Good morning my puppy brothers and sisters, where ever you all have scattered. I am so glad that you have all found your fur-ever homes. I heard Denise talking to my human, Chuck, mentioning that our entire brood have all been adopted. It is neat that each of us has found the human that we were hoping for.
Life here has been quite interesting the past couple of weeks. It was two weeks ago today that I moved into my human’s place. It is nice, let me tell you. They have big grassy areas that they call “outside” and big soft areas they call “inside”. They even have a couple of caverns they call “crates”. I am getting 3 squares a day, plus additional snacks that I will explain later. Plus plenty of toys. And my adopted brother Sleepy, i mean Bristol. Life is nice.
Sleepy is doing well. Dog, that pup can sleep. I want to play, chase, chew and run. He loves to get up on the sofa and snooze with his human. It is getting up on the sofa that is so funny. For me, it is a few steps an I am airborne, coming to a soft landing on the sofa. For Sleepy though, it is not so easy. I laugh as I watch him get a running start and generally launch himself into the side of the sofa. He has about a 2 inch vertical leap. His human helps him up though, and he curls up there and falls asleep. For hours at a time. I swear, i think i saw him fall asleep in mid leap one time. As Denise says, sleeping is Bristol’s super power.
About those snacks I mentioned. I am working hard on training my human. He is making great progress. He is learning to give me treats almost on my demand. At first, it was when i would get into my crate, then when I would sit. But now, wow, I finally started training Chuck on clicker training. He is learning to give me a treat whenever the clicker clicks. No matter what I am doing! I know!! I will need to continue to work with him so that he carries the clicker more often and clicks it more often, but he is doing great so far.
Our walking training is going okay. It is hard to teach Chuck that I get to go wherever I want when on a walk. He seems to like it when I stay on the path and close to him. He is missing the simple joy of picking up sticks, smelling grass and chasing leaves. I will keep working with him though. I think he needs to learn some of these things, life as a human seems as if it can be a bit stressful. He needs to learn to relax and to smell the sticks, leaves, plants, grass, floor, furniture and all of life around us. It seems to make him happy when I stay closer to him on our walks at times, and I like to hear him singing my praises. So, I will do that for him at times.
I am working on understanding my human’s body language. There are certain things that I just cannot quite understand yet. One is the apparent difference between “inside” and “outside”. I think both are nice. Outside is fun with the grass and leaves and such, but inside is right there, close and accessible. For some reason, when i need to relieve myself, they seem to like it more when I do it “outside” rather than “inside”. Not quite sure why yet, but I will continue to try to understand it. When I go outside, i get all sorts of praise and joy. Inside, and I get picked up and taken outside. They are smart though, I am sure they will help me understand what it is they want before too long.
“Inside” does not have sticks and leaves, but it has so many toys to play with and chew on. Bones, squeaky things, kongs, nyla-bones, blankets, shoes, sofas, crates, chair legs, fingers and more. There are many times that I will be busy chewing on one thing and they will bring me another to chew on. I told you, they are pretty well trained, always working on making sure I am fed, content and happy.
Now, Sleepy still needs a little work. He seems to think that he can chew on my toys when he wants to. My human really should buy him some toys and chew things as well. So far, I have two great bones, a bunch of nyla-bones, about 4 different kongs, and an assortment of other entertaining chew toys. He, however, has nothing. So, of course, he tries to take mine. It keeps me so busy, I will be chewing on my bone and Bristol will pick up my other bone. So I will need to drop my one bone and go get my other bone back. The nerve of that pup. But, I am sure I will get him trained over time. He is kinda fun to wrestle with and run around the house with. I never see our humans wrestling and racing around like we do. They are missing out on a lot of fun.
At the end of the day, though, Sleepy and I get along pretty well. We share our crate for naps and night time. Sleepy’s, sorry, Bristol’s human thinks it is cute and likes to take pictures of us curled up together as we sleep. Sometimes the Pupparazzi can get a little irritating. At times it is just fun to mess with her. I walk next to her and she takes my picture, i curl up with Sleepy and she takes my pic. I have found that she will take my pic when i just put my ears up.
That “ears up” leads to some interesting discussions. They have decided, in their mind, that I may not be mostly lab, like they thought. Chuck has decided that I am part lab, part retriever and part shepherd. Of course those are his favorite breeds. He is slowly understanding that I am “100% me and 100% his”, and that that breed is the most important part of all.
One thing that I have not yet figured out is why my human leaves early every morning except for the weekends. I don’t know where he goes and why he is gone so long. I do know that he comes home to me at the end of each day and I welcome him and let him know how glad I am that he is back. That is the best 45 seconds of the day, until Sleepy takes yet another of my toys and I am off again.
Other dogs have questioned, or laughed at, our both selecting the same human family, but it is working out pretty well. They have each other to entertain each other when we are resting. Of course, we do the entertaining when we are awake. We both give attention to both of the humans, but we know whose is whose. Like now, Sleepy is up on the sofa with Denise, sleeping (no surprise there) and I am chewing on one of my two bones on a blanket on the floor next to Chuck as he writes on the computer. They are really such nice humans to us and ask for so little. Just a little bit of snuggling and letting them pet us and they very happy. Sometimes I just lay back and let him scratch my chest and just look at him, telling him that “you are my human and that I am very happy that you are”.
Anyway, send me a note when you get a chance and let me know how your new families are working out. You can reach me at “favoritepuppy@chucks”.
