First couple of weeks with a puppy and surprises, what are yours?

[Margo]

Hi, Lily, our new puppy is 9 weeks today, and quite the young sophisticate. It seems like each day brings a new surprise. Here are ours over the past couple of days.
- How many baby wipes we use. I didn't even know I needed them, but it became apparent quickly that they are a necessity for wiping paws and faces (and, of course, rear ends). With all the rain we've had here in SC this week, my yard is teeming with critters and loamy nature, all quite disgusting.She doesn't love being wiped off, but she sure loves all this mess she finds in the yard.

- the first few days she had no interest really in food, or all these expensive fancy treats I've stockpiled, based on the fact that all dogs are supposedly so food motivated. I wondered, how will I train her if we don't have treats? Well, it doesn't matter now, because she has seriously become quite interested in food and treats after a few days of settling in.

- I thought the whole "hand feeding" idea that I got from Ian Dunbar's book sounded kind of unlikely, but it turns out that it is working great for us. Now that she's food motivated and all, it's a great way to keep her attention to use her kibble as training food... since everything we do, it seems at this early stage is training.

- How much time she can spend with a bully stick! (I didn't know about these, but a dog owner friend suggested them) She is a world class chewer. It keeps her in one place when we are hanging out and she's still hyper, which is definitely a good thing.

[Kyoko]

Charlie is now 15 months, and I still hand feed most of her kibbles. She is in Rally O class, and we do training with her breakfast and dinner kibbles. I also think it is a great way to build a relationship!

[Christine & Shelby]

Shelby is 4 and 1/2 months and things that have surprised me include:
1. How quickly she learned to potty outside. I am a first time dog owner and was a bit worried about house training. We had 4 accidents in the house within the first 2 weeks (3 of them my fault... fell asleep, didn't know the warning signs, didn't quite recognize the signal... the last one - I have no idea what happened... she just peed, so warning or anything. She has been accident free ever since. She is so smart.
2. That my days of sleeping past 6:30am were done... Shelby is always awake are ready to go between 6 and 6:30pm.
3. How smart she is - not just training wise, but routine wise. When she first came home, I laid out a green blanket for her to play on... that is where we hung out, played with toys and snuggled (you can see this is some of her early photos). Each night when it was time for bed, I would put the toys away and fold up the blanket. On the morning of day 3 after getting up and going potty... Shelby walked over to the blanket and just stared at it. So I put it out. 2 days later - she walked over to the blanket and pulled it out to the middle of the living room floor... a clear indication she wanted to play! The blanket days are gone... and now we will go grab the toys she wants to play with on her own.
4. That we only had 2 nights with middle of the night potty breaks... she has slept through the night ever since.
5. That she would follow me everywhere in the house... it is so cute!
So much more... but those are the ones that come to mind right now!