The First Week: Survival Guide
I picked up Winston on a Friday afternoon in late September. I had taken the following week off work specifically to bond with him and establish routines. I had read that the first week was important for setting foundations.
What nobody mentioned was that the first week would be one of the hardest weeks of my adult life. Harder than final exams. Harder than my first year teaching. Harder than anything I had anticipated.
This is the honest account of those seven days. Not a training guide. A survival guide.
Day One: Friday
The drive home from Vermont took three hours. Winston cried for the first ninety minutes. Not whimpering. Full-volume distress crying. I pulled over twice to comfort him. It did not help.
He threw up in the crate forty-five minutes from home. I cleaned it as best I could in a rest stop parking lot while he shook in my arms. We finished the drive with all the windows down despite the September chill.
At home, he refused to walk through the front door. I carried him in. He immediately urinated on the living room rug. Welcome home.
That first night, I set up his crate in my bedroom as the breeder had suggested. He cried from 11 PM until 3 AM with brief pauses. At 3 AM, I brought him into my bed against all advice. He settled against my chest and finally slept. I slept in fifteen-minute increments, terrified I would roll over on him. For strategies on handling nighttime crying, see my guide on puppy crying solutions.
At 4 AM, lying awake with a puppy breathing against my neck, I thought: I have made a terrible mistake. This was the first of many times I would have that thought over the following days.
Day Two: Saturday
I woke to the smell of urine. Winston had peed in the bed at some point during the night. I stripped everything, showered, started laundry, and took him outside in my bathrobe at 5:30 AM.
He would not eat breakfast. The breeder had sent home his usual food. He sniffed it and walked away. I tried hand-feeding. He accepted two pieces and then refused more. Panic set in. Was he sick? Stressed? Had I already broken him?
I called the breeder. She assured me this was normal. Puppies often do not eat well in new environments. Give it a few days. Stay calm.
Staying calm felt impossible when Winston spent the afternoon crying every time I left the room. I could not use the bathroom alone. I could not make a meal. I ate a granola bar standing in the kitchen while he climbed my legs.
That night, I tried the crate again. Same result. He cried until I relented and brought him to bed.
Day Three: Sunday
This was the day I nearly gave up.
I had been awake for most of the previous two nights. Winston still was not eating full meals. He had urinated in the house four more times despite my taking him out every two hours. I was exhausted in a way I had never experienced, a physical weight of tiredness that made thinking difficult.
I called my breeder crying. I told her I could not do this. I asked if she would take him back. I said things I am not proud of about how getting him had been a mistake.
"Every new owner feels this around day three. It is called the puppy blues. It is hormonal, it is exhaustion, and it is real. But it passes. Call me tomorrow. If you still feel this way in a week, we will talk about options. But give it a week."
I did not believe her. But I agreed to wait.
That afternoon, something small shifted. Winston fell asleep in my lap while I watched television. He slept for forty minutes without crying. It was the first real rest either of us had gotten. When he woke up, he licked my hand once before wiggling down to play.
It was not a breakthrough. But it was something.
Day Four: Monday
I woke up to Winston whining in his crate. I had managed to get him to sleep there by putting it directly against my bed with my hand inside the door. Small progress.
He ate breakfast. The whole bowl. I nearly cried with relief.
I had planned to start formal training this week. Instead, I focused on basics. Taking him out every hour. Praising him when he went outside. Managing my expectations downward.
The best thing I did during week one was abandoning my original plans. I had created detailed schedules for training, socialization, and enrichment. When reality hit, I threw them out and focused on three things: eating, sleeping, and going to the bathroom outside. Everything else could wait.
By evening, we had gone six hours without an accident in the house. I took this as a major victory.
Day Five: Tuesday
Sleep deprivation began to ease. Winston slept in his crate from 10 PM to 2 AM before crying. I took him out, he went immediately, and he slept again until 5:30 AM. Five and a half hours of accumulated sleep felt like luxury.
He started exploring the house with curiosity instead of fear. I puppy-proofed aggressively, moving everything chewable above knee height. He found the one thing I missed: a sandal under the couch. The sole did not survive.
I took him for his first real walk around the block. He was terrified of cars, of other dogs, of children on bikes. We made it fifty feet before he sat down and refused to move. I carried him home.
It was not the triumphant first walk I had imagined. But we had tried.
Day Six: Wednesday
We found a rhythm. Not a good rhythm, but a rhythm.
Wake up at 5:30. Outside immediately. Breakfast. Supervised play. Outside again. Nap in crate while I showered and ate. More play. Training for five minutes. Outside. Lunch. Long nap. Repeat until evening.
The structure helped both of us. Winston seemed calmer when he knew what came next. I felt less overwhelmed when I had a framework.
That evening, I sat on the floor with him and he climbed into my lap voluntarily. Not because he was scared. Just because he wanted to be there. He fell asleep with his head on my knee. I did not move for an hour.
I still was not sure I had made the right decision. But for the first time, I thought maybe I could do this. Maybe the breeder had been right about waiting a week.
Day Seven: Thursday
The last day of my week off. Tomorrow I would have to figure out how to manage a puppy and work. The thought filled me with dread.
But day seven was the best day so far. Winston slept through the night until 5 AM. He ate both meals enthusiastically. We went for a walk and made it around the entire block. He met a neighbor's cat and did not bark.
In the afternoon, I introduced a simple puzzle toy. He figured it out in three minutes and then spent twenty minutes trying to get more treats out of an empty toy. His frustration was adorable in a way that nothing had been adorable all week. Mental stimulation became an essential part of our routine, as I discuss in my guide on exercise requirements.
I called the breeder to update her. I did not ask her to take him back.
What Got Me Through
Looking back, several things made survival possible during that first week:
Lowering expectations drastically. I abandoned every plan I had made. Formal training, structured socialization, elaborate enrichment schedules, all of it went out the window. I focused only on keeping us both alive and reasonably sane.
Sleeping when he slept. I napped when he napped. I went to bed embarrassingly early. Sleep deprivation was making everything worse. Getting any sleep I could helped.
Talking to someone who understood. The breeder saved me on day three. Having someone validate that this was hard, that my feelings were normal, that it would get better, that was essential.
Celebrating tiny wins. A meal eaten. An accident-free hour. A moment of calm. I learned to notice these and treat them as victories because they were.
What Made Things Worse
I also did things that made the week harder than it needed to be:
Reading too much online. Every forum had different advice. Every article contradicted the last. I drove myself crazy trying to find the right answer when there is no single right answer.
Comparing to other puppies. My friend had gotten a puppy the month before. Her puppy slept through the night on day two. Comparing Winston to that puppy made me feel like a failure. Every dog is different.
Fighting his natural schedule. I wanted Winston to settle into my existing life. He needed me to adjust to his reality. The week got easier when I stopped fighting.
The Week After
Going back to work was its own challenge. But week one was the hardest. Not because things got easy after that. They did not get easy for months. But the initial shock, the overwhelming disruption of everything, that peaked in week one.
If you are in the middle of your first week right now, I want you to know: it gets better. Not tomorrow. Maybe not next week. But it gets better.
You are not failing. You are adjusting. Adjustment takes time. Be patient with yourself and with your dog.
For a look at what the daily routine eventually became, read about my actual schedule. For all the mistakes I made in the following months, there is a separate guide for that too. If you have not yet chosen a vet, now is the moment — see the vet screening framework. And if money surprises are starting to show up, the year-one budgeting guide lays out every category.