We did it....my sister got a few dogs from her rescue and there was one cutie pie that my husband fell in love with. We believe him to be a colie/lab mix. What do you all think? We have had him a day now...she gave us everything we needed to get started. We are keeping him in the cage at night...but he seems to even go in during the day.

What's the best advice you can give to new dog owners with 2 small kids? I remember a friend years ago trained her dog to ring a bell when they had to go to the bathroom. I'd love to do that!! Any tips, advice and suggestions welcome. Here's a pic....what do you all think she is?

Her name is Lily....very calm and sweet natured. She likes to be held...and she really hasn't barked at all. Likes to play with a ball in the backyard.

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Lisa - Mommy to Elayna 10-1-02 and Daniel (Ds) 6-7-05
Always have hope....Without rain, there can be no rainbows.

Congrats, Lisa!! How fun!
I've been thinking it's a good time to get Aleena a puppy, too. The problem is, she doesn't want one!
Good luck with your new baby!

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Marlene, mommy to my precious Aleena (1/30/04)

Marlene, Daniel is with Aleena.....we took the dog home on a trial to see if Daniel would even tolerate her. He's been scared of dogs for awhile now. We call her baby dog...and while he doesn't love her.....he's OK around her. My daughter has been begging for quite some time. So, we told her my sister was letting us 'watch' the dog. We wanted to see how Daneil would react beause I don't want to bring a dog into this house if Daniel is afraid. While I can't say he is fully embracing her....he isn't afraid. He keeps telling us to put her back in her cage. He plays with her from a far. He'll throw her a ball 1/2 way across the yard. He was pretending to be a dog a little while ago calling himself Lily (totally cute).

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Lisa - Mommy to Elayna 10-1-02 and Daniel (Ds) 6-7-05
Always have hope....Without rain, there can be no rainbows.

What a sweet little face!

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Sue, Ally's mom (10/6/00 DS), and Aidan's mom (2/24/06)

I just popped on for a quick visit. I hardly have time to be here these days!

I have a page on my website about new puppies. You can find it here:
http://dandldoodles.com/preparingforapuppy/newpuppycare.html

You'll find they're a lot of work, just like a newborn, and age 6-18 months is THE hardest. (when they're canine teenagers.) But you can do it! It's just frustrating, and sometimes you need to count to 5,000 or something. LOL

Laying at my feet at the moment is 9 year old Rubee, 5 year old Dudley, 4 year old Zurri, 2 1/2 year old Roman, and 18 month old Bella. 10 doggie ears and eyes, 20 doggie legs, and 64 doggie toenails...and 4 tails to wag at me if I walk into the kitchen! It's also 4 dogs to protect me when Dean is out of town. (but only two who will sleep with me. LOL)

If you have any more questions you can post them here. Otherwise drop me a note. With school and stuff right now I've been too busy to do anything other than skim the posts quick.

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~Leah~

Did you visit my mom's blog today?
http://www.gardenofeagan.blogspot.com

And don't forget to visit MINE!
http://itsmylifemom.blogspot.com/

mom to Noah 23, Tyler 21, Angela 14 (DS)

I forgot to say that bell training is very easy! All of my dogs are bell trained, but Roman and Zurri are the only ones who ring the bell consistantly. The others will wait until one of those two ring the bell, then come get me to say, "Hey! They're ringing the bell, we should go out now!"

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~Leah~

Did you visit my mom's blog today?
http://www.gardenofeagan.blogspot.com

And don't forget to visit MINE!
http://itsmylifemom.blogspot.com/

mom to Noah 23, Tyler 21, Angela 14 (DS)

Our dogs have ALWAYS used bells to ask to go outside. The nicest part is that it's a lot quieter than barking, and it saves your door from scratches, too. As puppies, whenever we'd open the door (even if it was us taking trash out or something), we'd ring the bells. They seemed to pick up on it a lot faster because we did it, too.

Some people probably think we're mean, but our two big labs are kennel trained. And it's great! One of ours is about as brave as a lima bean, so when it starts to storm outside or something, he'll go in his "cave" for reprieve. He gets really clingy (and 100 pounds is A LOT of cling) if he's not in his box. But both of ours don't hesitate, at all, to go in, and usually will head down on their own when we start to pack up to leave. If your dog likes their box, I'd let them keep it!

Only other thing we did with our puppies to prepare them for kids was to pick on them. Unmercifully, sometimes (which, c'mon, how much fun can you get???), but it helped desensitize them so they weren't as touchy when a kid came around. We played with their feet, their lips, took away their food and bones... I tried to mimick behavior of kids to fool them out of thinking that they have any kind of personal space. The last thing I wanted was a dog that would snap at my kids!

She's so cute! And I can almost smell the puppy breath from here. Have fun with the little bundle of fluff!

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Aimee, Mom to Piper (5/11/09)
http://aimeesbowlofcherries.blogspot.com

She looks gorgeous!!! Talitha would love a puppy but we already have two dogs and I want our next dog to be trained as a therapy or assistance dog for Talitha so it will require some planning and careful choosing of the right dog. She has literally been surrounded by animals since she was born so is not nervous around them. Our sheep used to knock her over so she was a bit careful with him but otherwise she is great and helps me feed everything each morning.

Just remember that puppies chew everything so she needs plenty of stuff that is ok to chew. We taught one of our puppies to pee on command so we would take him outside and say 'do a wee' and he would. It was great if we were going out or taking him in the car. He would also stand at the door and whine if he needed to go out and bark if we ignored him for too long.

We also played with all our dogs - taking their food, pulling their ears, sticking out fingers up their noses, pulling tails - not hurting them but getting them used to being mauled so that they were kidproof. They have all been fantastic.

I love puppies

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Karyn
Mum to Nikki (Jul 89), Stefanie (Sep 96), Joel [June 98] and Talitha (DS) (Nov 05) AVSD/PDA repaired 23 March 06

"I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Marvelous are Your works, and that my soul knows very well." Psalm 139:14

Our dogs have ALWAYS used bells to ask to go outside. The nicest part is that it's a lot quieter than barking, and it saves your door from scratches, too. As puppies, whenever we'd open the door (even if it was us taking trash out or something), we'd ring the bells. They seemed to pick up on it a lot faster because we did it, too.

Some people probably think we're mean, but our two big labs are kennel trained. And it's great! One of ours is about as brave as a lima bean, so when it starts to storm outside or something, he'll go in his "cave" for reprieve. He gets really clingy (and 100 pounds is A LOT of cling) if he's not in his box. But both of ours don't hesitate, at all, to go in, and usually will head down on their own when we start to pack up to leave. If your dog likes their box, I'd let them keep it!

Only other thing we did with our puppies to prepare them for kids was to pick on them. Unmercifully, sometimes (which, c'mon, how much fun can you get???), but it helped desensitize them so they weren't as touchy when a kid came around. We played with their feet, their lips, took away their food and bones... I tried to mimick behavior of kids to fool them out of thinking that they have any kind of personal space. The last thing I wanted was a dog that would snap at my kids!

She's so cute! And I can almost smell the puppy breath from here. Have fun with the little bundle of fluff!

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Aimee, Mom to Piper (5/11/09)
http://aimeesbowlofcherries.blogspot.com

Aimee wrote:

She's so cute! And I can almost smell the puppy breath from here. Have fun with the little bundle of fluff!

That made me LOL because I love the smell of puppy breath... and I thought I was the only weirdo out there

I love this thread, we're looking into getting a puppy in the next 6 months or so, and although I have experience with dogs I don't have experience with training a puppy (all my dogs I got as a kid and were teenagerish rescues.) I love the bell idea!

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Anna

Mummy to Matilda (2005,) Philip (2007) and Teddy (DS, 10/2009)

Lisa...should I congratulate you on Lily's arrival in your family!

Dog are still on our agenda. Robert's friend Josh who has DS also just go an assisted trained dog called Doug. Robert met his last week at swimming and he loved him! He got so excited. I'm going to watch Robert with Doug over the summer too see if he is ready for a dog.
I'm thinking along the lines of a trained assisted dog as well.
Jury is still our here.


Good Luck with your new arrival.....may he bring such joy and few tears!

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Linda & John
mom to Hannah Kate (Age 12 ), Robert (Aged 6 - DS)


First day at school

Lily is a cutie! Good luck with the training! I love the bell ringing idea.

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Karen- Mum to the world's cutest baby!! Ben

Kennel training is absolutely the fastest way to potty train your dog! And it's NOT cruel! It uses the dogs natural cave instincts to train. IE Dogs are cave animals, and they keep their cave clean!

There are several ways to bell train, and different breeds learn it at different speeds (it's an intelligence thing.) The fastest way is to let the dog drive himself (I can write you a tutorial on this if you want.) which takes about 24 hours to train the dog and he'll be ringing the bell on his own.

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~Leah~

Did you visit my mom's blog today?
http://www.gardenofeagan.blogspot.com

And don't forget to visit MINE!
http://itsmylifemom.blogspot.com/

mom to Noah 23, Tyler 21, Angela 14 (DS)

Leah, I'd love to know how to get the dog to ring the bell. I have always been fascinated that my friend was able to do it...so now that we have one...I want my dog to do it as well .

We are off to a good start. She is SO cute and great with the kids. She just wants to run around outside...and loves when you rub her belly. She had alot of outside time today so it was pretty easy since she was outside. We praise her a ton when she pees or poops outside. And last night, Dan got up around 1am and she went outside...and other than that...she slept all night. First thing around 7am...he took her out again and she went.

So, I'm optimistic that this will all work out. I'm going to read through your website to make sure I don't do anything wrong. I want to enforce good habits right from the start.

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Lisa - Mommy to Elayna 10-1-02 and Daniel (Ds) 6-7-05
Always have hope....Without rain, there can be no rainbows.

Lisa,

She's adorable! When can I come over to see her? LOL!

Michelle

She is adorable!!

My advice, remember that something that might be cute as a puppy is not so cute when the dog is full grown. ex. My little sister had a dog that everytime the phone rang she would get up and run to her room to answer it. the dog would run and bark after her. Cute(sorta) when he was a puppy but it became an obsessive behaviour and everytime the phone rings the dog freaked out barking. My poor dad and step-mom would answer the phone "hello...shut up cobi!!! Hello?, I can't hear you, hold on, SHUT UP COBI!!!!" It was horrible.

Also, train her to poop in one place in the yard! Man! I wish I would have done that!!! Great Dane poop all over the back yard is no fun!!

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Keely
Mom to:
Audrey 9
Finnigan 6
Dorothy 3

What a cute dog, hope things are going well training her.
Katie