What to Do Before Your Puppy Comes Home

Set up one small, boring, easy-to-clean room before you leave to collect your puppy — not the whole house. A crate, a water bowl, a chew, a confinement gap, and a vet appointment in the calendar covers almost everything that matters in the first seven days.

Buy for the adult dog, not the 8-week-old

This is the single most expensive mistake new owners make. A Labrador puppy weighs about 15 lb at nine weeks and 70 lb at eighteen months. Buy the crate, the harness clip points, and the food storage bin for the dog you will have, not the one in the box today.

The exception is the collar and the food bowl, which are cheap and genuinely have to fit now.

Crate sizing is the fiddly one. Our crate size guide has a chart by adult weight — the short version is that you want a divider panel so the interior starts small and grows, because a puppy with too much crate will sleep at one end and toilet at the other.

The starter space

Pick a room with a hard floor, a door or a gate, and no cables at nose height. Kitchens and utility rooms usually win; carpeted bedrooms usually lose.

Inside it you want three zones the puppy can reach without you: a crate with the door open, a water bowl, and a toilet area — pads or newspaper if you are in an apartment, a door to the garden if you are not. A pen clipped to the crate makes this easy to shrink and expand.

Build this before the puppy arrives rather than improvising around it on day one. A space the puppy meets as already-normal is far easier to establish than one assembled around a puppy that is already loose in the house.

Shopping list for week one

You need less than the pet shop would like you to think.

• Crate (adult size, with divider) and a washable mat
• Two bowls, stainless
• Flat collar with an ID tag, and a 6 ft leash
• The same food the breeder or shelter is feeding, at least a week's worth
• Small soft training treats
• One rubber chew you can stuff and freeze
• Enzyme cleaner — the kind sold for urine, not general household spray
• Poop bags
• A baby gate or a pen

Buy the food your puppy is already eating even if you plan to change brands. Changing home, family, routine and diet in the same 24 hours is how you end up with diarrhea on day two. Switch food gradually after the first fortnight instead — there is a transition table in when to switch from puppy to adult food that works the same way for any food change.

For the full priced version of this list, see the New Puppy Checklist, and if you want a sense of the ongoing monthly number rather than the day-one number, run it through the pet cost calculator.

Book the vet before you collect the puppy

Most breeders and rescues ask for a health check within 48 to 72 hours of going home, and some contracts require it. Ring your vet now — appointments for a specific day are easier to get a week out than the morning you need one.

Ask them, on that call, two things you will otherwise ask a forum: which vaccines your puppy has already had, and when the practice wants the next one. Vaccination schedules genuinely vary by country, by region, by what is circulating locally, and by what the breeder started. Your vet decides that timetable, not the internet. What to expect is covered in your puppy's first vet visit.

Agree the house rules with everyone, in advance

Every adult in the house should already know the answers to these before the puppy walks in:

• Is the puppy allowed on the sofa? On the bed?
• Who does the 6am toilet trip, and who does the midnight one?
• What word do we use for toileting outside?
• Do we feed from the table? (No.)
• Where does the puppy sleep on night one?

Puppies learn from consistency far more than from correction. Two people running two different rule sets is the most common reason a bright puppy looks like a slow learner.

Collect the paperwork, not just the dog

Ask for the vaccination card, the microchip number and registration details, the worming and flea treatment dates, and the exact food brand and amount. Photograph all of it on your phone before you drive away. Chasing a breeder for a microchip number three weeks later is a miserable job.

What to do next

Do the room setup and the vet booking today; do the shopping whenever. Then read bringing your puppy home: the first car ride before pickup day, because the journey home sets the tone for the first night more than anything you buy.