Little Things

Mika and I wanted to say hello to all. We wish we could be at the Christmas party this evening.

All the books that I have read say that puppies shouldn't start obedience training until at least 12 weeks. I can't tell whether she is bored or just often tired. She understands wait(sitting) before going through doors and before coming out of her crate, she fetches and most of the time brings it back, and last night started to understand that if she rings the bell that we ring each time we take her outside, we'll open the door. As she is sleeping with her head on my leg, I think I'll just let her be a puppy.

After a few days of trying, she figured out how to get under the futon. I don't know what she was after, but she was pretty happy when she was under there. After this Giardia clears, she will be ready to tackle the world.

Giardia, not just for backpackers...

Dr. Kurt called this morning and informed us that Mika has giardia and that it is contagious to humans. Hopefully we will not develop giardia in the next couple of weeks.

We took her to the vet in town and got some pills. She should be okay in about a week, but that does mean that we can't bring her to Manitowoc to meet the extended family this weekend as planned. Everyone will just have to wait until Christmas...

Welcome Mika!

We picked up our new puppy this weekend. Isn't she cute! Ha ha.

After a great night in Madison visiting Rick, Andrea, Joe, Chris and Ben, we woke up early and drove down south of Chicago to meet Mika (pronounced mee-kuh). We didn't know which one would be Mika so we spent some time playing with the last two pups in the pouring sleet and freezing temps before we made our choice. Both puppies were equally adorable one being just a little larger than the other. We picked the bigger one because she seemed better suited to enjoy the snow and ice that prevail in the Northwoods. We have about 10 inches of powder at our house and she loves it!

Because she was the biggest in the litter she was the most dominant and really ran the show. Unfortunately for her, we will now be running the show. We drove up to the Miller's house in Winnetka and had a great time learning about our little charger. She is extremely confident and went right up to their black lab and started nibbling on her (Lucy's) paw. Lucy is a rescued dog and was actually afraid of Mika, who then proceeded to chase her around the room barking. What a great game :) Dr. Kurt checked her out at his new clinic and she got another couple vaccinations. We had a long drive home and she was excellent the whole way.


She is going to be a handful but we are both up for the challenge. The first two nights have been wonderful, no accidents in the crate and no crying. She is a good girl...I hope it lasts. Jay is excited to take her to puppy training to she if she will try to dominate the bull mastiffs.

Pre-puppy training

I called our local vet's office yesterday to see if they knew of any puppy training classes in the area in the next few months. Ironically, they had a four week class starting that evening for puppies 9-20 weeks old and were not aware of any in the future. I asked if we could sign up even though we don' t get our puppy until Saturday and she said, "sure".

We showed up empty handed at 6pm and were quickly labeled the "expectant parents" by the other members of the class. There were puppies everywhere struggling at the ends of their leashes to get at the other dogs. A large German Shepherd and a cat were having a showdown in the corner, somehow the cat was winning. A couple of black labs were going crazy and two huge 5 month old bull mastiffs were quietly drooling near the doorway.

Jay instantly discovered a shy goldendoodle and its elderly owners far away from the chaotic group. Bayley, a nine-week-old puppy, was being held by her owners and looked like she was about to fall asleep. They explained that they had just taken her for a long walk...just goes to show that Cesar Millan's tactics work, this dog was calm!

We went upstairs behind the parade of pups and frazzled owners to a big open room half-carpeted, half-vinyl. We made our introductions and after a 15 minute lesson on house-training, biting and leadership the puppies were let loose to play. Bayley slept through the beginning of the class and was rudely awakened by the pack of insane dogs. She cowered under a chair and didn't really come out for the rest of the class. She was really afraid and did not seem to like the other dogs at all. It probably didn't help that her owners were comforting her and feeding her fears.

The trainer quickly picked up on the situation and coached the old couple on how to correctly react to their dogs fear. By the end of the class Bayley was responding a little better to the other dogs. I hope our dog will be friendlier, at least she will have a fellow doodle to hang out with.

First Snow of the Winter!

We had our first wintery storm yesterday and woke up to about 4 inches of packy snow this morning. Jay hasn't stopped smiling...