I've got a puppy coming home on October 1st!

She's a GSD and will be 8 weeks old. I have enrolled her in a puppy class which we start as soon as she's had her vaccinations.

My question is, what should be the first thing to start to train at home?

My plan was to let her settle in first and then work on some crate training and maybe the clicker? But any suggestions are welcome...

We also have a 1 year old male Border Terrier at home at the moment.

Toilet training, bite inhibition, sit, stay, down, leave, walking on the leash politely (around the garden)..

All of the above is what I would teach first. But it is entirely up to you what you teach, some may take hours, some may take days and others maybe months..

Definately get on the clicker training - the sooner the better.. it is so much fun and so easy to teach new things..

PLAY and socialisation are THE most important things! Take her along to the club if they let you straight away - before vaccs, just carry her! Have you watched the club? You should always go and watch club and have a good chat with your instructor!

Most puppy classes will teach: sit, down, stand, wait, heelwork, leave it, and to play nice.

Some things you can teach them at home too Along with door manners (so you always go first), and you can always take them out and about before vaccs while carrying them. Generally most places let carried puppies into shopping malls etc, but always check

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Toilet training first and foremost and if you intend on crate training her, then of course getting her used to that is a great start.

As mentioned by Shalize focus on socializing and getting her used to people, noises etc, even before she's vaccinated, just wrap her up in a light blanket so she feels secure and carry her around with you - sitting on a bench in a nice park is good as you'll get lots of passers-by and few can resist saying hello to a beautiful new puppy

You must be so excited, not long now! Do you have a name for her yet?

YOu all missed the obvious thing you need to work on first - tut tut tut!!

Puppy needs to learn its name, PMSL!!

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Fere libenter hormines id quod volunt credunt

Your on fire today Mrs C LOL

lol well I though that was a given but yes thats always useful, although mine have several! Not always polite may I add!

LOL! Great replies - thank you!

I was planning on taking her to the supermarket! I thought I could just sit on the bench outside the entrance for 5 minutes and see how many people want to come and pat the cute puppy!

Also wondered about taking her to see a school run so she can get used to noisy kids! Not that I have any, but you never know what the future holds!

The club is happy for me to come along before she is vaccinated. They have actually said I can join in the class after she's had her first vaccination but I am not 100% sure that this would be safe?

Am very excited about it all, and I can't wait to start training with her! Possible name of Isla or Skye at the moment. I am terrible with decisions! In fact, when I went to chose my pup I couldnt decide which one so she chose me instead by following me around and lying on my feet every time I stood still!

expect many of you know this, but Gwen Bailey and others say the critical time for puppies to be socialised and learn/accept new things is between 8-14 weeks, so I've been taking my puppy out and about and letting him meet people generally, going to puppy party etc. and will do more when he's out of quarantine next week. However, my daughter's dog (a rescue) is very anxious about some noises, especially fireworks, so I was very pleased when I found that you can buy a desensitising CD from Clix for under £6 from Amazon. It has 30 noises on it grouped under "Bangs", "Transport", "Household" and "People".

I think it could be used with older dogs who already have some noise phobias but obviously prevention is better than cure. There's full instructions on how to use it, so today we started with it on "barely audible" (to human ears!) in the background as we played and then we can gradually build up the volume, so that hopefully by firework season he'll just take it all in his stride. But as well as fireworks, there's lots more noises I would find it difficult to arrange exposure to in the normal course of events.