my papillon puppy

Question
Hi dawn,
my name is helen vu and i have a papillon puppy named lil okie. I wanted to know how much i should feed him. he is 15 weeks old and weighs about4lbs and a few ounces. So far i have been feeding him 1/4 a cup of food 3 times a day. He usually finishes most of it if not all of it.

Also i have a question on housebraking. We keep him in the house and use a peepee pad for his toliet. he has learned to pee on it but has not pooped on it. He sometimes does but otherwise he does not. We keep him in a crate at night and then take him outside when i wake up. Otherwise when we leave in the morning, we leave him in a 4x4 excersise pen.


Also i wanted to ask a question on leash training. He is not quite used to walking the way i do. he does but then he tries to run ahead of me and often chokes himself for a splitsecond. He also always runs n front of me while i am walking and i always accidently trip on him.

If their is anyway you can help please email back to me.
                           thank you
                             Helen and Lil' Okie  

Answer
Hi Helen, it sounds like your puppy is being a typical puppy.  You have gotten a good start on the house-breaking, but you do have to be pateint as it does take time for a small dog to get potty trained.  You should get him started as soon as possible in his obedience training as that will help you in walking him comfortably on a leash and also give you basics to work with as he starts to grow.  You can sign up for obedience training either through group classes or private classes done at your home.  Check you local yellow pages to get a list of trainers in your area.

Hope this helps.

Dawn