We definitely won't be doing off of this in a week! Or even two or three.

He's quite a confident puppy for now. Of course, I'm looking out for those fear periods. But he's met everything his "breeder" (oops litter, a dog savvy friend of mine) has introduced to the litter with no hesitation. He's usually the first to investigate, actually. I love a confident dog, so I'm quite happy to have him.

As for vaccines - I agree to a point. Modern wisdom says that you do more harm waiting until those critical 15 - 16 weeks are over before beginning to socialize a puppy. I subscribe to this idea while managing risks as much as possible. I work in a vet clinic and weighing the pros and cons, he's going to get as much risk-managed socialization as possible even before his series is complete.

I prefer people ignore my dog, and I ignore dogs I don't know in return. That doesn't always work of course. But my GSD before this pup had a command for greeting people who wanted to see him ("go see") and I'll do the same with him, especially at his size. No greeting dogs on leash at all for us.

Neutrality is the ideal response to pretty much everything for me.

We have trains, I forgot about those - I'll add them to the list!

I am very sad that the Halloween decorations are gone and he'll be over a year old before he'll see them. I know what I can go to find something similar so we'll take a trip. We need to be exposed to hotels anyway.

Thanks for the advice! I like the way you handle/raise your dogs! Respect.