mfch

Okay, so for me the countdown is on. I pick up my puppy on Friday. It's been a very difficult few months, I lost my soul dog in late feb right after nearly losing my house and horses to bush fires and all that is on the end of a year I would really like to forget ... the one beacon of light for me during this time has been the idea of a new puppy. Something happy to focus on. He is a beautiful black standard poodle from the best, best, best breeder I could find! I have the normal nerves and excitement I would expect most people have about introducing a new puppy to the house. It's not like I haven't done it before .... but it's been three years and my miniature poodle was a DIFFICULT puppy ... she is fantastic now at two and a half, but it's taken two and a half years. So I have some questions. Puppy has been spending time with me every week since he was four weeks, and has been really well socialised by the breeder in a few different setting, he met my dog at seven weeks when she came to be groomed by the breeder, and will come home with blanket, toy and supply of food the same as he has been eating with the breeder. I will pick him up on Friday afternoon so that he will have the entire weekend with the whole family to get used to and so we can start to settle him into his routine. I have a few questions about the routine I want to establish and how to begin ... 1. Sleeping- ideally I would love him to sleep in the laundry with my miniature poodle who is two and a half. There is plenty of room for both of them but it's snug enough to be 'den like' my min is fantastic with bedtime, something I really worked on from the beginning. She is put to bed and tucked in about 8.30-9pm every night and stays there until I get up in the morning (she even sleeps in on weekends) she has the ability to open the sliding door and come out for toilet or anything else but chooses not to, on the rare occasions she does get up she goes out and quietly sits on the couch with the cats until someone gets up. She's fantastic and I would love him to follow this. However, I don't want to ruin her sleep routine by making her look after the puppy. So how should I play this- should I try and put him to bed in with her from night one so long as she is okay about it and manage it as we go, or should I get him into a routine by having him sleep somewhere else (probably my ensuite) to begin with to establish his routine without disturbing her? I have a porta-cot for him to begin with as a play pen/crate and plan to go buy him a crate as well, but I didn't necessarily plan to have him sleep in the crate ... I have lots of ideas and any one of them would probably work for bedtime routine but I just can't decide which one to go with. 2. How much access should he have to the house- my miniature poodle and the cats all have basically full access to the house (excluding bedrooms, sitting room etc.) but they have access to the lounge, dining room, kitchen, hallway and access to cat run and 1.8 acre dog fenced backyard through a doggy door. My mini had full access from when she was an eight week puppy ... she was with my two older dogs who have now passed away and they were a good example to her and she was never a destructive puppy, she started being left through the day pretty soon after she came home and although it took her a little while to work out toilet training, she never destroyed anything and settled in well. These days if she's on her own she pretty much hops in her bed and goes to sleep. I'm very lucky with her. I keep reading about restricting puppy's access to the house with a crate or pen and I'm prepared to do that, but I'm also wondering if I shouldn't just let him follow the example of my mini as long term I would expect him to be able to be left at home with no problems? I want him and my mini to bond and I worry that if he's in a crate or a pen they won't? Would it be better to leave him in a pen or leave him with my other dog from the beginning? 3. Cats- I know I've done this before! And I've never had a problem with my three dogs and the cats but I'm a natural born worrier ... what is the best way to introduce the puppy to the cats? They are 13, 11 and 18 months and have never had a problem with the dogs before I'm just worried I guess because he's going to be a bigger dog and I want him to be beyond reproach with them! 4. When to start having people over- I want him to be well socialised and I read that the best way to begin before he is fully vaccinated is to have him meet PEOPLE before he starts to meet other dogs, I have lots of friends who are looking forward to coming and meeting the puppy but obviously most will be on weekends rather than during the week. The first weekend he is home should I have people coming over or keep it only to family so that he can settle in before he starts meeting people? What kind of socialisation should I be doing in the first week that I have him home? Do I want to just be concentrating on establishing a bond and a routine with me or do I get started straight away? Thank you so much in advance, these are just the questions that have been playing on my mind! I'm soooooo excited and have been counting down, but then you get the flip side which is all the anxiety about screwing up this crucial period in his development!

Yep- fence, fence, fence. I live on acreage too- thirty acres with eight horses- and I would absolutely no way have my dogs roaming the property unsupervised for a number of reasons. I have a fenced 1.8 acre backyard with snake mesh, and that connects also to a fully fenced 25m cat run ... of a night my dogs are inside with the cat run door closed but a cat flap into the cat run, of a day the cat run door is open which means using the cat flap dogs and cats can go out into the backyard from the house as they choose. If my dogs roamed my property- they could get killed by neighbouring farmers if they went near their stock (well .... my dogs are poodles so not likely but this is something that frequently happens to roaming dogs in the country), they can eat bait, they can be bitten by a snake, they can damage or be damaged by your horses- one kick is all it takes, they could be hit by a car. Chain is not a long term solution but a doberman roaming freely on six acres isn't either ... She's a beautiful girl though and I'm sure you'll figure it out :)

I think it really is a quite divisive issue between breeders and buyers. I can see the view of responsible breeders who want to stop any BYB intent with their dogs. However, as a responsible buyer I would not buy a puppy who was desexed at such a young age. I think that breeder's have to put due effort into their puppy screening (and many do!) and then trust that the buyer a) is not going to screw them over and b) wants to do the best they can by their puppy and therefore does not find desexing at eight weeks appropriate. I recently turned down one breeder because she would not sell me an eight week old puppy unless she desexed him first and was going to have him desexed two days before I picked him up. So the poor mite would have been recovering from surgery as well as adjusting to a new home. So I turned her down. This breeder also wouldn't reserve a puppy for me or let me choose one ... she said I could show up with the money and take one if they were still there not a great way to treat a potential buyer. The breeder I am getting my puppy from leaves it in my hands but advises after 12 months of age so he can grow up first, she did say however that it was entirely up to me because I had to live with him! She said with her last litter she left it in the hands of the buyers- and all six puppies were desexed by the time they were eight months old. My breeder- who is fabulous- trusts her buyers, she screened them, she's gotten to know us and has treated us as if we are joining the family rather than with suspicion. Makes a big difference I think, and I also think it's a much better way to ensure you get good buyers and that they adhere to your wishes, rather than treating buyers with suspicion and refusing to let puppies go until desexed etc.