My name is Will and i am the new proud owner of a PitBull/Boxer mix puppy.
About me:
I currently reside in West Los Angeles and have a nice big apartment with a huge patio. I live with my fiance Keely and we have been wanting a pup for a very long time. We have our own small business in Insurance & Asset Management (Auto, Home & Life insurance / Emergency funds, IRA's, Money Market & Mutual Funds) and I also work for a State Farm agent in Culver City. I am 27 years young and have been heavily involved in the dj community. I am a part of djforums.com and have been in the industry fover over 10 years. Its my passion and i have done many projects such as integration of MIDI from OSC (Using devices such as iPads to communicate with Dj and music production software) and currently host events in Downtown LA that are all Electronic Music oriented.
The Space:
Our apartment is about 800 square feet and very warm and cozy. We have a massive patio thats almost 500 Square feet in itself... Maybe a bit more. I have installed a 6 foot wide by 6 foot long pet turf space for Bruno to be able to have a little slice of the park at home. This is to help him with his potty training and a nice space to lay when he feels like going outside. I bought him a huge cage that came with a seperator so for now we have him in about a little less than half the space of the cage for sleeping and him living while we cant keep an eye on him. As he grows we will open up the cage space for him.
Bruno:
Bruno is about 9 weeks old and we start his first set of shots today. He was adopted this past Friday (01/18) and his mom was a pitbull and his father was a boxer. He is brindle with white on his chest, a black mask and a little white on his paws. He is such a lover! He loves running around and giving us kisses and playing. He was not really liking the cage at first and thought we might have to remove him. We did not want to let him out after he started to whine as we didnt want him thinking that behavior was to be rewarded. He calmed down and seems to be doing just fine. We have been socializing him with many of our good friends and we are just waiting for his shots to take him out and let him play with other dogs.
Special Notes:
We noticed that sometimes he is breathing very rapidly when he sleeps but only at various times. Not sure if its normal but he does not show any indication of being sick. He had a firm stool when we brought him home but it has became a bit loose. We think its the switch from whatever they were feeding the puppies to the stuff we feed him now which is higher quality puppy food. The stool seems to be hardening though, i think its just the initial shock and stress of rehoming and what not.
Today was his first time alone in his cage. Because of our schedules we cant be home with him 24/7 but my office is so close that i have a nice schedule worked out. I take him out in the morning and play with him and then he goes back into the cage. I leave at about 845 in the morning and i return at 11 am to let him out and play and do his business. I return at 1 PM and again at 3 PM to let him walk around and do his business.
When he has an accident in the home i give him a little tap on the butt and give a firm NO but i dont strike him and i dont yell at him. The pat is more of an attention getter as i heard boxers can be sort of air heads haha. I would never strike my pup. After that we put him outside on the fake grass for a bit and then bring him inside after about 5 - 10 minutes.
Also when he starts biting our carpet or something i do the same.
I currently feed him a half cup of kibble in the morning and one cup at 1 PM and one cup at around 5:30 when were both hime. For his size i found he should be fed around 2 1/2 cups a day. It says after 8 weeks to feed him only twice a day but i think the half cup in the morning is nice to get something in his belly for the early morning.
That is pretty much it! All comments and suggestions are welcome. Bruno is not our first dog so we have experience with pups before, although it was not the same breed. I hope we are taking the correct steps into raising our newst addition to the family.
Thank you guys for your time
-Will
care of him.
