Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Puppies and 4:30 am

I don't think I have mentioned anything about the puppies yet so since it is slow at work, thought I would write a little about them. Yes, I said them as we are baby sitting a puppy from the same litter for a friend. In a way, it has been nice having two. We got both of them on sunday, July 10th. Stella and her brother brick fit into out pack so naturally. Stella is the loud mouth bossy little girl and brick is the quiet, mischevious, deuce look alike. You always know where Stella is at all times but watch out for little brick. I have been very proud of my hubby. He has been very good about helping me with them early in the morning and cleaning up after their accidents. We have had a slight problem with them though. At first we couldn't get them to tire out no matter what we did until at least 10:30-11. Then, they would sleep through the night but would wake up at 4:30 on the dot. At first I blamed the adult dogs because they are loose in the bedroom with us (puppies are crated separately next to our bed). Then we tried a variety of situations such as adult dogs down stairs, puppies with us and puppies in the puppy ex pen downstairs, adults upstairs, and puppies crate high so we could touch them in the middle of the night to help them feel comfortable. They quickly got over the whole being in the crate thing and stopped crying when they went in the crate. Poor stella cried for almost an hour one night when we put her in so I gave in and slept on the floor so she could touch me. I don't like giving in to their demands but we needed sleep. Anwyay, that issue seems to be solved and we are getting them in bed earlier (10 pm last night YIPEE), but the getting up early is still there. We have been trying to take them out when they get up (and we get a second of silence before we open the crate door) and then putting them into the ex-pen downstairs with chewies and toys but then they just scream until we get up. We have tried waiting it out and so far, this morning was the only morning I had to get up and thus give into their screaming, only because I had to go work out at 6 am. We have gotten them to sleep till 6 am so that is improvement but it seems that 4:30 is the norm for getting up. My biggest concern is that our neighbors hear the puppy screams and it is waking them up. I don't want to be turned in for having too many dogs in the city (we are allowed 2 and we have 5 if you don't count fergs as a rat) and I don't want to be a shitty neighbor either with the barking dogs. We currently have the ex pen in our dining room which is the closest to our neighbors so may move it when we just have stella. Everyone says that it will be easier with just stella but I am not so sure. She is the one up screaming, brick goes to bed as soon as you put him in and then is still asleep when he sister is up crying. I guess it will just take time to see how this plays out. When it is just stella, I will probably just put her back in the crate and give her a kong or a rawhide.

Training is a little slow right now but this is my hubby's dog not mine so we are on his time table. I signed him up for a puppy seminar with Lori Michaels and he is also going to audit a running contacts seminar. I did see him out doing clicker work with her a couple of nights ago and he now has a nice sit on her. He asked me to make him a schedule and I told him how about just giving him weekly tricks and skills to teach instead LOL! I worked briefly this morning shaping a hand touch and a down. I want him to at least have some shaping down before the seminar. I hope this weekend we can go get a plank and a narrow flat plank to get her to walking on it. She has done our full sized teeter a couple of times accidently and had no fear but I am lowering it so we can play the bang game when she gets a little heavier. We are going in for our second set of shots tomorrow so will be excited to see what she weighs. She really scared me this morning as she misjudged the steps up the deck and came up three legged lame. She was holding the leg up and crying and I just knew she had broken it. She wouldn't put any weight on it and just cried and cried. I didn't want to coddle her but it broke my heart. I picked her up and felt down her leg and it wasn't broken. I massaged her little shoulder for a while and she seemed to be less and less ouchie. Of course 30 minutes later, I think she had totally forgotten about it and was running around again.

To wrap up here, I am very,very happy with little stella even though she seems to want me to be a morning person. I have to admit, I do get alot done in the morning after she wakes me up. I do house cleaning, dishes, laundry, go run, and do computer stuff. I would love to be a morning person, just never have been. Let's just say the lady at the sonic down the street knows my name and my van and has my morning drink ready for me when I pull up:)

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