After five months since losing our beloved Sadie, Dana and I finally figured we were ready to bring another puppy into our lives. We’d already been surfing all the rescue sites in the area but had not yet pulled the trigger.
This week, however, we found Maya at the Boulder Humane Society. She was one of 14 pups surrendered a couple days earlier. No real clue what she is; they say ‘cattle-dog/mix’, and that may be correct, but we’re going with ‘shepherd/mix’. She’s about 8 weeks old and 8 lbs, with light-brown (fawn) fur and black markings on the snout. We expect to see more of the black to emerge along her back and onto her tail.
So we’re at it again with obedience and potty training. After 11 years with Sadie we’d forgotten about all of this. But we do remember the #1 rule ‘WATCH THE PUPPY’.
The first night went ‘okay’. She likes the crate and managed to sleep alone with minimal fuss for about 3 hours. She woke us up in the middle of the night wimpering. We took her outside to go potty, and then she didn’t quite want to settle down again. As it was her first night and we had just separated her from her 13 siblings, I broke my own rules and took her downstairs to the old couch and fell back asleep with her on top of me. She loved that and slept for 4 more hours.
Last night (her 2nd night with us) was a bit better. We again started with just about 2 hours before she woke up fussing. This time I was determined to get her back to her kennel. She again wasn’t into it and whined for about 30 minutes (this is around 2 a.m., btw), but we stuck to our guns and she did settle down and surprised us with not waking up for a whole 5 hours. Thank goodness. We’re already exhausted. 🙂
And to top it all off, while I’m writing this, she is at my feet sleeping again. Brat.
As hoped and expected she’s been getting better every night. Her maximum kennel time is just over 3 hours now, but she does settle down a lot faster and doesn’t always whine when returned.
We’re just over 10 days with the new puppy and all things are progressing well. We mix up each day with play, training, and napping. The various specifics will be shared in individual posts to follow.
(Creative Commons photo courtesy Eric Fleming, Flickr)
