Bringing your new puppy home is one of the most exciting days of your life. But it can also be one of the most stressful. Puppies need to learn so much to grow into amazing adult dogs. You’ve got this overwhelming list of things you need to teach your puppy. But you have no idea what you should teach them first and whether you should start training them now or wait until they’re a bit older.

A lot of people wait until they go to puppy classes to train their puppy. But this isn’t a great idea. Your puppy is constantly learning all about the world and how they’re expected to behave. If you wait weeks to teach your puppy anything then they’ll probably have learnt a lot of things you would rather they didn’t…

Socialisation is how puppies learn about the world they will be living in and how they’re supposed to behave. Puppies need to learn what is safe and what isn’t. During their ‘socialisation period’ they’re more likely to assume new species, objects and situations are safe. This period ends at around 16 weeks and after this dogs are more likely to approach these things with caution. But that doesn’t mean that your puppy can’t learn about the world after they’re 16 weeks - it’ll just be a little harder for them and you.

Christmas is an exciting time. We decorate the house, eat all the exciting Christmas food, have lots of visitors to the house and, of course, open presents. But all those fun traditions can suddenly become stressful with a puppy in the house. If you’ve never done Christmas with a dog before then there are a lot of extra things to consider to make sure everyone stays safe and has a wonderful festive season.

Before you brought your puppy home you imagined what looking after them would be like. You thought you’d have this adorable best friend who’d bring so much joy to your life. But your reality is very different. You’re tired, feeling like everything you’re doing is wrong and you’re starting to wonder whether you should just return your puppy to their breeder.

So you picked up this adorable little puppy and you were full of excitement about your future together. You read up on toilet training and how to teach your puppy to sit and come back when called. But now your biggest issue is that your puppy is biting EVERYTHING. There are teeth marks on your furniture, your favourite pair of shoes are destroyed, all your clothes have holes in them but the worse victims are your poor hands and feet. You're probably starting to worry that you've brought home some demon puppy who'll grow up to be an aggressive beast.