Chihuahua pup coming home on Monday!

[newjerseyp]

Our chihuahua pup is coming home on Monday. We are so excited. It's just me and my 9 year old and two 2 year old cats in the house.

I've never owned a dog so feeling a little anxious. However, have done loads of research and decided this was the best fit for our family.

Just looking for some tips to help her settle in. I'm planning on crate training her and will have the crate in my bedroom overnight. Going to set my alarm for 12am, 2am, 4am, 6am to take her out for the toilet. Also got a set schedule and will start training straight away.

Will have blanket with her mums scent on her and have a little microwave beatable teddy for her at night.

Any more tips to help her settle in? Also any experience on how to introduce her and the cats?

Cats are very lovely and very chill but you never know!

Aw, how exciting! I can't imagine how tiny and cute she will be.

YABU - no pic!!

Bella 💕

Bella 💕

My Chihuahuas are such a joy. Intelligent, funny, loyal, clever, loving.

Just resist the urge to over feed & over treat no matter what. A slim Chi is so much healthier. And spend the $$ for routine teeth cleaning as bad teeth can affect their heart.

Mine sleeps with me FWIW.

Awwww Bella is gorgeous 😍

She's adorable 😍 enjoy!

Aww so cute! Sounds like you have a good plan in plac
I’d just say don’t worry about being to rigid in routine as some dogs are then a pain if you have to deviate from it.

i really loved the easy peasy puppy squeezy book

Such a cute little girl. Chihuahuas are such lovely feisty little dogs.

Sounds like you've got all the basis covered OP to help her settle in well.

Start her training from the word go. Chihuahuas are smart little dog and will enjoy learning.

As far as the cats go, everything must be on the cats' terms so they don't feel pushed out of their territory.

Make sure they have plenty of high places to go that Bella can't get to especially when the cats eat. And make sure Bella never has access to their food as she will wolf down every scrap given half the chance.

Introduce them on the cats' terms and have Bella on a lead until you're happy that everyone is calm and no biting, scratching or overly enthusiastic chasing is likely to happen.

And very importantly (imo) if your cats have litter trays put them somewhere Bella can't access them as she WILL each their poo and it WILL make you heave.

When I got my puppy (a small breed but not a chihuahua) eleven years ago I had two 17 year old cats, also very chilled. Introductions when swimmingly and they accepted the new puppy immediately. I think it probably helped that the puppy was a lot smaller than they were.

Good luck.

*she WILL eat their poo, that should be, not each

Start socialisation right away. That doesn’t mean meeting every dog and person but it does mean seeing and learning to ignore. be really careful about developing small dog syndrome so maybe lots of nice calm encounters.
id take to decent training classes- lots of people don’t bother with little dogs because they are so easy to pick up if there’s a problem-but that can lead to them getting frustrated as they lack control over their own actions and responses

Make sure your security is good.I have a customer with luckily a large garden .His dog runs round it at high speed, I couldn't believe how fast he was going,he nearly shot out of the front gate once.Also about ten years ago I found one off down the pavement.I picked him up asked a house close by ,they told me who owned it so I left a note and she picked him up later.

Yes, this is so important.

Training, good manners and socialisation is just as important for a small dog as it is for any other dog.

Even before she can go on the ground you can take her places - obviously carrying in this instance - to make sure she has (positive) experiences of things that she'll encounter in the future, things like traffic and being in the streets and seeing other people.

Don't overwhelm her though, take it very gently and slowly so that, as SarahSissions she learns to deal with things calmly and by ignoring most of them.

I would also second the not picking up, obviously, once she's allowed on the ground.

Even though she small she needs to build the confidence to deal with passing dogs, and all the other things she'll meet, at her own level in exactly the same way any big dog would.

Just to add, my Chi loved agility training. It was a mild fun course, not competitive, but he got so excited when i asked if he wanted to "go to school."

Can I ask is it worthwhile getting two crates and two beds. One for my living room and one for my bedroom or is one enough and just carry it up and down? Also should I get small or medium cage? Is it better for them to have extra room or to be snug?

Getting two crates probably isn't necessary but obviously, it's what suits you. No reason why not if you want.

My dog was crate trained - you do have to train them unless the breeder has done it for you - I had one crate that I kept downstairs. My dog only used it occasional and we stop using it at about 6 months.

A lot of people keep the crate quite small so dog doesn't have a lot of room to roam as it's believed that that way the puppy is less likely to toilet in it and therefore house training will be achieved sooner.

I never liked that idea. I didn't want her confined in a small space so she had quite a large crate. She house trained really quickly and never ever toileted in her crate, even overnight. Having said that the breeder had already made a good start on house training even by 8 weeks.