You're excited, You've bought a new puppy and it's his/her first night at home. You crawl into bed feeling that blissful feeling that only a new puppy can create, when it starts. The blood curdling howling, barking, crying.

You think you will just wait it out and surely it will stop but somehow that sweet little innocent puppy has transformed into the spawn of satan with the going down of the sun.

Don't worry. This is completely natural and we are going to give you some tips to get through it.

So with that, here are some things to remember.

Your puppy has most likely just come from a home with a few litter mates, it's mum and it's human family. Each night it would have been snuggled into it's siblings feeling warm and comforted and safe. Moving to a new family is a HUGE adjustment for your little pup and you are going to need to exercise some patience.

Now unless you plan on having this puppy in the bed with you forever, we do not advise that you put it into bed with you on the first night to stop the crying. What the puppy will see is that it was upset, it cried, you came and put it into a warm cosy place. The next night, guess what your puppy will expect? When you try to be tougher, guess what your puppy will do? It will escalate the crying until you can't take it and again bring it into the bed so you can get some sleep. It's a vicious circle.

Here are some basic steps you can take to help settle your puppy in with minimal fuss.

• Ensure your puppy spends some time daily on it's own working for some high value food. You want to create the feeling of ease when separated from you. Start independence training early.
• Give your puppy a warm bed free from draughts. Sounds simple but it's something that a lot of people forget.
• Crate train your puppy from day one.
• Ensure your puppy is tired before going to bed at night. This means exercise, training and habituation. A tired puppy will settle more easily.
• Noise. Sometimes a radio can help. Classical music has been shown to help settle dogs.
• Adaptil spray. This is a synthetic pheromone that *may* have calming effects. You can spray this on your puppies bed 10 mins before sleep time.
• Be consistent. Changing the rules creates a confused puppy.
• Be patient. If you have implemented all of the above, the crying will stop. The more you ignore it, the quicker the behaviour will disappear.

Enjoy this special time!