Socializing is vital to your puppy's overall lifelong wellbeing. If your puppy isn’t socialized until they're older, you could have many problems, whether with people or other animals. So you want to start whenever they're young. If you have animals in your home, socialize them like crazy with each other. If you have family members and friends that have otherwise healthy and vaccinated animals, invite them over. Or if you feel like you can take your puppy to their home and you’re not going to have any problems as far as safety, then do that as well. But once you start getting into taking them to the dog park or daycare, we want to make sure they're fully vaccinated before you do that.

Obedience training kind of varies. Some places have a one-on-one type of obedience training, and other places are more group. I don't usually recommend group classes just because you don't know what other puppies have been exposed to and things until after their complete vaccine series. If you want to go to obedience training, try to stick with one-on-one or have someone come to your home, but puppies definitely need to start learning as early as possible. And they are going to retain a lot of information as early as six weeks old. And so you want to start working with them pretty early on, and they can learn a little bit more, so the earlier, the better for puppies to learn. But we generally start obedience training towards the end of their booster series so that they are a bit more protected and more mature.

I try not to use the word punish. I do like to say; we want to do positive reinforcement. And so, instead of negatively punishing them for something they did wrong because they are not going to retain that very well, I try to positively reinforce behaviors that I do like. So if the puppy is doing something that you want them to do, or even if it's in the direction of what you want them to do, you want to praise that, whether that be with treats or even just telling them, they’re a good boy or girl. You’ll get a nice little tail wag because that shows that they are just so excited that they did something that made you happy.

Time and exercise, as puppies will just go and go and go. They're Energizer bunnies until they're not. And then they collapse and fall asleep for a couple of hours, but you want to work with them and get their mind going. It's more than just trying to have them exercise and run and play. You also want to be working with training. Puppies can start learning as early as just a few weeks old. And so, by training them, you're not only working their body, but you're also working their mind. And that can help calm them down and hopefully help your relationship and make you a lot closer.

Puppies are more playful than aggressive. It just may come across that way because they're growling, biting, chewing, and wrestling. And that's how they grew up playing with their littermates. And unfortunately, sometimes that comes off as aggressive to their owners, but mostly they’re just being puppies.

Puppies are a lot like babies. They're going to cry at night. And so that's, unfortunately, part of the responsibilities that do come along with a puppy. You want to figure out what they want—are they hungry? Do they need to go out and potty? Or are they just lonely? A lot of puppies come from a litter situation. They have been around their littermates, so this may be the first time they're alone. You need to replace that with a giant stuffed animal or having them in the room with you, something to make them feel more comfortable.

Puppies love to chew. That's why they make chew toys. We talk a lot about how your hand becomes a chew toy, and that's not ideal. Biting and playing are pretty normal, but some puppies can become a little too aggressive with it. So if you're feeling like they are doing a little too much growling or are forceful with their biting, and it's not just whenever they are excited or playful, reach out to us. It may not be quite so normal. And we might need to try and correct it.

That varies based on the veterinarian that you're working with. It also varies based on how big your puppy is and what the breed is because, for some of them, we want to wait until later on to spay or neuter them for their overall joint health.

Cal here is a Dane, and so we usually wait until a little bit later down the road to get him neutered just because, as you can see, he's only a little over a year old. He's a big boy, so he's going to grow much more than what your Chihuahua would. And so, we want to make sure that we are offsetting that and making sure they have plenty of hormones in there to help with that growth.

Usually, the earliest we will spay or neuter is six months, but that's very variable. And that's why it's great to have a one-on-one relationship with your veterinarian to talk about your puppy. And that way, you can time it and see what's healthiest for your puppy.

Your puppy will need to come in for their booster series. A booster series is several different vaccines; generally, they're known as parvo vaccines or distemper parvo vaccines. Those are going to be something that we give about every three weeks. And so, during that period, usually that's from about 6, 9, 12, and 15 weeks old, they're going to be getting vaccines each of those times. And then after that, it's yearly unless they're coming in for spay/neuter or getting a weight check or anything along those lines.