Hi,
I have a ten week old puppy. As I've posted on the bio and pic page I made the wrong decisions when I got her, but I lucked so far as she's proven a very good puppy. She was crate trained right away and took to her crate very easily because she was so young. She was probably about 4 1/2 5 weeks old when I got her, even though the "breeder" said she was six weeks. I fed her puppy formula and science diet soft food, then changed to science diet soft food mixed with the SC hard food but stirred the puppy formula mix into the soft food. Now she just gets hard food. She had worms very badly and I had that taken care of as well as shots once I felt she was 6 weeks old. The vet said she was very healthy otherwise and no hip or knee problems that they could tell so far anyway. She is very very smart, she has been letting know everytime she has to go out for about a week and a half now. Goes to the door and jumps up and down and barks and whines till we take her. We have a schedule at night, she goes down right before I go to bed and she wakes me up at 7:30 am again to go. I'm amazed really at how good she is at the house training, maybe it's because when I first got her I took her downstairs every 15 minutes if she wasn't in her crate! I do have some questions about her I could use some feedback on. I have a cat and a kitten (about 5 months) the kitten (Kalhua) and Tehya (the puppy) became fast friends and they play whenever they can (the puppy does not usually growl, I've never heard her sound aggressive with the cats) (The older cat has her under control). Now Tehya is getting bigger though and I worry if I should let them play still. The puppy can now take down the kitten no prob, this wasn't the case 2 or 3 weeks ago. As I've said the puppy doesn't growl aggressively and if the kitten ever makes a whine I immediately make sure Tehya stops. I'm worried one day maybe Tehya might get too big and too rough and hurt the kitten. Any thoughts on this?
I can't really think of any other behavioral problems except that she got a bit defensive with my mom and sister in law. My mom takes care of her all day and told me that when she tried to take the phone cord away from Tehya, the puppy was barking at her and growling. My sister in law said she tried to take one of my nephews stuffed animals away from her (the puppies toys at home are some stuffed animals) and the puppy barked ang growled at her. She hasn't done this with me. But she has freaked out when I take her by her collar (not in a mean of correcting way) but I immediately correct this with a shake and a NO. She calms down. I think she may be a kind of dominant dog. Even so I believe she responds better to softer correction as she freaks out when I give her a hard correction. I've stopped shaking her by her scruff and just pinch it, she responds to that much better and stops what she's doing. Is it possible to have a dominant female who takes soft corrections?? Anyway any thoughts are welcome.

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I have a bitch like this, and it was illustrated for me very well a few weeks ago. She acts like a real bad you know what with the other dogs, and will growl at me when I groom parts of her. She has never gone to bite me. Recently, I did a strong correction (scruffed her) and she let some urine go. She was clearly fearful. So, since then, I have melded the correction to her, think she is a bad you know what, but isn't, so the correction is less severe. Basically, when she starts in with the other dogs, I get up,tell her to leave it, stand in her face, and either she lays down, and everts her eyes, or, she keeps on, and is put in her crate. It has worked well.
Julie

I think she is young and testing everyone around her including your other pets, finding her place in the pack. It's important that all the humans that interact with her correct her in the same manner, not too harshly because you don't want to break her spirit, but firm enough that she understands who's the boss. Remember she is just a pup and is acting on her dog instincts, she has to be taught how to interact with humans and cats.

Everyone must be on the same page with obedience and behavior corrections. If she is handled differently by each person, she will be confused and you are not going to get the responsive dog you hope for. If the family members can't follow the rules you set up, then they shouldn't be handling/interacting with the pup.

As far as the interaction with the cats, from what I'm getting from your post. She enjoys the play and the cats don't seem to mind. This could turn out to be great relationships, but if she is getting too rough, you need to teach her what the limits are.

Maybe you should purchase the puppy DVD, I'm sure you will find a lot of valuable info. Increase her exercise and take her out, she needs to start seeing the world. This will help exercise her mind and give you a good idea of how dominant/confident she is. But also help big time with socializing.

Just my 2 cents.