Our Puppy – Page 24

Puppy is driving me nuts!

January 8, 2008 by Tricia

My puppy is making me so mad today!

It’s warmed up here in Toronto and all the snow has melted away. At this time it’s 14 Celsius or 57 F outside. Believe me that’s nice for early January!

Unfortunately our puppy is fascinated by the grass and dead leaves, and the plants in my front garden that she’s been walking over when we take her out for a “quick pee”. Every time I’ve taken her out today she’s spent more time trying to eat the leaves and grass than attempting to do her business.

We got our puppy in late November and she only really saw grass and leaves for a week or so before we got our first, very early this season, snow. So I guess she’s just exploring, but she’s driving me nuts!

It only took us three weeks to house train her and when she needs to go outside she just goes to the door. Unfortunately or fortunately she doesn’t bark, whine or scratch the door when she goes to it she just stands there and hopes we get the message. I kind of wish she’d give a small bark or whine.

Today she’s going to the door every 15 minutes or so though! The first time she really did have to go outside but all the rest of her pleas to go out have just ended up in her sniffing around, and grabbing mouthfuls of leaves or grass! Of course I end up with my hand in her mouth pulling all the stuff she’s gobbling up out! Ewww.

Midnight is getting better as far as her health goes though. We went to the vet yesterday for her third and final set of shots which included a rabies vaccination. We also brought in a stool sample to have it tested for worms and she’s finally clear of her round worms. Yeahhhh! The doctor also checked her eyes and ears and the infections she had in them are gone now too.

All we need is for her stool to become normal. Remember she had diarrhea for most of the time we’ve had her? It’s getting better but we’re still giving her Pepto Bismol to help her out.

Oh and she’s gained weight! I think our last vet visit was about the 18th of December and at that time she weighed 6.8 kg or 15 lb. Now just two and a half weeks later she weighs 9.4 kg or almost 21 lb. Yes that’s kind of small for a five and a half month old lab puppy but she’s not skinny. She’s muscular and lean. I guess she’s going to be on the small side for a female Labrador Retriever, but that’s ok with us.

Did you know that leashes are tasty?

January 5, 2008 by Tricia

Grab the Photo Hunt code.
Photo Theme. Visit participants.

This weeks theme is delicious

I think our Lab puppy, Midnight, finds her leather leash to be absolutely delicious. She’s always trying to chew on it when we first put it on her. In the above photo I’d put the leash on before I got my winter coat and other gear on so she had time to settle down for a good chew.

Here’s an areal view:

She already chewed through, or well just about chewed through, her vinyl leash just before Christmas. I wonder how long this one will last?

As you can see she’s grown a bit and I think she’s gained some weight. She’s doing a lot better although I think she’s still fighting something. She goes for her third set of shots on Monday.

I’m stuffed

December 25, 2007 by Tricia

I’m stuffed and tired.

I spent the afternoon cooking a Christmas dinner for three that probably would have served eight to ten people easily. Naturally that means we have tons of leftovers!

I made mashed potatoes; mashed sweet potatoes with brown sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg; steamed asparagus with a little butter and lemon; sweet peas; stuffing with pine nuts; cranberry jelly; sweet and dill pickles, turkey gravy and of course the main entree – a 16 lb turkey. Yummy! We also had plum pudding with rum sauce for dessert. I also had a pumpkin pie on hand, but none of us had any of that.

My sister arrived around 4 pm and we ate at about 6. I had started preparing the turkey just after noon and it was in the oven by a little after one.

I did the majority of cooking, but Chris helped out by washing our good china, crystal and silverware before we used it. We hadn’t used it for a while and it was kind of dusty! Then he helped out by clearing most of the table and doing the majority of the dishes afterwords.

There’s a lot of food and turkey left over. We only ate a bit of one side of the turkey and I haven’t carved the rest of the meat off of it yet either. In fact we were all so stuffed and tired after dinner that I just put the turkey in the enclosed back porch (it’s cool out there and it’s -2 Celsius out right now) so it’s almost as if it’s in the fridge. Sometime later this evening I’ll work on getting the meat off the bone and pack it away properly.

Since we’ve had our puppy ( a month and a day, she’s 16 weeks old today) we haven’t had any guests over. We’ve had people to the door, but no visitors. So my sister was the first guest to spend some time with Midnight in our home.

My sisters voice is similar to mine and I have a feeling that we must smell similar as most of the pets I’ve had in the past have taken to her right away. Just as I expected Midnight loved my sister and she really liked our baby too. My sister used to have two dogs and she’s raised puppies before so she was very comfortable giving commands to the puppy and the puppy paid attention to what she said for the most part.

Overall it was a great day for all of us. Midnight is very tired. In fact she’s finally just settled down on the floor by the couch and she’s fast asleep. I’ll put her in her crate soon. Her eye has been good for the last few days but now that she’s so tired her eye looks a bit swollen again. I hope it’s just because she’s overtired and not yet another problem.

I hope everyone had a great day too and that you’re all stuffed with great food too!

Puppy Training classes

December 22, 2007 by Tricia

Well Midnight’s gone to two puppy training classes so far. She’s having a ball at the classes.

She’s not so hot on the car ride there, but once we get out of the car she starts pulling on her leash to get into the Petsmart to see her friends. She always barks at the entrance to say hello to any dogs that might be near the checkout. I call Petsmart her doggy Wonderland.

Being her adopted mummy I think she’s kind of cute, smart and adorable … but judging from pretty much everyone she meets response she must be a cute puppy. Everyone seems to love her. Whether we’re walking on the street or walking around in Petsmart people always come up to pet our little furball. She’s very enthusiastic and gets right into greeting people and their dogs if they happen to have one with them.

The training classes are ok. I’ve done a lot of reading and have been working on training her at home using many of the techniques that they are teaching in Petsmart so I don’t feel like I’m gaining all that much by going through the classes. However, as a way to socialize Midnight to other people, other animals and in particular other dogs I think it’s great.

It’s also nice to talk to other puppy owners to learn of their experiences.

One lady has a yellow Lab puppy that’s about two weeks younger than Midnight. Molly is her name. She’s just a little smaller than Midnight but I’m certain she’s got about ten pounds on our pup. Midnight is of course still sick – more on that in another post.

By the time we get home on Friday evenings we have a very tired puppy on our hands and she goes right to sleep … and that’s nice.

She’s not chewsy at all

December 14, 2007 by Tricia

My little chewaholic

Midnight is such a nut when she plays! She loves getting up on the couch with me and while up there she likes to play with one of her toys. Usually it’s a set of Nylabone keys or a squeaky toy, but yesterday it was a green flexible Nylabone bone.

She got right into chewing it.

The funny thing is when she’s really into playing with one of her toys she rolls onto her back, all four legs up in the air, back legs kicking and she’s gnaws on her toy. Rolling back and forth as she sometimes toys the toy up in the air with a flick of her head. She grunts, groans, snorts and makes a lot of funny noises as she does this. She also enjoys kick me or bracing her back legs on me and pushing. When she’s bigger she’ll probably push me right off the couch!

I still haven’t managed to take a really good photo of her when she’s on her back acting like a nut, so the one above will have to do. Look at those sharp pointy teeth that she likes to nip me with when she’s in a frenzy … anything nearby will do!

She’s having a ball trying to chew my leg off here in this photo!

I think she looks like a bit like a bat when she’s lying on her back in a toy induced frenzy. Her pointy ears flop back and look very much like the pointy ears on bats. Naturally I call her bat dog when she’s doing this as well as silly dog, nut dog and a number of other little nicknames.

As you can see from the photos she doesn’t look like a sick dog and she doesn’t act like one either!

I think she’s getting healthier.

The vet called again on Wednesday night and told us that the stool culture didn’t grow any bad bacteria – as in really bad illness causing bacteria. So that was good news. We told him how hyper the worming meds made her on Tuesday and he still thinks we should give her her last dose again next Tuesday. I’ll be giving it first thing in the morning if that’s the case so that maybe she’ll be ready to settle down by late evening. The other night was just crazy!

She’s a good little playful pup even if she does have some health problems. She’s also very motivated by food so that’s made it easy to train her. Not that she’s fully trained for anything yet, but she’s responding fairly well …. well if I don’t count all the pee accidents she had yesterday. I think she ate too much snow when we were out. We had a big storm yesterday and as a result she was a peeing machine! Arghh!

This evening we’ll be going to our first puppy training class at Pets Smart. The first class was actually last Friday, but both she and I were too sick to go. The trainer told us he’d catch us up on what we missed.

I expect she’ll have a ball meeting the other dogs and dog owners. She hasn’t met a lot of other dogs yet as we’ve been protective of her since up until last week she’d only had one set of vaccinations, but she has met a lot of people on our short walks and she’s usually a ball of excitement jumping, squealing and doing those little puppy runs back and forth that are so adorable.

I’ll let you know how puppy training class goes!

If you aren’t sick of puppy pictures yet check out this really cute photo of Midnight on my photoblog. Oh and I almost forgot. She damaged the first of what I expect will be many items before her first year with us is over. I wrote about it in Collateral Damage if you’d like to read that story.

Puppy is driving me nuts!

Did you know that leashes are tasty?

I’m stuffed

Puppy Training classes

She’s not chewsy at all

Meta

Search this site

Blogs I Visit

Meta

Search this site

Tags

Blogs I Visit