YNP #103: Your Puppy’s First Night Home
Your New Puppy: Dog Training and Dog Behavior Lessons to Help You Turn Your New Puppy into a Well-Behaved Dog
Debbie Cilento: Dog Trainer | Dog Behavior Consultant | Owner of Playtime Paws | Belly Rub Specialist
4.8 • 917 Ratings
🗓️ 10 June 2025
⏱️ 8 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Wondering what to do on your puppy’s first night home?
You’re bringing your new puppy home, you’re excited, you’ve got everything ready, and you already have great plans on how your new puppy will fit right into your family.
But wait, do I know what to do that first night?
Maybe you’re coming home late and don’t have much time to make them feel safe and comfortable before bedtime.
You’re probably wondering:Where should my puppy sleep that first night?Do I put them in the crate even if I haven’t introduced it yet?Is it okay not to use the crate?
No worries, in this episode, I walk you through exactly what to do that very first night.
Note: If you’ve watched my three part series: The 3 Phases to Bringing Your New Puppy Home, this episode fits into Phase 02: Settle In.
Whether you’ve been preparing for weeks or just thought of it now (we’ve all been there!), you’ll leave this episode knowing exactly what to do, and what you don’t need to worry about (yet!).
In this episode I talk about:
- What to expect for your puppy’s first night home.
- Where crate training and potty training fits in.
- Where your puppy should sleep that first night.
- What you can do to make them more comfortable without overwhelming them.
- What else you should be prepared for.
Enjoying this podcast? Please rate and review it wherever you listen. This helps other puppy parents find it.
Other resources mentioned and related to this episode:
The 3 Phases to Bringing Your New Puppy Home: Getting a new puppy is exciting but overwhelming. This free three part video series will help you know how to Prepare, how long to let your puppy Settle In, and when it’s time to Get to Work.
Complete Guide to Potty Training Your Puppy: Know exactly what to do when to help potty training feel easier with quicker results. It includes a tracker to help you find patterns and prevent accidents.
YOUR New Puppy: My signature new puppy course that has helped hundreds of new puppy parents raise their puppies into well-mannered, happy dogs. Includes live support from me so you don’t have to do this alone!
What’s Next?
Feeling a little unsure about what to do with your new puppy? You’re not alone!
You’re just a human trying to raise a dog.
That’s exactly why I created YOUR Perfect Puppy — my digital program that gives you a clear plan to follow and direct support from me every step of the way. From potty training and basic cues to building trust and confidence, we’ll cover everything you need to raise your well-mannered dog with less stress and more joy.
And because puppyhood doesn’t stop after four weeks, you’ll also get ongoing access to Playtime Paws Academy — my membership community with weekly live calls, a private forum, and an entire library of enrichment activities to help you navigate real-life challenges as they come up.
Click here to check out YOUR Perfect Puppy. I’d love to support you through this journey.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You are listening to your new puppies podcast, starting you and your dog off on the right paw. |
| 0:16.3 | Here's your host, Debbie Salento. Hello and welcome to episode 103 of your new puppies podcast. I'm Debbie, |
| 0:34.8 | and today we're going to talk about your puppy's first night home. So I have a whole three-part series of the three phases to bringing your new puppy home. So phase one is preparing for your puppy. Phase two is settling in and phase three is get to work. So this episode gets kind of squeezed in with the settle-in phase. |
| 0:56.6 | So that series goes into a whole lot more detail of what to do when you're preparing |
| 1:01.6 | and when your puppy first comes home. |
| 1:03.5 | So it's kind of like a supplement to that series, if you will. |
| 1:07.0 | So if you haven't already, it's a free resource. |
| 1:10.7 | You can find that series at PlaytimePaws.com |
| 1:14.3 | forward slash prep. That's P-R-E-P. PlaytimePause.com forward slash prep. Here I'm going to talk about a |
| 1:23.7 | question that I get a lot, just about that first night, |
| 1:28.1 | which is we're coming home late |
| 1:30.6 | and we're not gonna have any time to really work with the crate, |
| 1:33.2 | where should my puppy sleep? |
| 1:34.7 | What should we do that first night? |
| 1:36.6 | Because we're not gonna have time to prepare them. |
| 1:39.5 | Now, if you watch that series, |
| 1:41.9 | while your puppy is settling in, |
| 1:43.9 | the only things I want you concerned about |
| 1:45.8 | are crate training and potty training. And even those things, you're not going to have a high |
| 1:50.1 | expectation on, but you do want to start them. Crate training is mainly for safety reasons and |
| 1:56.6 | potty training reasons. And potty training is because, well, we want to start teaching our dog to go |
| 2:01.8 | outside as soon as possible because we're going to be building that habit and we want to start |
... |
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