Raising a Pup

It's day 4 now of helping hmma raise Mina. People have said that raising a puppy is somewhat comparable to raising a kid. Or at least bringing home a puppy is like bringing home an infant. Since I don't live at hmma's place, I feel like I'm a sidelines-caregiver. I'd like to have more control over how she's raised but I figure that hmma is more than capable - besides she's not my puppy!! :( But really, so far, it's been an interesting adventure.

I have found that I'm a little less worried and laid back about raising Mina - I assume she is fine and doing ok until I see signs of problems (runny poo or lack of movement). Meanwhile, hmma seems to be the type of being much more proactive and must know everything there is to know about the topic in order to know that he's doing everything in his power to raise this puppy in a loving, caring and healthy way. he'll research puppy care instructions and Google will return articles that offer contradictory advice. It throws us in a loop of how to go about training Mina - I'm sure the poor pup is so confused. soemtimes we'll read something that sounds promising and then put it into action but then when Mina fails at it, we think it is a complete failure! So we do more research and find out that there's another method. So we try it out. And again Mina might fail - once is all it takes. The cycle repeats and it's ONLY been 4 days! Hmma is concerned about her well-being much more than I am. He wants to make sure that putting her in a crate is not cruel even when she cries and whimpers and howls for the first 5-10 minutes. And he wants to make sure she's not going to develop pyschological issues because of the crate. I ignore the howling and have to keep reassuring hmma (with proof from various websites) that if he responds to her while she's howling then he's the one that's being trained and she'll just learn that howling will get his attention. So because I'm no expert, and hmma's no expert, we decided we needed training on how to train a pup.

SO. We've enrolled Mina in puppy kindergarten. it's a 6 week course, once a week lesson to teach basic commands, mannerisms, and social interaction with other dogs and humans. I have no doubt Mina will fly through this course without any problems. She's a smart puppy so far and is so gentle and attentive that I think she will pick things up really quickly. I'm more worried about her owner and sidelines-caregiver. :P