Welcome your new puppy home with all the essentials in one place. Soft collars, lightweight harnesses, chew toys, feeding bowls and training aids are carefully chosen for young dogs. Everything you need to start your puppy’s life with comfort, safety and good habits.
🐶 New puppy owners
The first weeks set the rest of your puppy's life — sleep routine, toileting, socialisation, vet relationship. Here's what you actually need (and what every blog tells you to buy but you don't), plus the Irish legal must-dos most new owners miss.
Don't flood the puppy with people, places or photos. Let them sleep 18–20 hours a day. Carry them out for toileting every 90 min while awake. No baths, no walks, no strangers.
Toilet trips on a fixed clock: wake → eat → 5 min later out. Praise the second they go. Night crying is normal for week one — keep the crate beside your bed.
First vaccines around 8 weeks (DHP), boosters every 2–4 weeks until 16 weeks. Microchip + Dog Licence are legal requirements — most vets do both at the first visit. Worm every 2 weeks until 12 weeks.
Window closes at 14–16 weeks. Expose to: car rides, vacuums, doorbells, hairdryers, kids, men with hats, traffic noise, slippery floors. Carry to busy places before they're fully vaccinated. Group puppy class from week 3 home is gold.
Sit, down, recall, lead-walking — all reward-based. Find an IMDT or APDT trainer; avoid anything mentioning "alpha", "dominance" or e-collars. Recall practice off-lead in a secure field weekly.
Crate big enough for the adult dog (use a divider while puppy is small). Position in a quiet room beside your bed for week one — moves later. Skip the £200 designer bed; puppies destroy beds — get a washable budget one for now.
Two bowls (food + water), stainless or ceramic — never plastic (chin acne). Buy a 2-week bag of the food the breeder/rescue used; transition slowly to your chosen brand over 7–10 days. Sudden food switches = puppy diarrhoea every time.
Collar with engraved tag (owner name + phone, by law in IE) — even before the puppy goes outside. A 1.5 m flat lead beats a retractable for training. Fit a Y-shape harness for walks once vaccinated; chest pressure on a collar damages the trachea.
Microchip mandatory by 12 weeks (€20–€40 at the vet). Dog Licence (€20/year) for any dog over 4 months — buy at dogs.ie or any Post Office. Both are checked by Dog Wardens; €100 fines for non-compliance.
Kong + a couple of soft toys covers it. Frozen Kong stuffed with wet food is the single best calmer for crate time. Avoid ropes (linear foreign body), tennis balls (tooth wear), rawhide (digestive risk). Rotate weekly to keep novelty up.
Good puppy classes book out months in advance. Search "IMDT puppy class [your county]". Group socialisation in a controlled environment is the single highest-impact thing you can spend €100 on. Skip if the trainer mentions "dominance" or uses choke/prong collars.
Lifetime cover (£20–£60/month) renews each year regardless of conditions developed. Annual cover drops your dog the moment they cost money. Pre-existing conditions are excluded, so subscribe BEFORE that first cough or limp. Compare on bonkers.ie or chill.ie.
Our puppy essentials range goes live as we vet suppliers — we won't list anything we wouldn't use ourselves. In the meantime, our calculators, breed guides and AI vet tools below are free and don't need stock.
Fully vaccinated around 12–14 weeks (after the second booster). Until then: socialise via carry-arounds (vet, café terrace, garden centre car park), play-dates with vaccinated friend dogs in a private garden. The risks of under-socialisation outweigh the parvo risk in vaccinated areas — but never put an unvaccinated puppy on the ground in busy parks.
Realistic 2026 budget: €200–€400 for the kit (crate, bed, bowls, collar/lead, toys, food). Plus vet €150–€300 (vaccines + chip + first health check), Dog Licence €20, puppy class €80–€150, insurance €20–€60/month. Total month-one: €600–€900 before the puppy itself.
Roughly 1 hour per month of age, max 4 hours. Build up gradually from week one — a puppy that has never been alone develops separation anxiety fast. Combine crate + frozen Kong + a body-warmth substitute (heat pad on low) for early weeks.
Yes. Land-shark phase peaks around 8–14 weeks during teething. Redirect to chew toys, never use spray bottles or "alpha rolls". Yelping like a hurt puppy + 30-second time-out works for most. If puppy is drawing blood by 5 months, get a force-free trainer involved.
