Puppyhood Tips

[*iluvskipper*]

UGH!!! puppies are such a hastle!!! but its still tonz of fun! timber still chews a little bit at about 4 months old but i think maybe it would've been a better idea to get an older dog... but i still love my timmy!

[Iilo]

Wow, I REALLY can't wait to hear more about this puppy!!

I'll list what I did WRONG with Rien, as other-Erica has already covered what to do right.

If you *want* the pup to sleep in your bed, then after it is pretty reliably housetrained, let it sleep in your bed. Rien got too used to his crate and WILL NOT sleep in the bed with me. He does not settle there and whines and WANTS to go to his crate.

SOCIALIZE! Whatever you're doing is NOT enough! There is no such thing as too much socialization. Short, frequent socialization is better than LONG (whether it be frequent or infrequent) socialization. Puppies have short attention spans.

Once the puppy is generally house safe, treat it as you will treat it as an adult, or as you will want to live with it as an adult (this was an Abby mistake, not a Rien mistake, thankfully). TRUSTING puppies is very hard, but if you have a puppyproofed house, I believe it to be key. Puppies do not magically mature into house dogs, you have to treat them as such so they learn how to be ones. Abby spent ALL her time on the tether, even after she was house safe. When she was an adult, this became her lifeline. Without the tether, she was NOT housesafe as an adult.

Crating -- as for bladder goes, it's usually around an hour more than their age in months *except* night crating. If puppy sleeps through the night, he should be able to make it bladder wise. Sleeping puppies don't pee and poo, awake ones do. Tire him out before bed and hope his baby-momma crate-trained him as an even wee'r one.

[Giselle]

Oh gawds, now I'm really nervous, haha. The story is pretty long, but I'm not even completely sure if I'll be getting the pup. I do, however, want to be completely prepared just in case I do get her. Thanks for the tips everybody. I'll definitely be working on socialization. I didn't socialize Lucky, but I made sure I didn't make that same mistake with Giselle so I've got a little experience with that issue.

It's kind of exciting...kind of like preparing for a new baby

[wolfsoul]

I have a question! For those who fed their puppy raw, did they find it to be much different than feeding it to an adult? Anyting they learned about feeding puppies raw through the experience?