Our new puppy

[Kaylei's mom]

Well as of last night we are the proud owners of a 6 week old female half rottweiler half australian shepherd. She's gorgeous and very playful. She is in love with her new big sister who is an 8 month old Golden Retriever. My question is this...does anyone have any idea how big she is going to get? I don't mind large dogs...just am kind of curious.

[rottielover2004]

hi welcome to the forum. Is there anyway you can return her to her mother for at least another 2 weeks. Way to young to be apart. As for size, she could be around 4olbs or as much as 80lbs, very hard to tell with a mix. Love her for who she is. But if you can not return her, you will have a heck of alot of work ahead of you. good luck

[Sharon Marples]

As the last post mentioned, 6 weeks is way too young for this pup to be away from its siblings. Maybe you can return her for another week or two to the breeder?

It sounds as if she is the result of an accidental breeding and the breeder might not know that puppies need to stay with their siblings for at least 7 - 8 weeks. They learn so much more in terms of playing the alpha role, biting, etc. It would be to your best interest to see if she can go back for at least a week to ten days.

Also, look in the polls section and read the post about raising two puppies together. You can also do a search of the archives here about raising two puppies. You are going to have a ton of work ahead of you with raising two of them properly and socially. They both need to be separated from each other for the main portion of the day, they need to learn to respect you and not look to each other for their guidance, etc. Please read all of the threads on ths subject and prepare yourself for the work ahead.

Good luck. Keep asking lots of questions too!

[Kaylei's mom]

There is no mom to return her to she was abandoned. She's been hand raised by the mother dog's owner's daughter. No siblings just her. I spent most of last night up with her, but today she is not so whiney. She even is starting to come when we call her name.

[rottielover2004]

does she have all her shots to date? has she been dewormed? has she seen a vet ? I do not understand, you know the owner of the mom, she left her, explain..

[Sharon Marples]

That's too bad, and because there were no siblings, you will have your hands even fuller. A singleton pup carries their own baggage of never having to interact with other dogs, etc. from day one. Be sure you read up on singleton puppies both here and on the internet (do a search on Google). You will have much more work to socialize her with outside dogs, etc.

Be sure to get crates and crate train them to be individuals. Do not let the dogs spend all of their time together.

Best of luck to you.

PS I certainly hope that the mother of this puppy has an appointment to be spayed!

[Kaylei's mom]

She has been to the vet at 4 weeks old and was declared healthy. The woman I got her from is the daughter. She has had one deworming. The mother of the puppies abandoned them and refused to feed them. So the daughter took care of them. She has two small children and cannot keep up with caring for the puppies any longer. They were definitely an accidental breeding. My husband and I had been talking about getting another pup and decided to rescue this one so that at least we knew she would be safe and well cared for. She is going to the vet Saturday morning for her first set of shots.

[Kaylei's mom]

Hehe ok let me clarify this. There were siblings. They are all gone. Have been given away. Sorry if I'm not explaining it very well. I've had very little sleep. I spent a large part of the night laying on the floor next to Kaylei's crate comforting her when she was crying.

[rottielover2004]

ok, I get it now. Well keep up with the good work. Training for this little girl is a must, make sure she gets into puppy K after her 3rd set of shots, around 12 weeks. But you can start training her from home first....Enjoy her.

[BabyBrownz]

I just want to reassure you that with lots of time and training (as with any dog) she should turn out okay. Our first Rotti was also abandoned by his Mom and completely hand raised, he was a singleton too. He turned out to be an amazing boy who was extremely easy to train and so faithful. He was wonderful with small children, old people, dogs, cats, birds, ferrets,...you get the picture.

Now i'm sure there are dogs out there who don't turn out this way and perhaps we were very lucky but just wanted to point out that all dogs that are singletons or hand raised turn out to have issues.

good luck with your new pup.

Lynn

[Kaylei's mom]

Another question is do they learn quickly? Sandy our GR was very eager to learn and caught on to everything quickly. Now I know a part of that is a natural GR desire to please. Just wondering if Rotts are like this? So far she seems to be quite bright. She comes when we call her name and if we clap. The woman who was raising her would clap her hands and she would come running.

[rottielover2004]

once again she is a mix. Both breeds are very intelligent, but also deciding factor is how you train