Male/female Doberman pup

Yep! He is AKC registered.. or however you do it/call it. When we pick him up we'll get those papers along with all of his vet papers.

Is it better to have their ears cropped (if it's even possible still at this point)?

Oh good, we're about to get an Amazon Prime account.... I'll be sure to order one of those for the crate!
 
Prime will be your best friend. And dangerous. Lol.

Food. Start with whatever they're already feeding, but odds are youre going to want to switch to a better quality food. Give him about a week or so to settle in and then transition over slowly to avoid stomach upset. A good quality food really is important for growing dobers. And most vets knowledge on food is sketchy at best. Digfoodadvisor.com is a good site to look at quality. There are good foods that do not break the bank.
 
Right now he's on Purina puppy food.... I can't remember the exact kind, but I'm almost positive that it's Purina brand.
 
Right now he's on Purina puppy food.... I can't remember the exact kind, but I'm almost positive that it's Purina brand.

Yeah, you'll definitely want to change that. Purina in general is a pretty crappy brand. Same with hills/science diet, eukanuba, iams. Avoid all of them.

Taste of the wild, Victor, earthborn, orijen, acana, Fromm ... All good brands at varying price points. There are tons more, those are just the ones I can remember.
 
Oh good to know!!! I'll have to look up on that site that you gave to do more research on what kinds is best.
 
Oh good to know!!! I'll have to look up on that site that you gave to do more research on what kinds is best.

Price will be a huge factor. You can easily spend $100+ a bag. Obviously, not everyone can afford that! But quality food is worth some added cost and you can find high grade foods for very reasonable (I pay $35 for a 40lb bag). It will also depend on the pup, you may have to try a fee before finding the one that works best for him. Mine hate fish based foods. Poultry is a fairly common allergen. Acana and orijen were too rich for my boys and resulted in exploding butts, but others feed it with great success.
 
We used to feed our GSD blue diamond or blue buffalo or something like that.... I can't remember what it was exactly. She had a lot of skin allergies so a lot of it was trial and error on what worked with her.
 
Blue is another brand I would avoid, personally. Diamond is ok, but there's better for comparable price.
 
Yah, the one we found out was bad and that's when we switched to the other.... I just can't remember which one it was. I think it was the diamond one that we ended up switching her to.
 
Is it better to have their ears cropped (if it's even possible still at this point)?
There a lot of things to consider with that and it can be a huge controversy since it's banned in other countries. I will always have cropped ears (while we can) since it is the breed standard in this country. The reason it's banned in some places is because there are a few people who think it's cruel but the truth is, once they come off the sedation they're bouncing around playing like nothing ever happened so they could care less; it's just some peoples opinions who make it sound bad.

Another factor is if you can find a good crop vet in your area so I'd start looking now.
 
Is there any benefit of cropping vs not cropping other than looks? That's the one thing I haven't really looked up because he doesn't have cropped ears and I think they're cute with them floppy haha. The only thing that I really did see is about cleaning their ears and what not....
 
Flop ears really aren't that different. Though I've had more ear injuries in my flop eared dogs.

For the average pet owner - it's an aesthetic personal preference thing. I prefer cropped, but many others don't.
 
Oh that's good to know! I'm not sure if it's even possible for him to get his ears done at this point or not... but it's something I will have to look into if he's still in the age range.
 
Oh that's good to know! I'm not sure if it's even possible for him to get his ears done at this point or not... but it's something I will have to look into if he's still in the age range.
How old is he?
 
I have one with floppy and one with cropped ears. I prefer the cropped look but they are a lot of work in the beginning - posting and all. For me the floppy ears stay cleaner. My 2 rough house outside a lot so I feel the cropped get dirtier.

I will say that my floppy eared Dobie gets approached a lot more - people don’t really know what breed she is. She has a softer look than my cropped dobie.
 
We brought him home tonight- he was actually home before I was! I’ll have to look at his paperwork to know his exact age, but my husband said that he thinks about 8-ish weeks? I’ve been trying to teach him the whole outside thing and trying to get him acclimated to his new home all night so I haven’t had a chance to look at it yet.
My husband wants to get them cropped, so I’m going to do research tomorrow while I’m at work so that we can find somewhere that’s good and knows what they’re doing. I don’t remember if Mom or dads ears are cropped or not.... I’ll have to ask my him if he remembers and if they do I’ll have him ask where they got theirs at.

Oh another thing- any tips on crate training? We had him in the bathroom in his case for a little (we decided to keep him in our room so that he doesn’t see/hear my brothers in law and not actually learn the whole bed time thing and so that they don’t let him out or feed him after it’s time to go to bed), but he freaked out so we put him at the end of our bed where he can still see and hear us. But I wanted to see if anyone else had any ideas or a better way of doing it or really just any kind of advice in general.

His personality is something else though!! I put him on the bed with my husband so I could move his crate, and he literally curled up in a ball on my side of the bed in my blankets an gave me a look like “uhhh I’m sleeping here tonight” lol. Then I started to go to the kitchen so for a second and thank god I turned around, because as soon as I started to go out the door he decided that he wanted to go where I was going. He seems to be taking quite a liking to hubs though- but I think his first family the dad took are of the dogs/pups. He was giving me “hugs” tonight though with his neck and head.... I about melted right then and there!

I should probably get some sleep while I can.... but now I’m just searching google for just about everything I can find.
 
Meet Obi the Dobie lol

He’s just so darn cute I can’t take it!! I was moving and he used his neck to kind of hold my arm there and it felt like he was giving hugs.
 

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He will probably fuss in his crate the first few times but you really just have to wait it out. Rubie SCREAMED in her crate the first three nights when we put her in. If he settles but makes noise again in the middle of the night, calmly take him out, straight outside to potty, and then calmly right back into the crate. You want him to learn that he can tell you when he needs to go out and you'll listen vs he WANTS out and will get attention.

Dobes are the best snugglers. No joke. Rubie is happiest between the knees of anyone on the couch.
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