New Puppy-- Please give any advice you can!
 

Hello all,

I know you have probably heard this many times before, but I just got my yorkie baby tonight at 7 pm. she was very calm in the car ride home, and we stopped by a pet store to get her a crate and leash.

we live in a apartment complex, and got home at a very late time and it's been really cold. I've read that once you get home you have to have them outside to establish a potty area, but she got to shivering because it was so cold, I took her inside. She is almost 8 weeks old and will be going to the vet on monday to make sure everything is ok.

Also, the breeder said she was having a little bit of a problem with flees behind her neck, but said she was too young to use FrontLine on. What does that mean??? What can I do to get rid of these flees.

She went into her crate pretty easily tonight and is now sleeping in it. I am staying up until she wakes up so i can take her outside so she can go.

I would appreciate all the help I can get. THANKS.

shame on the breeder for letting a baby go home less than 8 weeks old. They really should be 12 weeks. Now that you have her, you have to make the best of it. I just cannot believe a breeder would give you a baby with fleas! SHAME on her! I would wait until morning (when it is warmer) and give her a bath in Dawn dish soap to kill the fleas on her. make sure and keep her warm. if it is too cold for her to go potty outside, use potty pads. Then get her into the vet first thing monday morning to get treated for the fleas.

I agree completely.

If the baby has fleas you can count on her having ear mites as well. Be sure to use the plain old Dawn basic dish liquid. Lather your girl up and meanwhile put a towel in the microwave and warm the towel. Once your baby is lathered up put her in the towel for about ten minutes and wait for the fleas to die. Then rinse her very well and warm another towel. It's very important that she not get chilled. Get her into the vet ASAP and ask about Mita-clear for her ears. Take a stool sample with you to the vet so it can be checked for worms. Do a search on the site for hypoglycemia just in case you need the information. When a puppy is improperly weaned and sent away too early the chances of hypoglycemia go way up.

As a precaution you can get some goats milk, canned is fine but you will probably have to add water, and keep it to mix with the dry food to help your puppy make the transition. At 8 weeks proper nutrition is critical.

Congratulations and welcome to YT!

Welcome to YT! Excellent advice you have already received :thumbup::thumbup:

I would definitely recommend potty pads - and yes they can learn to go outside & on the pads. Consistency & watchful eyes on your part are really important

We washed her with Dawn dish liquid and got about 20-30 fleas off her body. She stopped itching and scratching herself as much-- so I guess that's a good thing. I am very disappointed in the breeder. She not only gave me a tiny baby, but also one with fleas. She also doesn't seem like shes been trained for peepads or anything. She has had three accidents so far on the carpet. Three or four other times she went right next to the pee pad. She did poopoo outside last night though. But this morning I had to keep pushing her towards the pee pad until she went poopoo on them.

Each time she had a accident, I said "NO" or "BAD" and put her in her crate. Is that the right thing to do? I am veryyy much in love with her already, and want to make this relationship work!

Also the breeder gave us a small little bag of puppy food. they are round droplets and she said to just put them in a bowl and she will eat however much she wants. Is that right??

Pleaaaaaase get back to me. Anyone! Thanks in advance!

You will probably have to do the Dawn bath again in a few days.

As far as the food - what the breeder is talking abut is free feeding them - lots of people do that. I've done it in the past. But with the 2 I have now - they eat as soon as I put it down - so I measure it out each day.

You may want to get an x-pen or a baby gate to keep her confined in one area right now so you don't have so many accidents on the carpet. Yorkies are hard to housebreak - so if she is getting close to the pad that is a good thing. You need to give her lots & lots of praise when she does it right.

I believe they learn fastest with positive reinforcement.

Feeding her is very important and you need to weigh her as well. Give yourself a starting point to measure from. She should gain weight predictably from this point. The average puppy will eat a maximum of 1/4 cup of premium food per sitting and should consume about 1/2 cup per day. I would suggest measuring the food so you will know how much she is eating and whether it's as much as the day before. If she eats at least 1/4 but less than 1/2 cup per day it's ok as long as she's consistent.

It is highly unlikely that she has had ANY potty training at all so assume you are starting from scratch. Refrain from scolding her or using words like no or bad. Choose a startling noise, I use AAACK, to interupt the potty and move her to the pee pad. Stand next to the pee pad and try to catch her in the act of peeing on it so you can praise her gently while she is in the act. Follow this with an immediate food treat, before she even gets off of the pad. Positive reinforcement will give you much better results than negative. The food treat should be something savory, moist and soft in texture, and very small. I like the Bil-Jac line of treats. The idea is for her to associate the act of potty as a thing that pleases you when she does it properly. If she thinks it upsets you she'll just go do it in the closet.

Feed her in her crate. This will encourage her to keep it clean and that will make it perfect for use as a holding area to wait while the urge to potty grows. Once you're confident the urge to potty is strong you can take her outside or to the pad and encourage her to go. This gives you the time to have the treat ready and control the entire experience. Once you witness her making a potty on the pad or outside reward her with play time, time to run in the house. She should be given no unsupervised free time outside of the crate, if someone is not supervising her she should be in the crate. This keeps accidents to a minimum and builds the relationship you want with her. This is not to say leave her in the crate all the time, rather to spend as much time with her as you possibly can, but when you can't watch her don't let her roam...put her in her crate.

A couple of months of planned, consistent discipline will pay back a life time of good behavior.

My boy is almost 6mo old, and we use peanut butter baking chips broken into thirds as our special only-for-good-potties treats. They seem to be working really well so far! Lots of good info in the post just above mine... potty training these little ones can be rough, depending on their personality. Stay consistent and positive, and be prepared for it to take a lot longer than you ever thought it would. ;-) Do your best to make peeing in the right place something your pup REALLY wants to do for you - through praise, the most awesome treat in the world, play time afterward, etc. Good luck!!

Lauren & Nikko

Our vet advised us not to take Oscar outside until he'd hed his injections, so we spent a couple of weeks using training pads, disinfectant spray, and stain remover.

I'm no expert, but personally I wouldn't take a pup that hadn't had his injections anywhere that other dogs had access to.