New Puppy @ Home

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Well, there is the pitter patter of little feet. I now have a 7 week old Pit Bull puppy mix. Picked it up last thursday and it has to be the most affectionate puppy I have ever seen. Got it from the SPCA, it was abandoned (mother and 2 other puppies as well). Named it Tank. :slight_smile:

I was told to make sure LOTS of kids and people play with the puppy so it gets used to that. There are two cats in the house, so I know it will learn to deal with those in a nice way.

Any other suggestions?

I don’t need to hear the “Oh My Gawd - A Pit Bull?!?!?!” Everyone that I have talked to that has actually owned or worked with them all say they are great dogs.

This little sucker already shows very strong jaws, but is not trying to be mean. Just has to learn is all.

It handled the vet yesterday incredibly well. Got the de-worm stuff and, I have to be honest here, it handled the stick up the rear for the stool sample a WHOLE lot better than I would have…

2

Aaaawwww. A new puppy! I’ve never met a PB or AmStaff that wasn’t a total sweetie. Contrary to popular belief, a well-bred American Pitt Bull Terrier is one of the most human-friendly dogs out there. Some of course are dog-aggressive, but some aren’t. It seems like PBs are less in the media spotlight now; lately the demon dog according to the media is the Rottie. My friends have 4 rescue Rotties and each of them is a total sweetie.

7 weeks is a great age - he’s probably smaller than the cats, right? That will work to your advantage. When I brought my Elkhound puppy into the house, he was a little smaller than my cats, and they made it clear to him that he was at the bottom of the pack. They’ll probably end up being buddies.

I don’t have kids, but lots of nieces and nephews, and lots of neighbor kids. When Gizmo was just a puppy, I carefully supervised all interaction with kids - he was a little shy and I didn’t want him to be overwhelmed. So I only let one neighborhood kid come up to him at a time, and I made sure he never had a bad experience with a kid. Gizmo is 6 now, and every time he sees a kid he just wants to play with them.

http://www.k9web.com is a great resource for all things doggie-related.

Good Luck :slight_smile:

3

Tank? What a cool name! :slight_smile: Pit Bull’s are nice dogs. Protective, but very gentle. Good luck with him.

4

Congrats on your little bundle of joy! I firmly believe that owners have more to do with bad behavior in dogs than a breed or line.

If you plan to potty train, don’t paper train first. Paper training trains the puppy to pee in the house, not the yard. It will be hard to break this habit later. We took our puppy out every hour or two (day & night- but you’ll get used to it)to the place we wanted him to go. Then we waited until he went- not long with a puppy. Then lots of praise & back in the house. Before we knew it he was housetrained, with just the occasional accident in the house.

Have fun! You called Tank “it”- is Tank a boy or a girl?

5

I thought that this was going to be about a bestiality website.

6

Tank is a boy.

He is already paper trained. Seems the SPCA inadvertantly taught him that, or he just figured it out.

Hardwood floors in the house, yet he will walk all around until he finds the throw carpet or a magazine on the foor and go right on it.

Until he is better trained he is in a crate while at work. And today his cage was clean and he did his duty on the lunch walk.

He is a smart dog and wants to play with the cats. I am suprised they have not kicked his ass yet (his goal is thier tails) but they actually seem to be humoring him.

CandyMan

7

Congratulations, CandyMan!

Pitbulls can be great dogs, particularly PB mixes.

BUT you do need to be careful about a few things.

First, definitely socialize him well as a puppy. That means introduce him to LOTS AND LOTS of people and dogs and places and new things. Take him with you any time that you can, especially to places where he’ll get a lot of attention and interest. The point is to get him used to as many different places & things as possible so that he doesn’t react aggressively later.

Especially watch his interactions with other dogs. Many PBs, even when well socialized as puppies, end up being very aggressive towards other dogs. (They were, after all, bred for generations to fight other dogs.) You can hopefully minimize this by ensuring that his early experiences with dogs are good.

Second, start training early. PBs tend to be very stubborn. They are also VERY strong and have beaucoup neck muscles, making corrections difficult. If you wait until six months to start basic obedience training, you’ll be sorry! (The same goes for Rotties, BTW.) Either find a puppy class or find some good books and start basic obedience training right away. You can only work with small puppies for a few minutes at a time - no more than 5 minutes at once MAX - but they can easily learn the basics (sit, stand, down, come). The real point, however, is to build good habits and teach them that YOU’RE THE BOSS while they’re still puppies and fairly submissive.

Third, maintain dominance. PBs tend to be very assertive and owners often don’t know how to handle them. When they think they run things is when they usually turn aggressive and mean. All of the well-behaved PBs I’ve known were quite sure that their human was Alpha in the pack. Makes them feel safe and secure, which usually means a nice, gentle dog. If you start now, while he’s a puppy, you won’t have the battles later.

<Bad owners who spoil perfectly good dogs are one of my pet peeves!!! GRRRR!!!>

8

I have a dog that needs a firm alpha hand also. These links are from a German Pinscher site, but they are great for any kind of dog. The one called “How Dogs Think” was the most helpfull to me.
How Dogs Think
http://www.homevet.com/petcare/dogthink.html

housetraining
http://www.canismajor.com/dog/hsetrain.html

puppy chewing
http://www.canismajor.com/dog/pupbite1.html

Movie Dog Tricks
http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/Loge/4844/TRICKS.HTML

Top Dog Training School
http://www.volhard.com/

Hopefully these are some help to you.

9

Do be cautious bringing Tank around other dogs. His immune system isn’t up to par and one or two vaccines won’t protect him from diseases. Pits are one of the breeds most likely to pick up parvo (although ANY puppy can get this disease, dobies, rotts, pits and labs are the most common).

10

Everyone else gave you the good advice before I got here!

We adopted an 8 week old Border Collie cross pup back in January (that’s another “challenging” breed). We got him into puppy training as soon as he had all his shots and the vet said it was okay. We shelled out a fair amount of money for a good training center, but it was worth every dime. I got the name of our trainer by asking the vet, friends with dogs, people at the kids’ school, and anyone I saw with a well-behaved dog.

Even though our puppy is 10 months old now, he still checks to see if maybe he can’t be the alpha in the pack, but it’s down to about once a week instead of daily. Don’t be afraid to discipline your dog (“discipline” does not mean “beat,” but you’re supposed to be dominant). We had to resort to one of those nasty-looking prong collars for training before ours would truly listen to us, but he now sits, lies down, stays, and heels pretty well most of the time. The training especially helped socialize him to other dogs, since he’s our only one.

The other thing I’ve noticed is that he’s much better behaved if he has a rawhide to chew on when he’s supposed to be staying or being calm indoors. It seems to really calm him when he’s excited about coming inside (which is every single time he comes through the door even though he spends about half the day inside). Do be careful, though. My brother-in-law gave his dog too many rawhides and hard plastic chew toys and she wore her teeth down pretty seriously.

I must add that every pit bull and pit bull cross I’ve actually known has been a lovely, well-tempered animal who adores its people. Congratulations on the arrival of the newest member of your family, and kudos for saving an abandoned animal instead of supporting a puppy mill!