Author Archives: kirabug

Chance update & some quick pics

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These photos look like crap because my original revision iPhone has a lot of trouble capturing these new high-energy puppies they’re producing these days.

The top left and the bottom are taken at 9pm a few days ago after a looong walk around our complex. The top right was taken this afternoon after romping with my sister a while.

won't eat a french fry, but he'll eat a stick. napping in front of the window.
long walk flop in the grass time.

Some highlights:

  • He is terrified of french fries, but will eat leaves, sticks, and bugs. Nature boy!
  • We’ve spent a lot of time this week barking at the dog that lives in the shiny black dishwasher, and occasionally at the dog that lives in the stove. Dishwasher Dog even gets scratched at, and one day I caught Chance trying to peer around the edge of the door to see Dishwasher Dog better.
  • The bad news is that he’s escaped from the kitchen twice this week. The good news is that when he has the run of the house, he’s making a good effort at returning to the kitchen (where the pee pads and litter box are) when he needs to go.
  • My nose didn’t get bit once this week, which is definitely an improvement.
  • We’re making good progress on “sit” and “come here” and “come on” (or as everyone else knows them, sit, come, and heel”), and he’s starting to get an inking of what “wait” (everyone else’s “stay”) means. And he definitely understands that “Hey!” is “stop what you’re doing and pay attention to Mom”.

I’m thinking of doing puppy updates every Thursday, so that a) I have a chance to get a few decent pictures throughout the week, b) you have something visual to look forward to and c) I can track his age (since he was born on a Thursday). No guarantees yet, especially considering how busy this week is supposed to be, but that’s the plan.

And yes, at some point, I’ll learn how to embed this crap correctly here instead.

Puppy Adventures: Rearranging the Kitchen

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So Chance has been here about a week and a half, and he’s having a pretty good time I think. He’s not overly fond of being left home along, when he’s awake, but since he sleeps most of the day anyway we’ve got a pretty good truce going. (Friday he discovered an escape route under one of the baby gates, so it’s a tentative truce.)

One of the funnier things he does when he’s tired or stressed is pile all his toys in his bed. He was in a litter of two, but in a household with at least four adult dogs and three puppies from another litter, so I suspect this is an attempt to define his own space. It’s a totally understandable reaction, but hilarious to walk into the kitchen and find a perfectly clear floor, and a tiny tiny dog bed stuffed to the gills with eight toys and every puppy treat he’s been given that day. Usually he’s laying somewhere on top, fast asleep.

And we’re already seeing signs that we’ve got a smart one on our hands. He was upset that he couldn’t leave the kitchen the other day when we were home (he needed to pee and we needed a break) and he got tired of standing on the hard linoleum in front of the gate. He dragged his bed over to the gate and climbed in, then watched us through the gate with an expression very much like we were using to watch TV.

Two things that set Chance apart from JessieDog (because we can’t help but occasionally make comparisons between our “kids”): Jessie wouldn’t play fetch on a bet, but Chance loves it. Also, Jessie loved to be covered with the blankets but couldn’t figure out how to do it herself. Chance has already mastered both covering and uncovering himself, and was doing a good job of drying himself off after a shower this morning just by burrowing through the towel.