What are your top ten tips for the first few weeks with new puppy?

[Panicmode1]

Although I am excited, I am now getting nervous, the closer that we get to picking up our first puppy to ensure that I don't get it 'wrong' and mess up with the early training/socialisation etc. I have been doing a lot of reading, but it would be brilliant to have your best tips for the first few weeks - dos and don'ts - things that those of you a few weeks ahead of me have learnt and could pass on!!

I guess I'm worried about what to do with her between bringing her home and her second set of jabs when we can go out and about more.....!

They can get used to holding it in once they've learned where to let it out!

Every 15 mins is not ludicrous.

The more often they're in the right place at the right time, the quicker they learn where the right place IS.

I used to go out every 20 minutes unless he was asleep. I already knew he could hold it as he went through the night from the first night we had him at 8 weeks and has never had an accident at night.

We did every 15 minutes with our older boy. He came to us not toilet trained at 14 weeks old.

We took him out every 15 minutes for a few days until he'd made lots of positive associations with going in the right place (because we were always there to catch him going in the right place and reward every single time and he never had chance to go in the wrong place). Once he had the idea we gradually extended the length of time between toilet trips until we had a good handle on how long he could easily hold it for. He was completely trained in less than a week and never had a single accident.

New puppy owners here too. I have Total Recall and Don't Shoot the Dog, but haven't had time to read them completely yet.

Can anyone give me a short cut please and advise how we should encourage her to 'stay' at this stage? Sitting is OK and getting there with 'come'. She is nine weeks and a few days.

build it up slowly ...

we are now building ddog's sit-stay - at first he'd automatically flop into a down after a few seconds - our trainer said that was fine for now as it meant he was relaxed but we might (possibly) be thinking of competing with him at obedience which means his sit-stay needs to be solid

So what I'm doing is getting him to sit, walking away, counting to 5, coming back and reinforcing his sit with 'sit' and a treat, going away again, counting to 10, coming back to reinforce etc

If at any time he looks like he's going to break his stay, whizz back and reinforce before he gets up so you're setting him up to succeed. If he's not able to do 20 seconds either stay a bit closer or go back to 15 for a bit before upping the requirement again

Have fun! puppies are awesome

The things that I remember from the early days were that she was a bit a freaked out at being taken away from her family and cried at night and didn't want to eat. She got over it quickly, but needed a bit of quiet time to settle.

Then I remember the manic chewing phase - if you don't want it chewing, don't leave it out! The crate was great generally, but especially for this, even if I went for a shower I would pop her in and that helped her get used to being left too.

Don't buy a new sofa unless you want to stare at its chewed legs for the next x years

we've had numerous puppies over the years - yes to getting them used to being alone and safe for short periods, but they have come from their mum and siblings and are still babies, we had a rota to sleep with ours on the sofa until they were a few months old (dc fought over whose turn it was) because dh didn't want them in the bedroom. It's not for everyone but it worked for us very well.

all useful as our pup arrives end of Jan