[yorkie mad]

Originally Posted by LilMissy

It sounds like you have a good relationship with the breeder since you are able to visit your puppy 4-5 times a week right now. I'm sure the breeder won't mind you asking if you can leave your puppy with it's mom and littermates for a few more weeks. These tiny, toy breed puppies can struggle with hypoglycemia, especially when taken away from their mom too soon. Hypoglycemic episodes are scarey and can be fatal. I know, because my Missy struggled with this for her first 3 weeks home. It is something to take very seriously. Also, your puppy is not done learning some important socialization skills from it's mom and littermates until around 12 weeks of age, such as bite inhibition. Normally this is learned naturally and effectively through contact with mom and other littermates. If the puppy bites mom during nursing mom can roll the dog over to correct it or just get up and walk away. Hungry puppy learns very quickly to control those teeth if it wants to eat. Likewise when playing with littermates, if a puppy gets bitten too hard it will yelp and stop playing. Once again puppy learns that biting hard means the end of something good. If puppy stays with his littermates for the first 3-4 months of its life it will learn bite inhibition. If you take on the task of teaching bite inhibition to your puppy yourself, it could take a year or longer, and those puppy teeth hurt! It's so much easier to just be patient and let mom do the training for you.

As far as letting your puppy outdoors, I wouldn't. Not until all vaccinations are completed. When you first bring home a yorkie puppy, a nice thing to do is purchase an "ex-pen", set it up, and inside place a crate or bed, food and water, toys, and pee pads. My adult yorkie still uses her pee pads, I find them so convenient that I never did switch her to outdoor pottying.

Congrats on your new furbaby and please be sure to share lots of pics with us when Alex arrives home!

excellent advice andd well put.