Hello from Texas

[allim]

Hey everyone!

My name is Allison. I'm a married 28 year old mother of a girl and boy. We live in a town just a little south of Dallas, tx called Red Oak. I just got my first pit over the weekend she's a georgous little girl an after only a few days I'm already in love. I took her to the vet this morning who informed me she's happy and healthy but he suspects she's only about 4 weeks old. Surprisingly I found out my vet is a local pit bull advocate. Something he's never really talked about with me until today. When asking him about training, care etc he said find a forum to help get local referrals and help me learn as much as possible. That has led me to this forum! I will probably read/lurk more than anything but I will still be here.

So other than my new found love Izzie we have a chihuaha/Boston terrier mix name Spike, and two cats Peanut and Butterz. My husband is a diesel mechanic for International and I work in the service office...poor guy, not only am I his boss at home but I'm his boss at work too! For hobbies we enjoy diesel trucks, four wheelers and after just recently buying our first home we also spend most weekends fruit to make it "ours". The house has Really seemed to take over most other things in our life right now. As I'm sitting her tryingg to think of what we do on the weekends all I can think of is "well we went to home depot last weekend, the greenery the weekend before and worked in the yard before that!" someday we may have our life back or maybe this is just what getting old is like?!?

[Curly_07]

Welcome! There are tons of info here to help you out. I'm overly thrilled that your vet is an advocate and suggested you look for a good forum to help educate you! Did he mention that the pup was too young to be away from the mother and siblings? Where ever you got the pup (I'm assuming a BYB for obvious reasons), is it possible to return it to the litter and mom until its atleast 8 weeks? Also, its illegal to sale/home pups under 8 weeks unless there is a medical reason, so if they won't keep them together until 8 weeks you should report them. Be prepared for a bumpy road. Start reading the threads on training and bite inhibition now. You will have many behavioral issues to come from this that will need to be addressed.

Good luck to you, and please stick around!

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[allim]

The lady I got her from is still claiming they are 8 weeks. Vet said it's impossible unless she was the runt but all of the puppies left were the same size but there was a few that had been sold already. He did say I would have to work on her socialization a lot and advised me to look into getting somebooks or videos from Cesar to start with. He didnt want to start her vaccinations until she was atleast 6-7 weeks so he said to wait on getting her out until then.

[AllisonPibbleLvr]

Welcome Allison! I'm Allison too.

Don't listen to a word your vet says regarding behavior. If he's a fan of Cesar, he's still living in the dark ages as far as that's concerned.

Yes, your pup will need massive socialization but it will need to be positive and rewarding, not corrective and confrontational.

Stick around, you'll learn a ton!

[allim]

I havent really had time to even look at anything on Cesar so don't really know much about him or his he works. I ha already intended to use a positive Reinforcement. I'm assuming from your post that Cesar does not use that method. I asked the vet from some recommendations on local trainers but he said a lot of them tend to come around then slowly disappear. He did advise that when she's about 10 weeks old to take he to pets mart to the puppy class just to get her basics started. Though he advised he wouldn't use pets mart for much more than basics. He said that while one day I may get an amazing trainer that loves his/her job the next time could be someone that's just their for a pay check. I have a million questions running through my mind haha. I suppose I will start a new thread in the next day or so once I get approval to post!

[AllisonPibbleLvr]

That's definitely true on all fronts. Cesar uses outdated and disproven "dominance" theory and it's true, some petsmart trainers are great and others are not.

[Leslie H]

Welcome