How to Look After a Puppy: A Complete First-Year Guide
A vet's complete guide to a puppy's first year, in five stages: choosing one, bringing them home, the first weeks, growing up and settling in.
Maintained by Natalie Brundish | Reviewed by Dr Jen Hipwell | Updated 15 October 2026
The new puppy adventure, in five stages
A puppy asks more of you in the first year than at any point afterwards, and most of that lands in the opening three months. Below is that year set out in five stages, each with a full guide behind it when you want the depth.
Stage 1 · Thinking about it
Choosing the right pet and preparing the home.
Start with the breed, because you live with that choice for the whole of your dog's life. Size, coat and energy level all matter more day to day than looks do. The best dog breeds for first-time owners are the ones that forgive a beginner's mistakes.
Then find an actual puppy, which is the step most guides skip. There is more than one way to find your dog. Breeders are one, rescue centres are another, and a good rescue will let you walk a dog and see them with other dogs before you decide. Where a puppy comes from shapes their health and their temperament. See them with their mother in the place they were born, and ask for the health certificates before you commit. Our guide to finding a good dog breeder covers the questions to ask and what a puppy farm actually looks like.
Before collection day, get the basics in place. Register with a vet. Check the microchip is registered, or at least registerable, in your name rather than the breeder's. Set up somewhere to sleep that is theirs alone, so that when your puppy needs to rest there is an obvious place to go.
Pheromone plug-ins are worth considering as part of the set-up rather than as a quick fix. They need a couple of days to reach a useful concentration, and they will not transform behaviour. What they do is add to a puppy's sense of security around their bed in a new house.
The new puppy checklist covers the rest of the kit and how to make the house safe.
Stage 2 · Bringing them home
The first 24 hours: arrival, naming, settling in.
Be realistic about the first night. A puppy who has always slept in a litter is about to sleep alone for the first time. You are unlikely to get much rest. They will call out. You will be up and down the stairs. None of it is bad behaviour, just a very new creature working out where they stand now their littermates have gone.
Collect on a Friday if you can, so you have the weekend to recover before work starts again.
Keep the first day small. One room, quiet, and as little handling as you can manage while they take the place in. Read our guide to the first night with a puppy before collection day, rather than at midnight on the night itself.
Somewhere in the middle of it you will need to settle on something to call them. Puppy names is there for when inspiration runs dry.
Stage 3 · The first few weeks
Toilet training, vaccinations, socialisation and microchipping.
Toilet training starts on day one and lands at sixteen to twenty weeks for most puppies. Watch for the signals rather than the clock, so look for sniffing, circling, pacing, a change of pace, or heading for the door. Take them out after waking, after eating, after play, after visitors, after any excitement, and every couple of hours besides.
Do not set an alarm overnight. You will wake a sleeping puppy and exhaust yourself, and you will be tuned in to any noise anyway. When they do wake you at three in the morning, carry them out, put them on the grass and stay quiet. No play, no treats, no party. Relieving themselves is reward enough at that hour, and a party teaches them that three o'clock is snack time. Save the enthusiasm for daylight, which is where the learning actually happens. There is more in our full guide to puppy toilet training.
The vaccination course offers protection against distemper, hepatitis, parvovirus and leptospirosis, with the type of cover chosen for the risk in your area. Kennel cough cover, for Bordetella bronchiseptica and parainfluenza, is not considered a core vaccination in the UK. However, there are so many places that canine infectious tracheobronchitis (commonly called 'kennel cough') can be caught, so consider cover for this too. Rabies and leishmania vaccines can be given if you plan to travel.
Parvovirus is still a significant threat in the UK, making this an important vaccination to keep up to date with for the vast majority of dogs. Distemper and hepatitis appear more sporadically in the UK, so most vets keep them in the routine course. Leptospirosis is the disease caused by a range of bacteria from the Leptospira genus, found throughout the UK. Not all types of these bacteria cause disease in dogs, and some may have a predisposition to cause disease in other hosts such as cattle rather than dogs.
The first dose is usually given at around eight weeks and the second at about twelve. Each vaccine has a datasheet stating when immunity can be expected to take hold, and your vet reads that against your puppy's circumstances.
See your puppy's vaccinations for the full schedule.
Socialisation cannot wait for the course to finish, and it does not have to. Ask your practice about puppy parties. Puppies of a similar age and immunity meet after hours, and get handled by people who are not you. Carry your puppy out to watch traffic go past or see horses in a field. Get them used to a lightweight collar and lead in the garden. Then the first real walk is not also the first time they have worn one. The risk you are managing is unknown dogs rather than known ones, so pets at home are fine. Our guide to socialising your puppy sets out the order to work through.
Microchipping is usually done by the breeder before you collect, and is a legal requirement for every dog in the UK by eight weeks old. Your job is to get it scanned at the first vet visit, confirm it reads, and change the registration into your name. A chip registered to the breeder returns a lost puppy to the breeder. See microchipping your puppy or kitten for how the databases work.
Book that first vet appointment early, ideally before the first vaccination. Make it a visit with no needle in it, just a fuss from the nurses, a treat and a set of scales to sit on. It buys you years of easier appointments.
Stage 4 · Growing up
Crate readiness, outside readiness, transition feeding and first independence.
A crate is a den, not a container. Size it so your puppy can stand, turn round and lie stretched out. Any bigger and they will sleep in one corner and toilet in the other, which defeats the point. Most crates come with a divider, so buy for the adult dog and move the divider back as they grow.
Keep the sessions short. An hour to ninety minutes is plenty for a puppy, and there should always be a reason for them being in there beyond your convenience. If an older dog cannot be left loose in the kitchen without one, that is a separate problem. Solve that rather than crating for longer. Our full guide to puppy crate training covers introducing it properly.
Going outside the garden perimeter waits on the vaccination course and the onset of immunity stated on the datasheet, which your vet will translate into a date for you. It is the single question new owners ask most, and when puppies can go outside answers it properly.
Feeding changes as they grow. Large breeds and small breeds move onto adult food at very different points. The switch is driven by breed and size rather than by a birthday. The best puppy food guide covers what to look for on a label and when to change.
Stage 5 · Settling into life
The bridge to adulthood.
By this point the routine largely runs itself. A settled feeding pattern, a dog who can be left, an annual booster reminder, and walks that are no longer a training exercise. This said, dogs love mental stimulation and even old dogs love a quick training (or practice) session to break up their day!
This is also where the financial side becomes real. Most owners think properly about insurance here, having seen a year of veterinary costs. If that is the decision in front of you, start with how much vet fees cost in the UK. Then read whether pet insurance is worth it and what pet insurance covers.
New puppy questions
After the vaccination course, once immunity has taken hold. Each vaccine's datasheet states how long that takes, and your vet will give you a date rather than a guess. Carrying your puppy out to see the world in the meantime is safe and useful.
Most puppies have it by sixteen to twenty weeks. Expect accidents after that too, usually after excitement, a heavier meal or a longer sleep. It is a process rather than a single event you finish.
Yes, and it is not naughtiness. They have gone from sleeping in a pile of littermates to sleeping alone. Plan for a broken night or two, and collect them on a Friday if you can.
Yes. Every dog in the UK must be microchipped and registered by eight weeks old. Your breeder should have done it, so check it scans at your first vet visit and move the registration into your name.
They can slow things down. A puppy taught to go on a pad by the door often keeps going in that spot once the pad is lifted. Starting as you mean to go on is usually quicker.
Get the new puppy checklist
The same ground as this guide, laid out as a list you can work through.
Getting a kitten instead?
How to Look After a Kitten: A Complete First-Year Guide
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