We have a new arrival, a thirteen week old chihuahua pup. She has settled really well and bonded beautifully with our giant house rabbit, from day one he has slept outside the puppy pen, washed her, played with her and is very protective.
Toilet training is going ok I think, I've owned dogs before but they were all rescue dogs so arrived fully trained. I take her out every 30 minutes if she is awake, on waking from a sleep and after eating. She has a bladder about as big as an eggcup so she is still using a puppy pad inside her pen.
She has a crate in her pen where she takes every single toy, bone, treats etc is this normal?
Most of the ground floor of our house is open plan so if I'm not close to her I shut her in. She happily plays in our secure garden as long as the weather is nice, if it's raining she point blank refuses to go out, I've tried a coat, on the lead, off the lead and carrying her to the bottom of the garden, she will just sit and shiver and then wee on either the doormat or her puppy pad when she gets in.
I'm also not getting up to take her out during the night, the reason being that I'm critically ill and use a wheelchair and at night I'm attached to a ventilator, getting up would take me over an hour, I would need to be detached from numerous pieces of equipment and then reconnected again on going back to bed.
She can't go out on proper walks yet as she's only just had her second inoculations.
The other decision I need to make is whether to insure her or not, I'd really appreciate people's views on this. I've kept rabbits for over thirty years and never taken out insurance, as a result I've saved thousands in premiums.