[JadeD]

Thank you for taking in an older baby like that! In January I was given a 9 year old Yorkie. No warning, I literally was handed the dog and took him home with me.

He did not bark when I got him home. He rarely barks even now. He is a very quiet little guy.

My words of advice. Be patient. It will take time for them to adjust to their new home. Be loving because you don't know what kind of love they had before. Keep trying. It took my little guy 5-6 weeks before he would play with a toy with me, but I kept trying and he has actually taught me games he plays and also loves tug of war and taught it to our Yorkie puppies we got in May.

Sleeping in a crate at night is fine if they are crate trained, if not you will need to crate train them. My husband told me I could keep the dog I brought home as long as it slept in a crate at night. This was a Weds night. I put him in the crate and he was fine. I put him in the crate Thursday night and he was fine. He was in the crate from about 10:30 pm until 6:30 the next morning when I got up to get kids ready for school. Friday evening my husband said he was going to bed about 9pm and I was like "I am not ready for bed, I will be down in a little while." I walked the dogs (we had 2 at the time) and then locked up and turned things off. I put the dog in his crate and headed downstairs and my husband is playing video games. I ask him how long he plans to play and he said about an hour. I tell him I am going to get the dog and bring him down so he can hang out with us while I am on my ipad and that I can take him up to his crate later. Well, I fall asleep with the little guy curled up against me. My husband leaves him there because he said it was so cute how he was curled up with me. So, long story short, it is 8 months later and we now have 2 Yorkies that sleep in our bed and 1 sleeps with our teenage daughter. He slept that night from about 10pm until 9:30 the next morning. He prefers to sleep until about 9am, so he holds it about 12 hours at night.

Good luck and enjoy getting to know this new addition to your family. It can months for their full personality to really show with some dogs. Enjoy getting to know them!