my husband is also a neat freak who was extremely concerned about potty accidents, noise that disturb sleep at night, and in general, having to be responsible for the care and well being of something other than himself. he was very concerned that having a pet would negatively impact our living space and our lifestyle.
to help with a smooth transition of having a new puppy in the house, we've agreed that bunjee, the puppy is my responsibility. i take care of him. i wake up at night to take him to potty, i do all the training, i pay for all the supplies, i do all the clean ups. hubby doesn't have to lift a finger.
so basically, i was single parent to bunjee for a while. i worked with bunjee a lot on socialization and obedience training. bunjee was not allowed to walk onto the carpet himself (must be carried) until he was potty trained. i did a lot of trial and error to resolve his separation anexiety issues. lots and lots of training definitely was the key.
after about a month, bunjee was rather obedient to me and will listen to my commands but not hubby's. hubby was rather jealous of that and wanted to start working with bunjee on commands too. and because of all the socialization, bunjee is a good, playful, and friendly puppy. he's won over several non-dog people in my life including my parents, brothers, and guy friends who are into big dogs and frown upon little furry 'rat dogs'. he's won them over not just because he's cute but mostly because he's well behaved. and that is what helped the most is turning my hubby from a no-dogs-allowed at home person to a yorkie lover too.
so my suggestion to you is to read up on obedience training and housebreaking now. and start training immediately. you can spoil and love your new little one, but never let that supercede the need for good firm training. don't let her get away with anything that a big dog would be reprimanded for (pretend she's a 100 lb dog, would the action be okay? if not, then don't let her do it just because she's small). don't let her get away with bad behavior because it's so cute because she's such a small dog. sign up for a puppy obedience class so that you can learn how to properly train her and allow her the opportunity to socialize with other puppies too.
if you train her with the proper obedience and socialization skills, your husband will surely fall in love with her because not only is she cute, she's well behaved too. and that's something a neat freak husband can definitely appreciate. my husband may not have wanted our first yorkie...or our second yorkie... but he'll definitely be the first to say NO (after me) if anyone suggests we give them away. |