight.

Toilet training, briefly

Out on waking, after eating, after play, and every 45 minutes otherwise. Praise outside. Never scold for an accident indoors - you teach the puppy to hide it, not to stop. Most puppies are reliable by 16 weeks; some breeds are much slower and that is not a failure.

The two mistakes

Too much, too fast. A puppy needs about 18 hours of sleep a day. An overtired puppy bites, and the biting gets treated as a behaviour problem when it is a sleep problem. Enforce naps.

No practice at being alone. Start in the first week: leave the room for thirty seconds while they are settled, come back before they notice, build up. Separation problems are far easier to prevent than to fix, and the households that hit them hardest are the ones where somebody was home constantly for the first month.

What to see the vet about

Not eating for more than 24 hours. Repeated vomiting or watery diarrhoea, especially with lethargy. Pale gums. Coughing. Anything that makes you uneasy at 10pm - the out-of-hours call is cheaper than the regret.

Vaccination and going out

Second vaccination at around 10-12 weeks, and most vets clear walking a week after. Do not wait until then to socialise. Carry them, sit with them outside a shop, let them watch traffic and hear a hoover. The socialisation window closes around 14-16 weeks and it does not reopen.