We met Ryder yesterday!

[CountryWolf07]

Oh goodness PUPPEEEEE!!! Look at those paws! Remind me breed please?

He is a Labrador Retriever. (but English, he'd be more stocky and has a blocky head.)

[Freedom]

Thanks! What a lucky pupper!

[CountryWolf07]

I plan on teaching him sign language as commands along with verbal commands. I think it would be fun to have a dog who'd recognize sign/hand commands.

[wolf_Q]

He's so cute! I taught all of my dogs their commands with voice and hand signals (not ASL I just made up my own hand gestures for stuff) and let me tell you the dogs respond better to the hand signals. Other people will be telling them to sit or lay or whatever and they just look at them (even though I know they know the words too) I have to show them my signals then they respond right away. I have a hand signal command for "come" and you can tell Nebo come in every voice/way you want and he will just look at you....do the command and he comes running (brat).

This is probably something you already thought about I just thought I'd mention it. Since you will be home with him a lot make sure you get him used to being alone too. I just know a few people who have brought their dogs everywhere with them/always been home with them thinking that was the best thing....and now those dogs can't be left home alone at all or they freak out, they have separation anxiety. My old boss has to bring her husky to my work and leave her there if she goes somewhere (even just for an hour or less) and can't take the dog, kinda ridiculous to have a dog that can't be home alone at all. She brought her to work with her every day as a puppy and never got her used to being home alone.

[Freedom]

This is probably something you already thought about I just thought I'd mention it. Since you will be home with him a lot make sure you get him used to being alone too. I just know a few people who have brought their dogs everywhere with them/always been home with them thinking that was the best thing....and now those dogs can't be left home alone at all or they freak out, they have separation anxiety. My old boss has to bring her husky to my work and leave her there if she goes somewhere (even just for an hour or less) and can't take the dog, kinda ridiculous to have a dog that can't be home alone at all. She brought her to work with her every day as a puppy and never got her used to being home alone.

Excellent advice, good job picking up on that!

As for the visual, dogs are much more into visual and body language, so we always train a sign command as well as the word. They DO pay more attention to the visual, at least most of them do.

[Casper]

Those eyes! Those wrinkles! Ryder sure is an adorable little guy.
I'm glad you finally got to meet your new baby.

[CountryWolf07]

He's so cute! I taught all of my dogs their commands with voice and hand signals (not ASL I just made up my own hand gestures for stuff) and let me tell you the dogs respond better to the hand signals. Other people will be telling them to sit or lay or whatever and they just look at them (even though I know they know the words too) I have to show them my signals then they respond right away. I have a hand signal command for "come" and you can tell Nebo come in every voice/way you want and he will just look at you....do the command and he comes running (brat).

This is probably something you already thought about I just thought I'd mention it. Since you will be home with him a lot make sure you get him used to being alone too. I just know a few people who have brought their dogs everywhere with them/always been home with them thinking that was the best thing....and now those dogs can't be left home alone at all or they freak out, they have separation anxiety. My old boss has to bring her husky to my work and leave her there if she goes somewhere (even just for an hour or less) and can't take the dog, kinda ridiculous to have a dog that can't be home alone at all. She brought her to work with her every day as a puppy and never got her used to being home alone.

Great advice, Amy. I do have two questions. At what age do you allow for socialization? Also, when should I start working on Ryder on being used to home alone, etc.? It has been so long since I've really had a puppy, since Rosie. Hank doesn't count, I was in college when my parents raised him.

[wolf_Q]

How old will he be when you bring him home? At my work we want the puppies to be 12 weeks and have 2 sets of shots before we will groom them so I'd say that's a good general rule as far as having him around a lot of people/other dogs you don't know as you don't want to risk him getting parvo or other diseases that are serious in puppies. But I'd start socializing him with family and "safe" dogs like Dozer right away. I can't remember the exact age I started leaving my pups alone but they were young...I'd start out with an hour, then 2 hours, etc. I think the general rule is they can hold their bladders for 1 hour for every month old they are. Here's a site I found with great advice for potty training too http://www.michiganhumane.org/site/N...rticle&id=7687

You should definitely enroll him in a puppy kindergarten class I think they do these around 4 months old. These are very important for socialization it helps them get used to new people, new environments, new dogs.

[Vette]

Oh goodness,, you shoulda put a cuteness warning in the thread title
i wish you luck for in the future with introducing him to Hank

[CountryWolf07]

How old will he be when you bring him home? At my work we want the puppies to be 12 weeks and have 2 sets of shots before we will groom them so I'd say that's a good general rule as far as having him around a lot of people/other dogs you don't know as you don't want to risk him getting parvo or other diseases that are serious in puppies. But I'd start socializing him with family and "safe" dogs like Dozer right away. I can't remember the exact age I started leaving my pups alone but they were young...I'd start out with an hour, then 2 hours, etc. I think the general rule is they can hold their bladders for 1 hour for every month old they are. Here's a site I found with great advice for potty training too http://www.michiganhumane.org/site/N...rticle&id=7687

You should definitely enroll him in a puppy kindergarten class I think they do these around 4 months old. These are very important for socialization it helps them get used to new people, new environments, new dogs.

Ryder will be at almost 8 weeks old when we bring him home. I think I will do that - Dozer is "SAFE" as well as Buster and Malley (Mike's brother's Labs). Mike doesn't want me to enroll him through puppy classes, but I'd like to do something at least different this time with a puppy. He's a guy, he thinks we should do everything on his own, including training Ryder. He has a hard time accepting 'help' from others and would rather do it all on his own. We've never done it before with Rosie or Hank. I kind of regret with Hank because he's such a different dog that we've had in our family! I'm not saying he's a bad dog, but he could've learned a couple things that would've encouraged him to be more sociable and less jealous towards people/other dogs.