Field Guide · Glossary
3-3-3 rule
Puppy and developmentA rescue heuristic suggesting a newly adopted dog takes roughly three days to begin decompressing, three weeks to start settling, and three months to feel at home.
How it works
It is a rough map rather than a finding. The numbers come from rescue practice rather than from research: the phrasing is traced to a rescuer more than fifteen years ago and spread as a shareable graphic, and no study sits behind the intervals. What makes it useful anyway is the expectation it sets, which is that a new dog will not be themselves for a while and that this is normal rather than a sign something is wrong.
What it looks like
A dog adopted on a Saturday hides behind a sofa for the first few days, begins following their person around the house after two weeks, and starts playing with toys after two months. None of it happened on schedule and all of it happened in order.
Commonly confused with
- Decompression
- Decompression is the practice of reducing demands so a dog can settle. The 3-3-3 rule is a rough expectation for how long that settling takes, and it is a heuristic rather than a procedure.
Related terms
Where this comes up