Hey Pet community! I somewhat recently posted about our upcoming new girl and after a long wait she’s finally here. It’s been wild the past few days and I barely had time to do anything.. Having a 3 months old puppy that weighs 17kg while trying to keep our 2kg pomeranians at bay turned as expected - a pretty tough job. However I found a bit of time to write a "quick" post and realized I don’t even have that many photos yet since we are on nonstop babysitting duty. Quickly fixed that after a day of chasing her around with the camera.

Nyx’s first day at home

We had to pick her up from the airport at midday. A friend of Nat’s dad already prepared documents for her there since we had to pay import tax and present import license in order to get her out of customs. She was obviously scared, confused and quite tired from the travel. I couldn’t not feel bad but all we could do now was make her feel at home.

First thing we did was give her a nice shower, feed her and introduce her to her crate. We already set a place for her in our room where she could sleep in peace. It was important we made her feel like this is her spot, her ‘house’. ( With Stormi we did it all wrong and she felt it was her prison since it was the place we’d put her when she did something wrong. Later on we had a whole crib for her that she liked enough not to bark and go nuts when zipped in. )

She was pretty tired here but we have set up a massive bed and lots of toys for her.

Before we let her sleep we had to tape her ears. Most people may not know but Dobermans don’t naturally have pointy ears. It is a common practice for their ears to be cropped as well as their tails. This has been done by the founder of the breed for practicality and kept on until today. As a protection breed the ears could be a big liability. This also helps prevent ear infections. As I know it is illegal to do so in the UK but done almost everywhere else in the world. In order for them to stay up though, we’ll need to tape them for about 4-5 months.

Our first attempt was pretty mediocre but worked.. for a day. We redid them a few times until we figured out the best way to do it.

Once she woke up, she was very curious about everything. The house is big and the garden too, so there was plenty to explore and sniff about. All the little dogs were pretty scared of her. Stormi was scared and jealous at the same time. Stormi is obsessed with toys and is the only dog we have that actually plays with them. She even takes them all (like 10 toys) in her dog house before she goes to sleep. We prepared a lot of toys for Nyx as well since she would need stuff to chew on while her teeth are growin. There was naturally a fight over the toys since Nyx would snatch one of Stormi’s any time she got loose in our bedroom. She would also chase her around the house until the little one gets cornered under a chair and starts growling quite angrily at her. To my surprise Nyx was backing up and running away from her when she did that. Funny how this 2,5kg ball of fur manages to scare off an already big in size doberman.

Once we were outside Stormi went nuts running around in circles around Nyx and hiding in the bushes when she got tired. Same strategy she had with old Cherry. We had to look at them closely though, since Nyx still isn’t well aware of her size and how bad she could stomp on any of the smaller dogs if she’s not careful. After playing for a few hours it was time to get her back in her crib. It was an exhausting day and she definitely needed some rest. We had to get up at around 1am and take her out to pee. To our surprise when we got back. she barked for 10-15 minutes and left us to sleep for the rest of the night. I thought we’d have a lot rougher time but the long day had its toll on her.

Visitings the vets and training for the first time

Our second day started early.. Well at least for me (Nat just slept till mid day). I took Nyx out in the garden at around 6 and spent some time with her. She managed to pee and poop in front of the door though, right before we went out. Not the best start.

Back in the crib I decided I’ll train her to be silent and patient at the expense of Nat not sleeping too well. Nyx wasn’t too happy about being in the cage at first but I couldn’t play with her forever. She was barking and jumping on the cage so once she calmed down I would grab a treat, go give it to her and praise her for being quiet. After an hour of loudness she finally got a bit tired and went to sleep.

The early afternoon we went to the vets for the first time. We wanted to check if everything is fine with her and ask about a pill against parasites we had to give her as we were instructed from the farm. They retaped her ears (very poorly, she had already removed the tape by the time we went back home).

Here's our Pikachu after her vet visit.

We used the time in the late afternoon to train her some basic commands in the garden and let her play longer. Had to tire her out so we could get some sleep. We managed to teach her ‘Sit” and “Come” quite easily. Peeing outside was the real challenge. She would just hold it in and release once we get back in the house. Fixed that problem in the mornings by carrying her outside instead of letting her follow me and pee before we reach outside. During the day though it would take time to teach her how to do it out. We were always monitoring her and if she happens to pee while playing on the grass, we’d give her loads of treats and praise her. In a few days she learned how to do this outside and we haven’t had an accident in the house for 2 days now. She also knows treats are coming after she pees outside so she gets quite excited after the act is done. 😄

We finally taped her ears right and now she is a lot more of a Batman than a Pikachu. Seems to fit her style more.

We trained Stormi indoors with a lot less distractions and she picked up things quite quickly. Nyx however has soo many distractions outside that her attention is constantly challenged. It is hard to get her to listen while she’s on one of her exploring, sniffin in the garden missions. She is getting more focused when she actually does come and waits for a treat though.

The next command we tried to teach her was “down”. It’s still somewhat a work in progress. She sometimes kind of does it but mostly stares at the treat and tries to jump you when you don’t give it to her when she sits. The way we teach her that is by first making her sit and then as we say “down” we lower the treat to the ground so she goes down with it. When she actually lies down we give her the treat, otherwise just hold it in hand so she cannot get it from our grip.

Befriending the other dogs

Getting the rest of the dogs in the house to accept her is a challenge. She’s new, a lot bigger than them and trying to play all the time. In return she gets the small doggos scared by chasing them around and when they get backed up in a corner, they growl pretty furiously at her and scare Nyx off. That doesn’t last long though because she goes straight back at them and thinks they are playing.

Stormi started running under the cars when we are outside and Nyx is chasing her and growls from underneath there. Baby usually freezes still on the stairs and growls when Nyx approaches and Casper as the only male and the biggest of them all is the one Nyx seems the most reserved towards.

The thing is when Nyx is locked inside her cage in our room, Stormi feels courageous and tries to taunt her. She goes to her playfully growling and wiggling her butt. When she gets ignored she gets closer until Nyx taps on the cage with her paw. That starts the play until Nyx starts barking like crazy and I take Stormi out of the room. 😄

I think it will take quite a while until the dogs realize she’s here to stay and a part of the family. It will take a while for Nyx to learn how to play or “ignore” the smaller dogs too. Whiskey didn’t like Stormi at all in the beginning and even bit her a few times. Now they even play together sometimes on rare occasions.

Our dogs have somewhat of a ritual in the afternoons. They go out in the garden and whenever they see someone running by or walking their dog, they run all along the fence in line and bark at that person. Nyx may be new but she picked on that quickly and now is a part of the gang even for that brief moment. Problem is though.. she learned from Stormi and now she’s doing it when she’s alone too. If she sees another dog outside she runs and barks even after the dog has passed. It will take some time to make her unlearn that.

As any puppy though, most of all she just likes to be lazy. She'll always find a place to have a nap.

These were some of our adventures from just the first couple of days with Nyx as a part of the family. I’m a bit tired but she’s been letting us sleep at night and doesn’t make a sound until 6am when it’s time to go out. I even had the best sleep I’ve had in months last night. Didn't wake up even once, which hasn’t happened in over a year. I’ll be posting more about our new adventures with the big baby. Hope you enjoyed the long read and photos and to see you again in the next one!