The Puppy Diaries — Day One

So we adopted another dog.  Okay, not just a dog…a puppy.  A VERY young puppy.

Neither of us have ever raised a puppy before so this is going to be interesting…or something.

It all started on Thanksgiving.  We were invited to the house of the director of the play we were in for Thanksgiving dinner.  Koly(the director) had been fostering a dog for a friend and the dog had recently had puppies.  The first one I picked up, I fell in love with.  They called her SheShe and she just melted my heart.

There was no way we could have taken her home that day since we had nothing and no stores were open, not to mention the fact that she was only six weeks old and I wasn’t comfortable with her being away from her mother yet.  It was a lot of responsibility and we had to really think it over.  Plus we had the whole trip to Vegas thing planned so it wouldn’t be fair to bring her home only to board her for a week.

The more we thought about it the more the timing seemed right.  We had thought about getting another dog right after Romie died but decided we should just hold off for a while.  Well two years have passed and we had been thinking maybe it was time.  Especially since I had been trying to socialize Pappy a bit more lately and I could tell he kinda missed having someone to play with.

That brings us to yesterday when we brought our little Shilo home.  We decided on the name Shilo after much debate on other names.  I had originally wanted Pebbles or Willow(Buffy reference–natch!) but neither was really significant to us.  Rob joked that we should name her Repo(The name of the play we were in) since that is how we met Koly and thus the dog.  We sort of joked back in forth over various character names in the play and decided that Shilo(the lead in the play) actually worked really well.  It was age and gender appropriate.  It didn’t sound like Pappy or any commands so it wouldn’t confuse things.

We brought Pappy to the theater at noon to introduce them.  Pappy reacted very similar to how Romie did when we first introduced them.  Very indifferent.  Curious as to what this little thing was, but not all THAT eager to find out right away.

Since neither one had run barking in the other direction we decided it was okay to take her home.

We stopped at a pet store on the way there and got a crate for Shilo.  No sense in putting off crate training, and since we were going to have to housebreak the dog as well, the sooner the better.

When we got home we marveled over just how much the role of Pappy had reverted to the role of Romie all those years ago when we first introduced them.  Now it was Pappy that sort of skulked around looking at the little thing with a mixture of excitement and disgust.   What is this little thing and just how long is it staying anyway?  It better not get any of my food or toys!

It was kinda funny.

Last night was spent trying to get the dogs to play mostly unsuccessfully.  Pappy is just not sure about it and I know from the experience with Romie it’s going to take a little while for him to get used to it.  Shilo is all for it and really wants him to play with her but she seems to understand that she shouldn’t bug him too much until he warms up to her.

So far she has yet to pee or poop outside.  She doesn’t seem to get it but that will come with time.

I’m also pretty sure I overfed her last night and the results were three big poops.  One on the carpet as she got away from me and two in her crate when we woke up this morning.  Lesson learned.

She has quite a little personality.  Very playful and active but also very cuddly and cute.  She will curl up on you and fall asleep once she realizes that playtime is over.  She is a chewer though.  Understandably because she is just getting used to her teeth and all but we need to get some chew toys stat if we want to keep our furniture and clothing intact.  🙂

Also very whiny in her crate for the first ten minutes or so before she settles down.  I’m thinking that will diminish over time as she gets used to it.

Today she goes to the vets to get all her shots and tests and such done.  I will update later about that.

Oh, and did I mention that I finished my first half marathon? Heh, yeah so there’s that.  🙂