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Puppy Tips
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Most puppy advice online is written to be shared, not used. This is the opposite: the handful of things that genuinely make the first few months easier, and the ones that cause the most trouble when they are left too late.
The first 48 hours tell you nothing
Your puppy has just lost its mother, its littermates and everything familiar, in one car journey. The refusing of food, the crying at night, the fourteen-hour sleeps — that is grief and overwhelm, not personality. Judge nothing yet.
Keep the house quiet, limit visitors, and let the dog find its own feet. Most of what worries people in week one has resolved itself by week three with no intervention at all.
Toilet training is arithmetic, not training
A puppy’s bladder holds roughly one hour per month of age, plus one. A ten-week-old needs to go out every three hours or so, and immediately after sleeping, eating, drinking or playing. Nearly every accident is a maths failure by the owner rather than disobedience by the dog.
Take them to the same patch each time, wait, and reward within about two seconds of them finishing — not once you are back indoors, which teaches them that coming inside is the good bit. Never tell a dog off for a mess you found later; they cannot connect it to anything. The PDSA’s guide to toilet training sets out the full schedule if you want the detail.
Socialisation has a deadline, and it is sooner than you think
The window in which a puppy accepts new things without fear closes at around sixteen weeks. What they meet before then shapes what they tolerate for the rest of their life: traffic, bins, children, beards, hats, hoovers, other dogs, the vet’s waiting room.
This is the most time-sensitive item on the list, and the one most often skipped because the puppy is not fully vaccinated yet. So carry them. A puppy watching the world from your arms is still socialising. The RSPCA’s puppy advice is worth reading before you decide to wait it out.
The biting is normal, and it is not aggression
Needle-sharp teeth in your hands, ankles and sleeves for several weeks is standard. It is how puppies explore, and how they learned to play with their littermates.
What works: stop the game the instant teeth touch skin, every single time, without drama. Stand up, turn away, wait ten seconds, carry on. What does not work: shouting, holding the muzzle shut, or tapping the nose — all of which teach a dog that hands are unpredictable. Most puppies are through the worst of it between four and six months.
Sleep, and the crate argument
You will be told crates are cruel, and you will be told crates are essential. Both camps overstate it. A crate is a tool — useful for toilet training, useful for giving an overtired puppy somewhere to switch off, and harmful if it becomes a cupboard you store a dog in.
Puppies need eighteen to twenty hours of sleep a day. Overtiredness looks almost identical to hyperactivity: the frantic, biting, cannot-settle puppy at seven in the evening is usually exhausted rather than under-exercised. Enforced naps quietly solve more problems in the first months than training does.
The admin you cannot skip
Microchipping is a legal requirement in England, Scotland and Wales. Your dog must be chipped by eight weeks old and your contact details kept current on the database — and the usual failure is not the chip itself but an address never updated after a house move. GOV.UK sets out what is required.
Vaccinations generally start at six to eight weeks with a second dose a few weeks later, and your puppy is not fully protected until a week or two after that. The PDSA explains the schedule and what the boosters actually cover.
Arrange insurance before the first vet visit rather than after. Anything a vet notes on the record becomes a pre-existing condition, and that is permanent.
Training happens in minutes, not hours
Five minutes, three times a day, beats an hour at the weekend. Puppies cannot concentrate for long, and the session should end while they are still interested rather than when they have had enough.
Teach a name response and a recall first — everything else is convenience by comparison. Be generous with rewards early; you can become stingy later, once the behaviour is reliable. The RSPCA’s training advice are a reasonable free starting point if you would rather not commit to classes straight away. If you want something more structured once the basics are landing, How to Become Your Dog’s Best Friend is our 86-page training guide — written for the dog you already have rather than the puppy you are planning for.
When to stop guessing and ask
Get help early if the puppy has not eaten for more than a day, if toilet training has gone backwards for a fortnight, if the biting is escalating rather than easing after five months, or if you are quietly dreading going home.
That last one matters more than people admit, and it is common enough to have a name. Dogs Trust’s advice pages are free, and your vet would far rather hear about something small now than something entrenched in six months.
If the puppy is not home yet, the new puppy checklist is the more useful place to start — what to buy before day one, and what the shop will push that can wait.
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