Adopted December 2007: Renton

1/10/08, adopter writes:

"We decided to change Autumn's name to Haley. The first week, lets see... the kennel we first purchased was a fancy nylon stowable unit. Although we read online, you shouldn't give a puppy too much space when you're crate training, we bought one which would be something she could use as an adult as well. Now of course, this type of kennel wasn't built to have the adjustable gate for the inside. Well, she pooped in it the first two nights. On the third night, she chewed a hole through the sidewall and got out. I woke up to go check on her and she was hanging out on the couch! After that fiasco (lol), we purchased a metal kennel with the adjustable gate! All is well now. No nightly jailbreaks. She's on her way to being house broken and I'm excited for that because I feel horrible leaving her in the kennel at night, playing with her for about 45 mins in the morning then putting her in her kennel again so we can all go to work. During the day, she has no accidents inside and the first thing I do when I get home is get her, hold her and take her outside. She's doing well with this and when she gets a little bigger, I'll start bringing her to work with me.

Our son is 4 and he's so excited to have her in our family. She's a little frisky (nipping but not hard) at times but this is a puppy so I expected that. All in all, we are still very excited about her and my wife adores her!"

Ah, puppy training -- it's a good thing they are so darn CUTE!

Here is a great article we shared with the adopter; it's about puppy nipping, a habit that must be stopped while they are young! You can find lots of puppy training tips online.