Your Dog's First Day Home

When I got Logan, we were both exhausted from travel, so I slept. First I took a nap at my parents' house, then I went home and slept. I left on I think a Friday afternoon, flew to Washington (with a lengthy layover in Denver), and arrived there fairly late. I was met by Romy (and Strider!) and Logan's breeder when I arrived at the airport, and Logan was in the car. We drove to another breeder's house to see WEE BABY PUPPEHS. Then had dinner at Logan's breeder's house. I stayed up fairly late that night, and then laid awake in bed because I was snuggling Logan and getting to know him. Got up fairly early the next morning (Saturday) and had an awesome beach trip, then saw a movie, then had a grooming lesson. By the time the grooming lesson was over, it was the next morning and time to leave for the airport, so I never even went to bed Saturday night. I slept a bit on the longest part of the flight (Seattle to Denver), but not very well. Arrived home early afternoon on Sunday. And that's why we were exhausted. I did introduce Gavroche and Logan, which was a bit rough at first, but they got used to eachother quickly. The next day, though, it was time for a bath, a vet trip (wellness check), and a trip to the store to buy food.

This is when we arrived at our home airport. Clearly he's incredibly stressed lol. I have NO idea how he ever fit into that crate, let alone crammed into that corner so well. It's a tight squeeze now. I swear he can't have grown THAT much since he was a year old...


And this is what Gavroche though of his new little brother :rofl1:




(In his defense, this is hypothyroid Gavroche pre-diagnosis and treatment, and he had "Tragic Face" down to an art).

When I got Gavroche, I had just moved into my apartment that day. I was planning on unpacking and then picking him up from the clinic the next day, but I couldn't wait any longer and went to pick him up around 9 or 10pm (I worked at the clinic where he was boarding, which is how I ended up with him in the first place). The first thing he did when we got home was LEAP onto the bed and roll around. Then we played for a bit, cuddled for a bit, and had a potty trip - where I used a flashlight and discovered his undying love of lights (it's not obsessive, but it's a **** good way to tire him out when I feel like crap ). Then I went to bed. He slept in bed with me that first night and every night since - the first night he didn't sleep with me was when I left to pick up Logan. There have been only a handful of nights since where I've been out of town without him. Anyway, he slept under the blankets and I spooned with him the whole night, and the next morning I fed him, we took a nice long walk, and then I went to work (and he tagged along, since it's a vet clinic).

I am glad to see there are lots of different ways of spending that first day. Haha, I was having a brief freakout of "Oh no! I have to have the perfect first day to start everything out on the right foot!"

I'll post some pictures after tomorrow. Though he is 9 months, so no teensy tinsey cutest pictures ever puppy photos like you all have

The day I picked Quinn up was the day after my sisters 18th birthday so... hungover.

We picked her up, drove the hour home, my brother was visiting and w then had to bundle her back in the car and drive 90 minutes back to the airport to drop him off.

It wasn't an awesome day for her. lol

Well with Mackenzy, we picked her up from the rescue, took her home, plopped her down in our big fenced yard and she took off doing zoomies. LOL. We pretty much stayed outside almost all day because it was beautiful and puppies pee all over, in case you hadn't noticed.

Keeva, she was sick when I picked her up at the airport so the first two days I just babied her.

Blossom... was a shell-shocked hot mess when I got her, after being in a pound for a week, then a foster home, then a 7 hour drive from OH to Chicago. So we didn't do anything for like the first two weeks, much less the first day. She was basically on a mild two week shutdown, either interacting very closely with me or my roommate, or resting in her crate. We also had to crate and rotate her with Keeva for like the first 10-14 days so that was a factor too.

When it comes to adult or adolescent rehomed dogs, I firmly believe in keeping things very low key and structured for the first week or two. No pet store, no dog parks (please God, no dog park), no meeting lots of strangers, etc. It really seems to help if you let them settle in and find their footing.

I just remember being exhausted that first day. We had a wedding near Boston over the weekend, then left from there and drove to the breeder's house in New Jersey to pick up the pup. Then we drove 2.5 hours back home to NY. I brought a crate and sat in the backseat with him, and he spent the whole ride with his head on my lap, passed out. By the time we got home it was almost dark, so I don't think we did much other than snuggle with him and take him out for potty breaks before going to bed. He hit the ground running.

I do remember that he was fascinated by the sliding doors in the kitchen almost immediately, and spent a good 10 minutes checking out his reflection.
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He also spent some time trying to tackle the camera (I think this was the second day we had him):
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The first day I met Carma was a training day at our IPO club, so I put her straight to work, lol. She really didn't have any issues. And was also the absolute cutest.thing.ever.

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After training we went home, she met Aiden, and we snuggled for days.

Love by Gator_Dog, on Flickr

Auggie came home on a Saturday so I had all day with nothing to do. We played until he fell asleep, then I packed him away in his crate and we went to get lunch and ran a couple quick errands, then he came back out and played more until he fell asleep, then he played more at the end of the day until it was time to go to bed. It was play alllllll day basically.







I brought Payton home, showed him off to the people at the store, took him next door to the vet and let people see him and made his puppy-just-came-home exam, left him in his new baby crate while I went back and did my training classes, then brought him home and he ran around playing with Auggie outside. We came back inside and played until bedtime. More play but not all day since it was I think 6:30pm or 7pm when I got back home with him.













Kinda anti-climactic, LOL.

I held Elsie on my lap the whole way home. She tried to bite the air conditioning, and fussed at the loud cars that drove by, but she wasn't too bad.

I don't remember much about having her at home the first day; I know we played in the yard and the house and that she never stopped moving--as a puppy, she moved CONSTANTLY. I didn't think she'd ever learn to relax, lol.

I'm pretty sure I spent the first day arguing with my parents about HOW AMAZING HE WAS, WHY CAN'T YOU SEE IT, and picking ticks off of him while he couldn't sit still. I'm positive I spent the first night and every evening for the next couple of months (after we picked off 100+ ticks and he went to a groomer) arguing with my mother over why he should sleep upstairs with me.

It wasn't much fun for the first few months. I did eventually see him sleep. Once. Or twice. After six months.

Hmmm.... it was only 3.5 years ago but nothing much really sticks out. We picked him up on a Saturday, got there just before noon and probably spent about an hour signing forms and getting "the talk" about good food, importance of preventatives, etc, etc. All the while Jubel was with us all excited jumping up and giving us kisses, mouthing on us, basically being a spazzy 2 year old... haha he was pretty calm the week before when we met him and applied to adopt.

When we got home it was mostly just hanging out in the house, going for short walks, and trying to figure out how to escape this thing that constantly wanted to mouth me... and not very gently. Repeat this for a week or two before I found good info on the internet to work on the mouthing and started taking him on 2 much longer walks each day.