I feel like the Summer has already decided to leave. It was incredibly wet and short for us Canadians (well Winnipeg folks). I am not greeted by sunshine in the morning, the grass is wet, random leaves are already on the ground, etc.. It’s happening, and sadly its happening really fast. Fall is coming! Though I am not too worried about Fall, it’s the season after Fall that I fear…but let’s not talk about that.
For those of you that follow me on may have noticed how my feed has been FLOODED with a new four legged friend. If you haven’t guessed…we adopted a puppy! I welcome you to meet our newest addition, Zora!!
We adopted her from a rescue organization that rescues dogs from communities where they’ve been abandoned 🙁 . Zora and her litter-mates were wondering around without their mother. She was roughly 6 weeks old when they brought her in. My amazing neighbour actually fosters these pups till they find their furever homes. And if you haven’t guessed…Zora was one of them. I remember the day I was washing dishes and looked out the window and saw this crazy little black and tan puppy running around. I dried my hands, called George and we went outside. We were doomed the moment we picked her up. Several weeks later and we started down the adventure of being pup parents! I know some people HATE when pet owners call themselves “parents”. I challenge anyone who disagrees with that with a puppy for two weeks. I have had cats my whole life, and they’re a lot of work when they’re young. But a puppy? It’s draining on all fronts.
This was her when she first arrived in foster care, only 6 weeks old!
I knew it was going to be hard and a lot of work, but this has been much more. Our life now pretty much surrounds “Where is Zora? Are you watching Zora? Maybe she needs to go outside? and STOP HER, GIVE HER A BONE” type scenarios.
She is now almost 12 weeks, our patience and hard work is starting to show.
- she mostly makes it through the night in her crate without waking up to go outside
- potty training has been going successfully, minus she doesn’t like to bark or indicate “I HAVE TO GO OUTSIDE”. So we gotta watch when she goes to the back door. I may get some bells for her to move.
- Tia and her are doing WAY better than I thought, as long as she doesn’t charge or sniff Tia’s butt for too long. No hiss will be given.
- Basic commands are coming with practice. We started Puppy Obedience training last night! *note she did SOOO WELL*
- I now have a whole budget set-up for anything “dog” related.
- We have pulled any favours with anyone that can come let the pup out during the day while we’re at work.
- Sleeping in? What is that? (this is the hardest with me as I LOVE sleeping in on the weekends)
- Anything I watch on YouTube or read has to do with dog training.
Tia watching the crazy pooch! *my house was a total mess for the first TWO weeks of her arrival*
Someone needed to go outside, I let her out for TWO seconds by herself while I put my boots on…. Well I guess she felt since I wasn’t pulling the weeds, she would.
She always sleeps with her head OFF the bed.
Yes, it’s official, I have reached #crazydogmom AND #crazycatmom status
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
WE ADOPTED A PUPPY TOO!!!!!
I’m a totally weird dog Mom too!
I was a cat person all my life but to see my little love Bailey on the adoption site I completely melted!! I begged My Love and since he’s a black lab lover,Bailey just so happened to be a black lab puppy he melted too. So 36 hours later we were on our way to her forever home
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I just checked out your posts, SOOOOOOOOOOO ADORABLE!! I love labs! It’s such a crazy experience raising a pooch!
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She’s a lot of fun…but omg I could kill her sometimes 🙂
Being a puppy Mom is a crazy experience FOR SURE!!!
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Zora is so precious! I want to know more about how she interacts with your cat. I have a 3 year old kitty and I’m wondering how he would get along if we decided to adopt a puppy. How did you introduce them? I need the details! 🙂
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She’s a hyper dog, so we knew we had to learn a distraction word or noise first before we put them in a room together. We kept Zora in our basement, and the cat upstairs, you want to not disrupt your cats routine as much as possible. We watched a TON of youtube videos and found a channel called “Kikopup” that had a lot of great videos on positive reinforcement training. This video(http://youtu.be/eiMGJBxRtBw?list=UU-qnqaajTk6bfs3UZuue6IQ) is the one that we learned about getting the dog to look at you in the eyes, so it teaches them to come, sit and look at you in the eyes. That way if she is distracted by my cat, she knows she should come look at me and gets a treat.
We used TONS of treats or chopped up carrots(silly but works) and a clicker. Once she responded to the cue sound, we introduced them with Zora on a leach. Every time she would look at Tia, i would make the cue sound and reward her, and kept doing that.
It’s still a work in progress, they can be in the same room all the time now. But Zora now wants to play, so they’re working out on what Kitty and Puppy playtime is vs what Puppy and Puppy play is. Tia wants to chase back and forth, Zora wants to chase and put paws on the kitty. So I use the cue word, clicker & treat reward.
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