Guys can I say how glad I'm to be part of this Newfie family!! Thank you for all your advices!
Have you researched here? Use the search button up top and you can find tons of info...ton's!!!! Do not let the insurance company influence your choice and it is your choice! If that's the case I'd love to know what pet insurance company is telling you that?
Guilty, I didn’t research here. I have read other sticky notes that I have found in other pages s. So, it didn’t cross my mind about reading here about this specific issue, but I definitely will now. Regarding the insurance, since he was very young we decided to go through a well-known pet store (I think that we have to avoid mentioning names on this forum): We decided to sign him up there for the obedience classes and for well-known Pet Hospital that you can find in there as well. This Pet Hospital offers two health insurance and of course they encourage to get the most expensive package that includes neuter telling you things like “This recommended procedure helps your pet live a healthier, happier, longer life and minimizes dog overpopulation. We always thoroughly assess your puppy's health before anesthesia, and build baselines to guide current and future care.”… Anyway, now I know was the wrong thing to do. His trainer and Vet. are from the same place and although you read and research about pros and cons, when those “professionals” use the phrase “What is best for your puppy” you doubt yourself and trust them.
… This is when puppy classes or your breeder can be of great help. It could be that you're (unintentionally) not following through with the training methods. You may be ending the corrective phase while your pup is still over-stimulated. Perhaps you're responding with a "level 5" correction when you're puppy is at a "level 9" excitement level. A professional trainer would be able to help find the training method that works for Drako and you.
Few weeks after I got Drako I realized that my breeder did a lot of things that should have been red flags for me, but I thought they were “minor” at the time (BIG MISTAKE). Just to tell you one of them: The day I picked up Drako, I asked if I could to see his mother and the breeder suddenly starts telling me that the mother was not available for visits because few months before she got pregnant she got hit by a car, that her hips got worse after the delivery of the puppies and that the whole pregnancy was something that wasn’t “planned”. She was telling me all this after everything was signed and I holding Drako heading to my car. Due to this and other factors, I do not feel that she is interested about what happens to the puppies after they are gone.
Anyhow, I started with training at home right of the bat (after reading and researching how to train him and motivate his mind), and when he went to the obedience classes he was way ahead (which of course I was very proud). After few weeks in the training classes I realized that these ones were helping more with the socialization than anything else. So I think a real professional trainer it’s my next step.
All the behavior is normal for a puppy. You will have additional issues since he was taken from the litter at 6 weeks of age, which is way to young. There is a lot of things she didn't learn from his littermates and mother.
Neutering will not stop humping. In my boarding kennel neutered dog as well as female dogs hump other dogs. It is a dominate thing - something you need to nip in the butt right away.
You should not get him neutered until he is at least 18 months old. There are too many health problems that are related to early neutering. Just to name 2 - cancers and torn ACLs. Surgery for a torn ACL can run $2000-$3500.
When you say insurance pushes the neutering to be done early are you talking about health insurance for your dog? IMO I'd rather pay for a neutering then have to pay for cancer treatments or surgery for a torn ACL. Some insurances will not cover these types of problems.
Yes, I was talking about the health insurance, and I definitely agree with you.
… his behaviour is normal - it's just a sucky stage that you don't hear a lot about (unless you get a chance to read some of the dozens of threads on here about similar behaviours). From what I've learned, it's not aggression - it's dominance and testing his boundaries.
I agree… we are aware about the land shark stage but it was more than that and you are right, it’s basically that “testing the dominance and boundaries”. Yesterday my husband and I went out for a couple of hours, and my mother stayed with Drako, and while we were gone my siblings and some friends came to visit. My mom was telling me that Drako behaved very well, and that she didn’t have any problems with him biting or barking. This is the second time somebody have mentioned this and it seems that he is only doing that while we (his human parents) are in the picture.
