[ChicagoSoul]

I am kind of new to Yorkie parenting as well. At the same time, I already managed to get a few tricks under my belt after having Manya (my baby girl) for two weeks now.

Having said that, you should take my advice and adjust it according to the age of your puppy. When I had mine, she was 14 weeks old. Yours is going to be only 8. So, you would have significantly more work to do.

Anyway, I believe the key is to find the best vet you can have. This way, you would know that your pet is well taken care of and healthy. The vet will also be instrumental refereing you to the best groomers and puppy classes if you ever decide the puppy to enroll into one, which might be a good idea since she is so small.

With respect to your initial question regarding the cage or the carrier, I would probably suggest a plastic crate that would be relatively small initially and gradually give her more and more room.

The key for you right now is to be able to train her to use a wee wee pad. You should try crate training for that. Puppies learn where to go to pee from their mother. You, however, won't be able to fully appreciate this mom's training since you are going to get the dog early.

So, you should probably invest in training her much more then some people who take their puppies after they are more mature.

So, you need to crate train her. I've never done it myself but I learned from others such as professional dog trainers and veterinarians that it is really beneficial. My puppy came to me already trained by her breeder. The reason you want your crate to be small is because yorkies don't soil the place where they sleep. So, you need to get her just enough room for her to be in comfortably. You should put her blankets and toys inside so that she is used to that.

Small puppies like yours go often. So, you need to monitor her. Initially, take her out of the crate every 20 minutes and put her onto your designated toilet place. You should make sure to mark the activity with a word that is consistently used by all your family members for it. Your designated place should consist of Purina Second Nature litter box with a wee wee pad inside (no litter). Some people, including me, think that non-disposable pads are better and more economical since you can wash them regularly than the disposable ones. It is your call. You can also use newspapers for lining the tray, I suppose. Anyway, search this forum for non-disposable pads and you will find websites that were recommended by others on this forum to buy them from for less.

Going back to the subject, you take your puppy every 20 minutes out of the crate and place her in the litter box, saying the one marking word you picked. For example, you place her, saying "Get busy." You do it each and every time with the same word. Let het stay there for approximately 10 minutes. If she does not go, put her back to the crate and wait for 20 minutes again. When she eventually goes, make sure to say the second marker word that you pick for good behavior. For example, you say "Yes." Make sure it is also consistent with all members of your family. You also reward her with a treat and let her play for 10 more minutes outside.

The goal of this exercise is to let her understand that it is good to pee or poop where you want her to go. Remember that you will break for food. Some recommend feeding puppies four times a day. I happened to agree with my vet that three times is better and easier. Again, discuss it with your vet.

I don't belive that puppies should be fed liquid diet. I also don't believe that their food should be always available for them. I feed my baby three times a day dry food, which is much better for her digestive system and for her teeth. Again, it is your call. Manya is on a strict schedule. As a result, she hungry before every feeding and eats everything I give her from her plate by herself. Her breeder always had food available for Manya. As a result, she was not a good eater before she came to me. I put her on the schedule and everything is great.

Another thing is I never feed her myself from my hand. I place her food in her bowl and let it stay there for 10-15 minutes. Regardless of whether she is done or not, unless she is actively eating at the time, I take the food after the designated interval until the next feeding.

You might need to feed her the first day or two so that she gets accustomed to you and your house, maybe longer. I guess it depends on the dog. Ask your breeder for suggestions. After that, she should eat on her own.

With respect to food, I personally stayed with the food that my breeder had Manya on which was Nutro Natural Choice Puppy Formula in Lamb and Rice. The reason for that was that Manya looked good on my opinion, she was not scratching and she had a really good stool three times a day.

Having said that, there are other brands that members of this forum will recommend you to use. I've done plenty of research of food brands and the major point is that you should absolutely check the label of anything that goes into your puppy's stomach. She should not be fed by-products and fillers. While the dog food industry is much better than what it used to be in the past, there are still many more bad choices than there are good one out there. There are also many tricks and mislabeling that you should be aware of before you buy any food.

The rule of thumb is that you should feed your dog only premium quality food. If I had to choose from scratch based on my research what dry food to pick for my puppy, I would pick the following Innova Puppy Dry Food and Naturapet California Natural Lamb Meal & Rice Puppy.

The reason for my choice is that Innova one has crude protein at 26% (a good range for a puppy is 26-28% because significantly less than that is not enough for their development and more is too hard on their liver and kidney) and 12% fat (10%-15% is a good range). Also, the first three ingredients on their list are named meat products (turkey, chicken and chicken meal). It also has herring which is a good source of Omega fatty acids and good for your puppy's brain functioning. With respect to grains, the main ones on this formula are barley, rice and potatoes which are all quality carbohydrate sources. You want that and no corn, which is hard for your puppy's digestive system. This formula also has no fillers, grain fragments or other bad things that can cause problems for your puppy.

My second choice, California Natural, is good because it is an allergy formula that has very few but good quality ingredients. As a result, it is much easier for your puppy's digestion. It also has meat meal as a primary ingredient, rice - good quality grain combined with minerals such as taurine and sunflower oil wich is a good source of linoleic acid.

Other good brands include Merrick Puppy Plate, Solid Gold Hundchen Flocken Puppy (lamb), Old Mother Hubbard Wellness Super 5 Mix Puppy Food and Chicken Soup for the Puppy Lover's Soul. The reason I have not picked them as my primary choices was because some of them contain fillers, egg products as opposed to whole eggs, and grain fragments. Chicken Soup, on the other hand, used to use a carcinogenic (causing cancer) preservative with their formula. I don't know if they still do. You have to check the ingredient list for Ethoxyquin.

In comparison to my formula, Nutro, the above formulas are better because they seemingly contain more meat. Mine has Lamb meal as a primary ingredient. However it is being followed by rice ingredients (rice flour, rice bran, rice gluten and ground rice), which are split. You will soon learn of this splitting phenomenon that bad dog food manufacturers consistently engage in to trick their consumers. When looking at ingredients, they are going to be listed by weight. So, the more weight one ingredient has in the product, the more precedence it is going to have in the list, i.e., if you split them (as with my rice example), you will get less weight per each part, thus m making meat a more prominent one.