The Puppy Is Home and It Has Gone Wrong: Start Over This Weekend

Three dogs left our house before the fourth one stayed. When a puppy is already home and the week has gone wrong, I look at the hours before I look at the dog.

If the puppy is already home and the week has gone badly, you are not too late. In a survey of 500 puppy owners by a puppy-training app, one in four had considered rehoming their puppy within the first two weeks. So you are in company, and one weekend is enough to change a good deal about how your house runs. This is the order I would do it in.

Ask about the hours, not the dog

The first question most tired families ask is "what is wrong with him?" You cannot act on that tonight. A better one is "how many hours of this week had an adult with a plan?" I write from the view that most families do not have a dog problem. They have a house problem: toilet trips nobody owned, rooms that were open to him, five people using five different words. A house can be rearranged in a weekend.

One exception. If he has bitten anyone, or anyone in the house is frightened to be alone with him, do not wait for Friday. Call a trainer or behaviourist today, and keep him behind a gate or in a crate, away from the children, until someone has seen your home.

Friday night: everyone at the table

Everyone who lives in the house sits down, children included. The person who is least sure goes first and says what the week was like. Nobody defends themselves.

One adult takes a sheet of paper and writes down every job the puppy has needed since he arrived: toilet trips by day and by night, meals, water, clearing up, walks, and watching him whenever he is loose. Put a name beside each job. Where a line has two names, or none, you have found where the week went wrong. Stop there and go to bed. Nothing else needs deciding tonight.

Saturday morning: rooms and gates

Walk the house together with the sheet in your hand. Mark each room: always, with an adult, or never. Choose one room he never enters, so that the person who is least sure always has somewhere safe. In our house it was the bedroom. Where there is no door, put up a gate. Then fix where he sleeps, where he eats and where he rests, and keep those places the same every day.

A smaller house for him is easier for you to watch. When the children and the puppy are together, an adult is in the room, awake and watching. When an adult cannot be, a gate or a crate does the supervising.

Saturday afternoon: one name per job, one set of words

Go back to the sheet and give every job a single name. Children own routine, such as filling the water bowl at the set time. Adults own risk: the front door, the road, the lead, anything that could go wrong quickly. A job shared "together" belongs to nobody, so avoid those.

Then write a short list of words the whole house will use with him, one word for each thing you ask, and put it on the fridge. If the words have differed from person to person, he has been hearing five languages. Ask a trainer what each word should mean for your dog. That part is theirs, not mine.

Sunday: the rota and one calm day

Turn the sheet into a rota for Monday to Friday. Build it round the fixed points of your week: wake-up, the school run, work, meals, bed. Every slot gets an owner and a back-up. Give a night off to whoever has had none so far, and write it into the rota rather than into a promise.

Then treat Sunday as a rehearsal. Run the new rooms, the words and the rota for one calm day, with no visitors and no outings. If a slot fails, change the rota. Leave the person alone.

Two weeks on

Put a date in the diary now, two weeks ahead, and bring three questions to it. Which jobs had no owner? Which rooms did we open again? Which words did we forget? Change one or two things, no more.

If the hours are not there in your house, say so at the review and ask for help: the breeder or the rescue, or a trainer who will see the whole household. Write the date on the fridge before you leave the table on Friday.

Free help

The free pack The Reset is for the family whose puppy is already home and whose week has gone wrong: mohamedabukhadra.com/reset.

My book After You Say Yes to the Dog has a manual on the reset, which is where I would start this weekend.

Related: What a Reset Is, and When a Family Needs One · Nobody Told Me It Would Be This Hard

I am a father, not a trainer, a vet or a behaviourist. This is what worked in my house. Anything that touches safety, check with a professional who can see your dog and your home.

Source: Zigzag survey, 2025, reported in The Independent.