# (Over-) Excited New Puppy Parents



## MindyRaeRiley (Feb 13, 2014)

Warning: The following is from a puppy-love-crazed, long-winded new parent whose friends are all tired of hearing about the new puppy but who just won't shut up found a forum with unlimited characters to post!! Haha! ;D

Hello all! We, my husband Dustin and I, just got our first puppy - obviously a Vizsla - Kaywinett Lee Frye, or Kaylee for short (any Firefly fans out there?). She's our first dog to go along with our first house! Yay! She came with AMAZING pedigree from Gary Carpenter of Sunrise Vizslas in Michigan and are so very happy with her. Despite some occasional brattiness, she is an excellent puppy who is smart, loving and playful. You can just tell that she wants to love us and make us happy. 

I do feel like a new parent who sees all kinds of potential in my baby. I have always wanted to do agility trails, but she's so pretty and she walks so nicely beside me (most of the time) that I want to do shows. And in the less than 2 weeks that we've had her, we've seen so much hunting/pointing potential that it almost seems like a waste not to train those instincts. She's also so sweet, gentle, and sensitive, even as a puppy, and she responded so well to my husband's wheelchair and walker (from a recent accident) that there seems to be therapy potential, too. Of course she's still only 10 weeks old, so there's time to think about what best fits her personality, but right now I just feel like she could be a doctor, a lawyer or even the President of the doggie world someday. Why limit her? She do all three because my baby girl is just that awesome! Okay, sorry, taking the parent analogy a little to far there... 

Things are going well. She's taken to crate training really well - we've been doing both crate and expen. We've had what I think should be considered "few" piddle accidents. She's got some of the basics down - except for "down". She sits beautifully but there is no coaxing or even positioning her into a "down" without her rolling onto her belly to be petted - but we're still on informal training since she's so young so it's fine, just odd to me. Both Dustin and I are being challenged to create new toys for her. We bought some, but they get expensive fast, so we've made a new toy or game everyday (being off of work is nice for puppy-bonding time! so sad it won't last forever...). And when she does get me to that point of frustration about whatever that's totally just a puppy thing, I pick her up, snuggle her, and tell her I love her - it's working pretty well. 

One of the questions I would pose to all of you is: how scared should I be of taking her out? My vet pretty much said to stay home until she's 5 months or visit people's whose dogs you know are safe. She warned me about a problem in the area (Southern California) with Parvo, which sounds like an awful, terrible disease from all I have read about it. Unfortunately, I don't know many people with dogs, and I don't want her to miss out on socialization. I even asked specifically about the puppy classes at local pet stores, and the vet said it wasn't a good idea because you don't know kind dogs have been through there. Thankfully, we have a big enough back yard (with a 5’ cinderblock fence) that she has enough space to run around just fine, but…

Oh, another one came to mind: is grass and bark chewing something to stop or ignore? She is not a big chewer. We make sure she has plenty of chewing approved toys (we have actually started carrying little nylabones in our pockets to replace “bad” chewing items), and she’s catching on real fast to what she’s not allowed to chew on; however, as soon as we get outside she chews on everything. She chews on grass (she loves pulling up the crab grass runners), stones, old snail shells, and most especially the bark from the pepper tree in our back yard. I’ve started spraying her potty area with Bitter Apple so she’ll focus on pottying rather than playing with/munching on grass, or recently, the dwarf lime tree leaves. I want to ignore it for fear that she’s using it as an attention getting ploy, but I don’t want to her get sick or hurt herself. We're working away from the Purina ProPlan that she had been eating and working towards Taste of the Wild. We don’t do a lot of treats, preferring the praise-based training (a much longer road), but when we do feel like being nice, we treat with chunks of carrot.

It’s nice to meet you all. I’m sure we’ll be talking a lot over the next 10-20 years. We are in your much more experienced care, please help guide us to be the best puppy-parents possible.


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## MeandMy3 (Feb 27, 2013)

Welcome to the Forum! Pictures are a must! 

I started each of my three dogs in puppy kindergarten at 10 weeks. The school I took them to sanitized the floor between each class. I believe all of the puppy shots were done by 16 weeks. You can take your girl places, but be very careful. In order to socialize our girls, I would carry them through the stores, let people pet them, but I never let them walk on the floors. I figured this was a win/win. I got to show off my cute puppies, they each got some socialization, used to the car, etc... 

If you decide to take the agility path, please check with your vet to see what he/she recommends for an appropriate age to start training. Our schools here discourage training under 18 months of age due to joint growth. 

A very easy homemade toy is a muffin tin and tennis balls. You then put treats in random wells of the tin and cover all of the wells up with tennis balls. The pup has to figure out which well has treats in it. Another fun one is a cake pan full of balls - those plastic ones you can buy to fill a ball pit. Put the balls in the cake pan and put a couple of treats in the bottom of the pan and let your pup look for the treats. 

I would discourage ALL chewing except for what you deem appropriate. I try to discourage all outside chewing because I don't want them chewing on something I miss if they are running in the woods or at the lake. 

Enjoy the puppy stage now for soon it will be replaced with the "teen years".  

Another Mindy


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## MindyRaeRiley (Feb 13, 2014)

Pictures... that might be a problem... I have so many to choose from, and then there are the videos... 

Haha! Yeah, we were taking some pictures and vids with our phones and it just wasn't cutting it so now the expensive DSRL is sitting on the table within easy reach.

Awake (Feb 1st)...









Asleep (Feb 1st)...









You took my toy! (Feb 12nd)


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## MilesMom (Jun 21, 2012)

Where are you in So Cal? We live in San Diego. 

Congrats on your new cutie!


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## MindyRaeRiley (Feb 13, 2014)

We live in Rialto (think San Bernardino/Riverside area). After we got Kaylee from Michigan, we found out that one of the ladies who works at the vet here breeds Vizslas, and the vet wants one herself. Maybe there's an up-and-coming Vizsla micro-community developing out here


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## MilesMom (Jun 21, 2012)

They are the best. We have 2 now ;D


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## einspänner (Sep 8, 2012)

Congratulations and I love Firefly! If she's anything like her namesake, you'll start seeing the spitfire personality overtake her sweet side. 


I don't know your area and it may be the case that there is a high risk of parvo, but socialization is very important. There's a lot you can do without exposing her to other dogs. Carry her through public places, put her in a shopping cart and wheel her around the hardware store. After her second round of shots, you should still be cautious, but starting an obedience class with other vaccinated puppies is safe. 

She's a cutie! Enjoy her. 

P.S. I'd definitely vote for her if she runs for puppy president.


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