[Saint Joe]

Hey all,

We're acquiring (on a trial basis first) a very small Bichon Poo mix (toy poodle) from my in-laws. My main concern is getting off to a good start. The dog has long been house trained and has a great temperament, but this will of course be a new house with new people. Do I need to retrain him with a crate as far as potty needs and sleeping, or do we just go with the flow since he's not a puppy anymore? I'm totally ignorant of these things...

Thanks,
Aaron

 

[mcdavis]

How old is the dog? Have you had much contact with it? We had spent a reasonable amount of time with Hamish from him being a puppy before he came to live with us (which was after my parents passed away) and he adapted very quickly / no retraining required - he was 8 years old at the time, and we spent 2 weeks with him at his original home before the move.

 

[Saint Joe]

We're actually not positive how old he is. We just acquired him when my wife's grandfather passed and he was a stray prior to that. The guess is that he's about 5 years old or so, but we really don't know. He was really babied by her grandfather/grandmother...carried around constantly, slept in bed with them, etc. They had him for a couple years I think.

 

[Shell]

I go with a kind of middle ground with the adult fosters.
The first couple days, I either crate them or if they seem calm enough, have them stay in the "dog room" (just a finished porch with an old couch and nothing really to destroy or hurt themselves with. For a small dog, an ex-pen would work well (in the kitchen or a room with tiled floors)
I do extra potty breaks when I am home for them and start getting them on my schedule with feedings and such.
Then, if they're behaving, they can stay loose at night. Because I always keep the dogs separate when I am gone, the fosters continue to stay in the dog room but if your dog will be an only pet, you could leave him loose if he's behaving himself after a week or so.
Try a test run of him being loose, start with just 15 minutes while you go in the yard and then an hour or so, then a half day and then a work day.

 

[Amaryllis]

I did what shell does when I got kabota. Lots of potty breaks, lots of supervision until I saw that he was trustworthy. It's not unusual for a house trained dog to have accidents in a new home, but retraining is easy.

Definitely don't carry him around, but sleeping in bed is up to you. A lot of us allow it, a lot don't. It doesn't have any bearing on behavior or training.