The Puppy Journals

I swear I'm going to do this everytime a puppy moves in, but then I get busy and the moment is lost. I guess until I get it right, I have to keep getting puppies?

The Puppy Report - Day 1.

Blaze came home on Sunday, Aug 6. He had gotten into Allez food that morning, so I wasn't looking forward to an exciting time of it as his system reacted to eating 1 c of a kibble he hadn't been eating. I wasn't let down. He started early in the day and by the time we got home and went to bed about 2am, his system was completely cleared of the food. UGH Luckily, I was smart and he travelled in a wire crate with a pan that slides out easily for rinsing!

We set up a temporary puppy pen Sunday night and Blazie (yes, even Blaze can be made into a cutsie puppy name ) finally settled down to go to sleep. Monday morning dawned early with the "hey, lady, I'm in a strange place and I'm HUNGRY" cry. Having been well trained by Hummee, I went down to rustle up breakfast for him. A pile of chicken and a turkey neck later, the beast was soothed...yep, the way to a man's heart is through his stomach, especially at 11 weeks old! He munched on that turkey neck all day long. When I got home, it was a little 3" nub. Since he decided to play "guard the food" with Lacy, he had his first lesson about who owns what in my house...ME and I gave the leftovers to Lacy. I figure it'll take him a little while to get a handle on that concept.

During evening, he spent some time running around the house being cute with his buddy, Rio, who is down here visiting. It's not hard work for either of them to be cute. Then some "waiting for meal service" time in his crate with all the grown ups. I don't really "crate train" puppies....they spend some time in their crates every day, usually around meal times and by the time they've graduated from the puppy pen, they're crate trained. Dinner for Blaze was a big bowl of green tripe...he gave it four paws up and as soon as he finished eating, went to sleep. We took advantage of the quite to eat dinner ourselves AND set up the real puppy palace.

The puppy palace has evolved...it's a sheet of 6 mil plastic (to protect the new tile which hasn't been sealed yet!) with a sheet of 6' x 9' linoleum over it. Two x-pens are supported, at the bottom, by a PVC frame and voila! it's home. Puppy pads at one end keep the mess to a minimum and you hear "good potty on the paper" anytime we catch the puppy using the paper. I'm proud to say that by this morning, Blaze had already mastered "potty on the paper" and there were no messes anywhere else in his palace. What a smart boy!

After some play time with Momma, Blaze went back in his palace and Mom escaped to work. It's so hard to leave the little cuties, knowing that they grow up so fast.