"At 8 weeks old Harriet entered our lives. She was a little black ball of fluff, weighing 14 pounds, with the little white zip on her chest and forepaw the only indication of her mixed parentage. We had lost an older black Lab to heart failure a number of months formerly and her brother was moping around your home. Following the reasoning that the older dog would show the puppy the ropes, when we met a soft and loving female canine at the vets who had actually just had pups we decided to seek adoption.
Prayer went up sometimes for God to offer us the strength to deal with early am weeping, toilet training and having to ""puppy evidence"" the lower shelves in our house, nevertheless she was really charming. Her 3rd day with us, after getting me out of bed at the unpleasant hour of 6am on Sunday, I took both her and G.O.D. (her name for Stefan, as she plainly admires him) to the hill behind our home. Remarkable just how much range a young creature can cover. Low to the ground, the tiniest clumps of yard ended up being encyclopedias of smells. Here is Harriet scuttling along the path (the tall grass being too much for her) and encountering a single tall blade of yard. Unexpectedly her little hips squat, her tail wiggles and she jumps at this huge enemy - toppling it with one swift blow to its tassel. Proud as ""all go out"" she continues her way.
By day three sleep deprivation has actually set in. The young puppy wakes us between 4 and 5 am with numerous progressive series of whines. She wakes a few times in the night too, however usually goes back to sleep, however by five am she has had enough pup sleep and is frantic to get out of her enclosure. Naturally by then Stefan has had enough too and has actually eliminated himself to the far reaches of the basement. This leaves us to get up, get dressed and all the time attempting to relax her worries until we can take her out.
She is a sweetheart, as we were guaranteed by a young couple with a 10 month lab who was clearly a much larger handful, but now we discover our whole household frequently dosing on Rescue Treatment and wincing whenever she starts to her special intensifying weeps whines and screams. ""Can the next-door neighbors hear her? Do they believe we are frequently abusing our young puppy?"" Margie notices that her tone has actually altered from ""oh cute girl"" to ""Harriet stop THAT."" We plot ways to have the little TV on in her ""playroom"" downstairs and yearn for the day when she is more self-contained.
By day four life is getting simpler (ah isn't this always the lesson) since we start to set limits. She needs to find out that she doesn't get 24/7 attention and in actuality she is a fast student. She only yells for about 5 minutes prior to she calms down. We also are experimenting with where we keep the cage, etc. Margie got up with her in the middle of the night to let her out and she settled back down - letting us sleep to seven. I concur with all the brand-new mama's I have ever known that sleep deprivation is the hardest of the difficulties.
Stefan is getting a long time out on his own - we realized he needed it after he removed the door last night after we brought them both back in. Today he selected the instructions of our walk and I loved seeing the sun increase in pink and ivory puffy clouds on the pasture and the water's edge, listening to the gentle waves lap and watching the dance of silver and pink on the waves. What an incredible wake up call.
By day five Harriet is great in her cage, and we have to keep her there as she leaves all over else we try to restrain her. She is a little monkey when it pertains to climbing up - sitting gladly by the front door waiting for me when I returned from the market.
Thank heavens for Stefan playing the role of ""G.O.D."". I see now why the woman I overheard stated it was easier to have an older pet dog help raise a puppy up into doghood. Harriet is now comfy enough with our house and life as a member of our family that she is asserting her own private wants and needs more day by day. This is stabilized by ease in sleeping in her cage when we are too hectic to supervise her and far less yelling when not the center of attention.
Stefan does not enjoy the ""G. O. D."" role as it puts her under his feet much of the time. Since he has limited vision we can understand why this is disconcerting. I am appreciative however due to the fact that otherwise, without Stefan when we take them out to the ""bathroom"" Harriet would have NO CONCEPT what we were out there for and the entire process may take hours as she ends up being distracted with every brand-new leaf and twig. Rather picture this big black pet dog heading out to pee, with a little black bouncing ball of fur next to him hopping along the path. He stops, she says, ""Oh what is up now?"" (he is peeing, hopefully not on her head). She gets the idea and within minutes believes that maybe this is a good activity for her too. Mission achieved we all travel house. The other day the two young lads who live beside us (Daniel, 9 and Conor, five) went with us to the paddock and purely by mishap (a minimum of on my part if not for the boys and the pet dogs) to the beach. The sun was shining, the water glittering, the pet dogs and kids rolling in the sand. All of us got home with huge smiles on our faces.
Yes undoubtedly, thank God for canines and puppies."