How To Survive The First 24 Hours With Your New Puppy!

Meet my new eight week old puppy Reggie. He's a beautiful German Shepherd and we've literally just got home with him. Now how do you go about surviving day one? How do you make the first day not just bearable, not just tolerable, but also incredibly successful? That's exactly what we're going to talk about in today's video. So guys we have just got to the hotel, we have done our long drive down and we've come down the day before. So we're about to go and see Reggie actually. We're going to do all of the paperwork, we're going to pay for him and get all of that stuff done so that tomorrow we can be there half six, seven o'clock in the morning and get on the road and get him back up to where we live as quickly as possible to give us the most amount of time possible kind of with training in day one. Which takes us on to kind of what is the focus going to be on day one to kind of survive day one as successfully as possible and for me it's simple. Crate training number one followed by closely is toilet training. If that's all you do in the first 24 hours that is a massive success, especially when it comes to crate training. If you can get your dog crate trained on most of the way there, which I do believe is possible and I'm going to demonstrate that as we kind of roll forward. I've done it with countless different puppies. It means that the first night's going to be more successful. If you can get the dog well crate trained it means that separation anxiety doesn't become a problem. You remove destructive behaviors and it goes a massive way towards your toilet training in and of itself. So that's going to be a huge part of the focus and if there was only kind of like one thing that people ask me like I can only deal with thinking about one thing when I'm bringing my puppy home on day one what should it be? It would be crate training. Now for me we are going to push it a little bit further than that. We are going to be starting to introduce a few very very basic bits of obedience. We're going to look at sit in day one. We're going to look at kind of meal, what I call my meal time drill in day one and we're going to start kind of charging markers and building engagement. Again if that didn't happen for a few days I wouldn't stress out whatsoever. All of that can kind of come afterwards but getting that crate training, getting that toilet training and just start building those foundations and those high expectations I think is absolutely the focus. So we'll see you tomorrow morning ready to bring Reggie home and we'll talk about how you go about bringing the dog home safely. So then right now we need to focus on getting our puppy home safely. Now for me there's a couple of ways that you can do this. I think you can either utilize a crate or you can utilize a friend. Now there's pros and cons to both. Absolutely under all circumstances safety first and legal first. Now if you can't have somebody go with you then I just highly recommend you use a crate. The downside to that is it's going to probably set your crate training back and there's a good chance the dog will howl and cry and bark the entire time which can be incredibly distracting for you, distressful for both of you and just not a fun experience. So if you can I highly highly suggest you bring somebody with you. For Reggie I've got my wife with me and that's exactly how we're going to do it. So yesterday I gave the breeder a blanket that we brought with us, a really big soft fluffy one. He put that in with all the puppies last night so it smells of all the puppies. We put that in the footwell on the passenger seat floor and we have the dog on a lead because in the UK the legal requirements are that they are kind of suitably restrained. I believe that a dog in a footwell on a lead is suitably restrained. It's not distracting to me whatsoever, it's comfortable for the dog and my wife can keep him down there, keep him content, keep him happy and we're not then interfering with any of our crate training efforts. So first and foremost get home safely, get home securely, get home legally and then we can dive into everything else that we need to do. But this is a piece of the puzzle that is often highly overlooked and if you can get your dog home safely and be working on making sure that if they're crying, we're not pandering to them, we're not stroking them, we're not rewarding them when we think we're reassuring them but we're waiting for them to be calm and quiet down by our feet, their passengers feet. If they're being calm and quiet then you can stroke them and let them know that they're being excellent. That is how we're going to be doing it. Hopefully you've seen some b-rollers I've been waffling about this but let's get home and then we'll dive into all the fun stuff that you're probably here for. So guys we've got back safely and the first thing we do is we bring them out to their toileting area and this is a little paddock we've just had built in the garden. We're doing a full renovation so the rest of the garden isn't fully secure yet so we've just done this little section purely just for Reggie to have somewhere where safely, securely we can come and hang out with him and that's exactly what we're doing here. We're just popping him in, giving him a chance to go to the toilet. I'm keeping half an eye on him when he goes to the toilet. I'll tell him what a good boy he is and then which I think he might be about to do now. He's having a little sniff. We'll see what he's thinking. Are you doing a good boy Reggie? Yes good boy. Yeah good boy. Good boy. That's a big wee wee. That's a big wee wee for a big puppy. Good boy. Yes good boy. And then when he's finished I come and tell him yeah good boy. Good boy. Oh yeah good boy. Brilliant. So now he's waking up from that long trip. Oh yeah good boy. Good boy. This is the most excited we've seen him. Yeah. For toilet training my rule is kind of on the hour every hour I set a timer. That reminds me if the dog's awake I'll take it out. If they've just had something to eat, if they've just had something to drink then I'm going to take them out for the toilet. If they've just woken up from a sleep I'm going to take them out for the toilet. I'm just going to give them this opportunity when they come out. Obviously it's a little bit of socialization, a new environment. He'll very quickly get used to this and he's just going to kind of do his own thing. He's going to explore. I like exactly what just happened there. I was watching. I was getting ready to tell him he's a good boy. As we move through the training process and we start kind of getting our markers really well conditioned. I'll be using my markers. I'll be using my food reward. But bless him little Reggie right now. We've tried to offer him a few treats. He's not taking them from me. Which is completely normal by the way. It's a stressful experience. It's very common when puppies are stressed to not eat. So once he gets a little bit of confidence up. Once he starts being willing to kind of take food from people. He'll perk up. It looked like we had about 30 seconds of activity from him then and now he's just lying down and chilling out. But again I purposely selected this dog for this reason because he's one of the most laid-back chilled dogs I've ever seen in my life. So we'll have to more have the opposite problem of trying to like get him going and building him up and like come on let's go. Rather than what most people have. Especially with shepherds and the more and more people are working shepherds. As you're constantly kind of wrestling that and having to bring that energy level down. So we might have accidentally found ourselves with a English Mastiff in a German Shepherd's body. Isn't that right Reg? He's just quite happy just lying down and chilling out. But that's that. So yeah once we've done this toilet training we're going to roll into some crate training next. And me and Reggie will see you over there for that. So then guys once you've got home and you've done the toilet training. And it's now time to think like okay I suppose I better train my puppy. We better do something. And for me as I mentioned earlier the most important thing that we're going to focus on today is crate training. Now we've just finished our first crate training session with Reggie. We got to 15 minutes with the door closed. And now I've opened the door and we're kind of just waiting for him to wake up. It's been nearly an hour and I'm fast learning that this is one of the most relaxed puppies. The most laid-back puppies. The most chilled puppies I've ever met. Which is kind of what we're looking for. But he is more than happy to snooze in his crate. So what we're going to do is whenever he does decide to wake up. We're going to take him out. We're going to do some more toilet training. When we've done some more toilet training. I'm going to see kind of if he's willing to take any food at this point. Because he hasn't really been interested in treats. Which is completely normal. It's a stressful experience. But if he does want to start taking treats. We might start looking at some obedience work. Which I'll show you in a little bit. But then after we've kind of done about an hour of kind of bits out of the crate. We're going to do another crate training session. And it's be time for his meal. So we're probably going to do his meal inside the crate. Now that first crate training session is one of the most important things I think you'll do with your puppy all together. And it gets to a point like this. Which if the cameraman wants to go and have a little look. You can see that a puppy can absolutely fall in love with their crate incredibly quickly. We've used the blanket again. That was with the litter last night. That's why it's got some of the hay stuff and the wood shavings and stuff that was in the whelping box in there. But he is more than happy. Now I filmed that entire first training session in the crate. And that's a whole module over in the perfect puppy course. So if you want to see that kind of whole module alongside loads of other things. You should go and check out that perfect puppy course. It teaches you exactly how to raise and train perfect puppies. But yes that's the main part of surviving the first 24 hours for me. Is this crate training process. So we're going to try and get probably three or four sessions of crate training in today. In various different ways. Like the first initial session which is really important. And then like I say we're going to feed his meal in there. Might even do a bit of a work with a comm. Depending on where his food drive ends up. But we're going to make sure that he never sleeps anywhere other than in his crate. Which is going to set us up for success of being able to survive the first night. Which is where things get very stressful for people that don't do this kind of work. But if everything keeps going as well as it's going right now. We are hopefully in for a lovely night where my entire family is going to get plenty of sleep. We'll wake up tomorrow morning fresh ready to get back at it. So guys the next thing that you want to start thinking about when it comes to surviving that first 24 hours. Is doing a little bit of training. Now for me training is about way more than just teaching your dog some tricks. We want to be looking at their manners. We want to be looking at their socialization. But yes we want to be looking at their obedience. Now as we've been going through today. We've been doing little blocks of training. Or should I say attempt to be doing little blocks of training. Usually the order that I take with puppies. Is first of all I want to charge their marker. And start to build some engagement. Once I've done that. I then start to teach them to follow a law. And I use that to teach sit. Then once I've taught sit. We'll bring that into some meal time drills. Where we'll introduce a sit stay break drill for their meals. Then after that we start bringing in things like down and heel and recall. And we follow that natural progression. Usually with most dogs in the first day. You can be charging their marker. And it's often very common that you can get them following a law. And you can get them to sit. Now there are times. Like with Reggie here. That he is just simply the most chilled. Most laid back puppy. I have personally ever encountered. He has very very little food drive right now. We're going to be working on increasing that food drive. This is just what he wants to do. Now for manners. This is perfect. This is. I chose this breeder. And specifically chose him for this laid back relaxed temperament. It's exactly what I'm looking for. But I'm going to cut now. Which is just a short piece of training that we were filming. Or attempted to film. In his marker conditioning. For a module for the perfect puppy course. Now we're going to cut to that now. And we'll cut back once you've seen that clip. Hey guys. So we are going to start one of the first things that we do. When it comes to obedience. And that is kind of charging your marker with your dog. We've covered this at length. And as you can see. Crate training is going pretty well. We've covered this at length in the theory modules. Of what a marker is. The different types of markers. And how we go about charging them up. And that is what I was hoping we were going to do right now. But is he lying down. Is he just. Do you want to come out. Do you want to come and play. Or are you having a crate session. Well as crate training is the most important thing. In this situation. Exactly what I'm going to do right now. And this is genuinely a real life. Is my clicker goes away. We were going to start conditioning the clicker. Him taking himself into his crate for a lie down. Is the best thing that could possibly happen on day one. So obedience waits. This is the most important thing. If I don't get to start charging my markers. Till day two, three, four, five even. I'm not really that bothered. If he wants to settle in his crate. And lie down. That's exactly what we're going to do. So good boy. Good. I'm going to tell him he's a good boy. I'm going to shut the door. And we will come back to this later. Now as you can see. That dog had just had an hour and a half in the crate. Had a bit of time in the toilet. At that point most puppies are quite active and engaged. And wanting to do something. He's not really eaten much. And he might be proving my point a little bit more now. Again. Once he's been to the toilet. And had a little bit of time. He just wants to chill out and relax. Which again is awesome. But it means that his obedience is going to take a lot longer. Now with many dogs you can be getting 10, 20, 30 reps of clicker training in quite quickly. He's not that interested in food. I've been able to get him to take little bits. But he takes it so delicately. So gently. And then he wants to take 15, 20 seconds to chew his food nicely. Like a regal gentleman that he is. And that means that the reps are just going to take a lot longer. Now I'm going to work on some tricks to build up his food drive. We're going to experiment with some different treats and things that we can use. That should allow him to kind of eat quicker. And be able to kind of get more food into him. But again. Yes we want to focus on obedience. But the big key thing I want you to take away from this. In terms of surviving the first 24 hours. Is frankly if you don't do any obedience. It's not the end of the world. It's always nice to get started. And start as you mean to go on. And build a routine of your dog starting to work for a little bit of its food. Build relationship. Build communication. Start shaping the kind of basic obedience that we want. There is no rush. But stuff like socialization. Like manners. Like crate training. Like expectations in terms of no jumping. No puppy biting. All of those things for me are way more important in this very early stage. So things like this for example. I was about to say we might kind of. Ah ah nope. I'm just interrupting. Beautiful. Did we capture that cameraman? Did we see that? Started chewing on the corner of his place bed. We're not going to be using his place bed for a little while. But it's just here ready. Just a little verbal interruption. Just a little tap on his side. Just say hey buddy. No snap out of it. And he's just gone. Oh okay. I'm just going to lie down here. Now he's getting ready to probably fall asleep. So I'm going to get ready to move him into his crate. Because in absolutely no circumstances will he ever sleep anywhere other than. Yeah I'm ready to kind of interrupt this again if I need to. Let's see how he. And he makes a good decision. Good. Good boy. Good boy. And let him know he made a good decision there. And I'm very happy that he did so. This stuff he loves. He loves physical touch. He loves praise. He's probably going to again. He might want to come to me to try and get a little bit more. Or blow me off. And he's debating. He's at that stage now where he's tired. He knows he wants to go to sleep. But he would rather be out here with us. And he's like maybe go. No I'll just sleep here. Because it's closer to them. But all this is beautiful. All this is the important. Ah nope. Nope. Again just interrupting like we don't. Chew on the wrong things. If he wants to start chewing more. I've got a basket full of toys. I'll bring that out. But again. Yes think about obedience. Yes that is the progression that I talked about earlier that I like to be conditioning the marker. If I can teach Sit brilliant. And I want to start getting them following a law. But with Reggie. If that takes him a week. Whereas a lot of dogs it might be able to be done in the first day. That's absolutely fine. He'll still get there. He's just going to get there in his own leisurely gentlemanly pace. Which I'm all for mate. So we're going to wrap this up now. Because I'm going to pop him away in his crate. Because he is about to fall asleep again. And we don't have dogs fall asleep anywhere other than their crate. Especially for the first few months to make this rock solid. This is where you settle down. This is where you relax. It prevents separation anxiety. Helps with toilet training. Prevents destructive behaviors. And means that you will have a way happier life with your dog. So there we go. So there you guys. We are as you can probably tell well into the evening now. It's gone nine o'clock here in the UK. We've done some mealtime stuff. Reggie's not eating much. Very very common with puppies in the first day. So I'm not too concerned at all. We've just been out for about half an hour. And I brought him back in. And I'm just going to give him what I call kind of very structured three times. So if he's happy he's going to stay. He's got his little chew toy with him. I popped him on the bed. We're not doing any formal place training. We're not doing any stay training. If he tries to get off. I'm going to make a big deal out of it. I'll just reset him in there. If he fully is about to fall properly fall asleep. I will pop him back in his crate. But why he kind of is in this mode where he's awake. He's just being observant. Then I'm going to start factoring in like say this structured free time. Not to be running around. He's not going to be kind of doing as he pleases. But this is starting to build in that like you could be with us. But when you're with us you're going to be calm and relaxed. Like say if he has a little chew. As long as it's not on his bed or damaging anything. I don't mind. He's on his blanket that came from the breeder that smells like his litter mate. So that's all good. Say he's got his little chew ducky. I'll give to him here. So I'd rather you chew your ducky than your blankie. And again just be with us if you want to be awake. You can be with us if you're just kind of in this kind of zone. Again if he starts to go through the roof. I'd much rather take him outside and start to teach him that. Like when we're in the house. The house is a place for calm. Relaxation. Chill. If we're being silly. If we're playing. I'm going to take you outside or I'm going to reset you in the crate. I would start to layer in them boundaries and them expectations. And there's a time and a place for everything. So I'm literally just going to stick an episode of The Office on right now. I'm going to hang out here with him. Just keep an eye on him. Like I say very structured. Free time. Just let him chill. See what he does. See how he handles this. And he's handling it lovely. Which is really nice. Again a testament to the breeder. The genetics. The temperament. He's a very laid back chilled out character. And this definitely kind of factors into his socialization as well. He's he's starting to learn what it's like to live in a home environment. With stuff going on. With TV stuff going on. With people going. Cameras rolling. Lights on. All sorts. This is good for him just to kind of be and observe. We're probably going to do this till about half ten. Eleven o'clock. Then we're going to take him outside again. Give him another toilet opportunity. Then his crate is going upstairs with us. I'm going to pop it next to the bed. Once he's been out for his last toilet opportunity. I'm going to carry him straight up. And I'm going to pop him straight in the bed. From there I'm going to put another episode of The Office on. Just because I don't want it to go immediately black silent straight away. So I'm going to pop him in the crate. I'm not going to make any fuss of him. I'm not going to talk to him. I'm going to be nice and relaxed. But me and Rachel will keep talking as kind of we're getting ready for bed. I'm going to pop an episode of The Office on on my phone. Just so there's some noise going on. Some people talking. Help him understand that you've not just immediately gone to black silence. That we're going to settle down. If he starts to kind of cry or anything. I'm going to handle it in exactly the same way. And I'm very confident that especially after having a bit of kind of structured free time like this. And another good run outside. And a toilet opportunity. He'll be absolutely knackered. And I'll be ready to sleep through the night. And then I'm going to set my alarm for five half five. Which is when it starts to get light. What I'm going to try and do is my goal is to beat him awake. I don't want him to wake up. Need the toilet. And start crying. And I have to have that wrestle match of. I don't want to open the crate to why he's crying. So I need to kind of get him to stop crying before I let him out. So I don't want to have that. Him learning that crying is what gets him out of the crate. So I'm going to try and beat him to be awake. Open the crate. Lift him up straight outside. And I take him straight to the toilet. And then that will officially be first 24 hours survived. So the vast majority of the work today around crate training. And these kinds of calm relaxed expectations. A huge part of it is to get through this first night. And you deserve your sleep. I want my sleep. I want to be have a good night's sleep. So I can get up tomorrow. Be fresh. Be excited. Rather than going that was the worst night of my life. I absolutely hate it. Or even worse. Gave up. But let the dog sleep on the bed. And now we've started off a huge problem of having to unpick that down the line. We want to avoid that at all costs. So that is the plan for this evening. That's how we're going to get through the first night. Hopefully as calm and as stress free as possible. And I'll see you in the morning. So good morning guys. We are pretty much at the 24 hour mark since picking Reggie up. It's about six o'clock in the morning. And I wanted to give a quick recap of kind of how the night went. And what you can kind of expect in terms of getting through the night. And so like I said last night we brought him out for his last toilet opportunity. He went to the toilet. I've got my little shadow down here. Hey. Are you excitable this morning? Yeah? My little shadow. So he went to the toilet and stuff. We brought him upstairs. Popped him in the crate next to the bed. And he was fast asleep no problem. So we then managed to get some sleep. But about four o'clock he really started crying. So I say really started. It wasn't that bad at all really. But he woke up and he was crying. And I had a feeling just from already getting to know him. And just from my experience. And you'll pick this up. It didn't seem like an obnoxious cry. It seems like a I need something cry. So rather than interrupting it. I got up. I whipped him out the crate. No fuss. Walked him straight outside. And I'm not joking. The second he touched the grass he weed. So he was just desperate for the toilet. So I'm really glad that I made that decision. Then he did a number two. And then as soon as he did that. We didn't let him potter around. I picked him up and we walked straight back. But we're not getting used to 4am being when you start your day. Put him straight back in the crate. And he just again a couple of little whimpers that I did then interrupt. Because I knew that he'd been out to the toilet and everything. Worked fine. He stopped immediately. And then we got another couple of hours sleep. My alarm went off at half five. And because I knew he'd just been out. Not just over an hour ago. I decided to push it till six. And my alarms just gone off. And we've kind of come down. And me and my mate are outside now. Exploring. And getting ready to start the day. So how kind of wrapping this first 24 hours. But now we've got a full day. We're just going to go through kind of cycles of an hour. Hour and a half of doing stuff. Followed by an hour and a half to two hours of time in the crate. And we're just going to rinse and repeat that. And that doing stuff is going to mix between coming out here. Toilet opportunities. A bit of time with the other dogs. Trying to do a bit more obedience work. Playing with some different types of treats. Seeing what we can kind of get going. Continue to kind of condition his clicker. And then hopefully if we can find a good treat. We'll move on to teaching him sit and sign to follow a law. But like I say all of that stuff will come. I'm not stressed. But that is exactly how I have survived the first 24 hours. Me and my wife we haven't argued. We've not fallen out. Everything's been fun. Everything's been relaxed. Other than a little toilet break at 4am would be the only thing that I could say is a potential negative as you were. We've not had any toilet accidents. Zero toilet accidents. That's excellent. And everything else is going beautifully. So what I should have mentioned in that hour, hour and a half of doing something. What we'll probably do today is for the first time we'll go out somewhere. And obviously socialization. There's so much to be done here. And we've got so much going on here. We've got the kitchen renovation happening. We've got workmen in. We've got plasterers in. There's loads of kind of gardening stuff going on. So there's tons that we can do here. But I am still going to get him out. I'm going to start kind of his socialization out in public as well. So we'll probably do the first blast of that. I'll take him somewhere. We'll let him watch some new people. We'll let him watch some new traffic. And that'll be the day done. We're just going to keep cycling like that. And then as we go the expectations get bigger and we start pushing things further. And that is training. It's not rocket science if you've got a plan to follow. So if you're struggling. If you haven't got a plan. If you're overwhelmed. I highly recommend you checking out my Perfect Puppy Course. There will be a link down in the description box below where I'll be more than happy to teach you everything that you need to know. And you'll get to see all the vlogs that we're doing with Reggie. See all the behind the scenes. It's awesome. So hopefully see you there.