New Puppy…Now What??
It’s your first night home with your new puppy. Now what?? You might be asking yourself. First, know that it is totally normal for your new family member to be a little sad. Keep in mind that for the last two months of their lives they have been living with their siblings and are now in a new strange place, with new smells, and new people. It might take them a few days to really get their bearings and that’s okay! Just be patient with them and give them lots of love and they will come around quickly.
Remember that you want your puppy to feel confident and happy. To do this, before you bring them home for the first time, please try to make the space they will be playing/ living in as puppy friendly as possible. Try to not have things lying around that you don’t want your puppy to chew on. It is fine to correct, but you don’t want to always be saying “NO” to your puppy all the time. If they have a safe play zone that is relatively free of things they can get in trouble for, they will feel happy and confident more quickly. Lots of praise and love for good things will make for a happy puppy and a happy owner. We have a basket that is full of our dog’s toys that they know they can run and pull anything out of to play. This is one idea for you to incorporate if you’d like. When they do get a toy from there we praise and tell them how good and smart they are and they love it!
Things you can do to help them transition more quickly or to give them comfort:
#1- Give them their blanket with the scents of mom and their littermates on it to snuggle with while they are in their pen/ crate. That is the main reason we send puppies home with it. It helps them to have familiar scents around and be more comfortable.
#2- Play music! We listen to music constantly in our home while the puppies are growing up. On Pandora radio, we are often listening to Classical for Studying, Joshua Radin, Clair De Lune, and Ed Sheeran Radio Stations (we listen to this one during the day). On Spotify, this is the playlist we use most often https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4bfADZ8nsFibvfTnhKKMPN
as well as this one during the day: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3oSZhNCtYToQdZbzkh9Vph
Your puppy has been living in a pen since only a few weeks old (see our suggested supply page to see the exact one we have). The great thing about that is that when you bring them home, they are ready for a pen of their own or a crate if that is the way you decide to train them. We have had feedback from a lot of our families expressing how easy the transition was for them. That makes us happy! We want the transition to be as smooth as possible.
We recommend starting to train on day 1 when you get them home! Enroll them in puppy classes or hire a trainer that will come to your home. A trained puppy is an amazing puppy. You will have several weeks of hard work, but then after a few months, the rewards will pay off and you will have the most amazing dog ever!
Per our contract, we also need you to schedule a visit with your veterinarian as soon as you possibly can. Our puppies all see a vet and get a check-up and first shots and de-wormer at 6 weeks, but as soon as you bring them home we love for you to see a vet and have them also tell you that everything is okay with your new baby and get set up for future vaccinations as well as talking to your vet about the best time to spay/ neuter your puppy.
If you are getting a Goldendoodle puppy from us, at the time of going home with you, they are being fed one cup of puppy kibble 2 times a day. Once in the morning and once in the evening. We strongly recommend a puzzle bowl to eat out of (see our puppy supply page), because otherwise they will act like they are starving and chow it down in 10 seconds and then give you big puppy dog eyes begging for more. Overfeeding your new puppy can cause them to grow too quickly and end up with joint and ligament issues. Having a puzzle bowl slows down the feeding considerably and helps them read their body telling them they don’t need anymore.
If you have one of our Shih Poo puppies, these little guys are way more laid back and we give them free food when they are really little (the bowl always has food in it), and around 8 weeks we start feeding them a half cup, twice a day.
When you get your new puppy home, this is usually their schedule while living with us (keep in mind we are in Arizona and we are on mountain time). Puppies wake up around 6 am and eat and play. They will have a much longer and harder play session in the morning than in the middle of the day because they have been sleeping all or most of the night. Play with them and get them really tired! Help them get that morning energy out. During the rest of the day, they will follow the same schedule of waking and playing and then sleeping in decent stretches of time. These play sessions will be milder. Around 5-7 pm they will have another really heavy play session where they seem to have endless energy. Let them play long and hard. This is also where you will feed them again if you have a Goldendoodle puppy. After this play session, they will continue to wake and play but the sessions will be much milder until around 10 pm when they usually crash for the night.
Hopefully, this page has given you some tips and tricks to help your puppy feel right at home when you get them. If you have any questions or ever want to talk about your pet, we are always willing to help! We want everything to go as smoothly as possible and we love these puppies like they are our family, so we are always happy to hear from you. Also, ANY TIME you want to send us updated pics and videos it makes our day! Feel free to do that whenever. They always bring us so much joy.
