week of Jan. 25

we decided to turn our 'pee log book' into more of a timetable so that we could start to see the patterns/ time of day of when Ildi needs to 'do her business'. There is definitely a pattern and this helps us relax a little on the constant trips outside! on average, she's doing 12 pees and 7 poops a day! a few accidents inside this week, but really we can only blame ourselves - it's hard to remember that we've only had her 2 weeks.

We've been trying to train Ildi to ring a bell that we've hung off the backdoor. To train her, we ring the bell ourselves every time we go out with her. And every once in a while she sits at the door when she has to go - seems like great progress already!

weight is up to 13.5lbs - still seems like a slow gain?

we've also been starting to play fetch with her. she now knows: sit, lie down, sit-stay, come.

I also took her to my parents house for an evening play session with their 2 big dogs. At first she was nervous meeting them, but then warmed up to the dogs and was just running everywhere once in side the house. She loved their toys and wanted to always play with the dogs - while they were playing more of a policeman role and following her everywhere as if to say 'i have my eye on you, don't do anything you shouldn't do'.

Puppy Class

Ildi goes to puppy class! Unfortunately, I couldn't go, but Chad could. He got to be the proud 'dad' as Ildi was already ahead of her puppy classmates in knowing how to sit and lie down!! We feel lucky as Ildi is so keen to do training and it seems that she's so smart and quick to learn (for treats!)
Puppy class also gave her her first opportunity to meet and play with other dogs (puppies). She was the boldest pup and never afraid to meet the others and of course, super excited to meet the other humans!
We learned from puppy class some tricks on trying to get her to 'heel'.

Ildi's photo shoot

Ildi weighs in at 13lbs this morning - she's gained a whopping .5lbs in 3 days, is that normal?

We've been teaching her lots already - she pretty much knows how to sit, we teach her the word and a hand command (we use a clicker to aid the teaching process). We're attempting lie down. We also playing fetch (if you can call it fetch this early on :)
and 1 big step in our minds is that she played on her own with one of her toys for the first time!

had 1 accident inside the house today and we've noticed that she no longer does her business 18 times/ day - thank god! we're down to 12; but keep in mind that we're both home during the day so she doesn't stay locked in her kennel for super long periods of time.

and I've posted some pics from a 'photo shoot'. Chad's a photographer so I think we're lucky to have professional quality pictures anytime we want them!

Day 5: she just gets cuter!

Quick update:
- we were up 3 times in the night; when can we sleep through the night?!
- still feeding her 60/40 of old food/ new food. But she hasn't been eating the full amount all week. We're worried she's not eating enough. Have you seen a Vizsla puppy, they're skin (lots of loose skin! :) and bones.
- no accidents in the house!
- took her for a walk done the front steps and drive way.
- have introduced her to a shovel and fresh snow.
- still relegated to the kitchen nook area; which can sometimes drive her nuts when she's loose in the nook and we're in the kitchen cooking. She definitely doesn't like it if she can't spend time with us. Have we created a suck already?!
- we still love our naps together. she's a great cuddler!

Day 4: meet the vet

up 3 times in the night, but we were faked out twice! and we're noticing that she's up for the day around 8am pretty consistently now.
We're still feeding her 60/40 of the old/ new food and she still has diarrhea most times. Troubling - should we do something different with the food? We also feed her 3 times/ day with a total of 3 cups of food/ day. Don't think I mentioned that before.

Today, Ildi met the vet for the first time, for her 2nd set of shots. Plus it was her first car ride in the kennel with us.
She did so well in the car, hardly a peep out of her and only at the beginning of the journey. We had her on the leash to walk into the vet's office (she's much better on the leash already!). The moment we walked through the door you could tell she nervous and excited. All the smells.... but the staff at the Westmount Animal Clinic are great! They were so excited to meet her (we're learning that everyone loves a Vizsla puppy!) so Ildi soon associated the vet's office with fun people and attention. Our Vet: Dr. Doone Watson was amazing - she spent 2 hours with us talking about all things puppy health. And in retrospect this was so helpful for Ildi to get used to her environment and the Dr. before getting her shots.
After the vet visit she fell asleep fast in her kennel for the car ride home!

Today, we were 18/18 - no indoor accidents and she learned to do her business somewhere other than the 'pee run' in our backyard (which is a bigger deal than you might think)

Day 3: we're learning

Last night Ildi woke us up 4 times to 'do her business' (one of them was a false alarm though). We sleep pretty light as we're still trying to learn what all her different whines mean. Right now, any time she whines we get up, take her out of her kennel and take her outside to pee.
Have I mentioned we live in Calgary, Canada and it's January! it's cold outside at 3am when you've just gotten out of your warm bed!

Thurs morning we weighed her (before she ate breakfast) - 12.5lbs (we'll start a graph soon).
Only 2 accidents inside the house today! but I give ourselves most of the credit and not Ildi as we take outside almost every hour :) We've started rating the day; she's 16 (successfull trips to the bathroom)/ 18 (total bathrooms)!

We practiced with her leash today inside the house and in the backyard. and we introduced her to kids for the first time by way of our friend's 3 and 7 year old. Ildi LOVES people and kids - seriously - she gets so excited and all she wants is to be pet. She did well with the kids - especially because we're all nervous, not knowing what she would do and I'm sure she could sense it.

We also created a dictionary for ourselves for the commands that we want to be using with her - that way my husband and I are consistent with what we're teaching.

We definitely need to stop her from chewing everyone and everything! Never having a puppy before, I didn't quite expect the amount of chewing. Is it her, is it her breed or is every puppy this way?

Day 2: potty training and cuddle time

After doing our homework through several puppy books, we knew our first goal would be to figure out Ilid's pee schedule. We started a log of every time she went so that we could start predicting and taking her outside before she had a chance to do anything inside.

On her first night (she went to sleep in her kennel after only 3 min of whining!) she woke us up a few times - and we were on high alert!she had gone to bed just after 11pm and woke us up to go pee at 12:20am, 4am, 5:45am and then we were up for the day at 8am. We were so relieved though that she didn't do anything in her kennel and knew to whine to be let out to relieve herself.
We spent the day on high alert - if she was outside of her crate for more than an hour then we usually took her outside; which didn't always result in her doing her business outside. We still had 4 accidents inside but we had 3 successful potty trips outside!
We also had decided ahead of time to train her on a command when going to the bathroom. We use phrase "do your business". So every time she was actually going to bathroom outside, we would say "do your business".
For food, we needed to switch food from what the breeder had been feeding her as we weren't able to buy it in Calgary. So we worked on switching her from Diamond to Solid Gold. The breeders had sent us 4 cups of the Diamond, so we mixed 60% Diamond and 40% Solid Gold to get her used to the new food. Taste wise, Ildi never seemed to mind the new food, but for a few weeks she did have some diaherria.

And she sleeps alot! We would put her back in her kennel (teaching her the command "kennel") for each of her naps (about 5 naps - each for 1-2 hours). Though I admit a few times we let her nap on her because it's the cutest thing to have her cuddled up with you. And she loves cuddling! true to her breed.

Day 1 - Ildi comes home to Calgary

Ildi survives a cross-Canada flight in the Canadian winter and seems unscathed by what must be a traumatic experience: leaving her mom, leaving her litter-mates, first car ride, first kennel day, first airplane ride (in heated cargo), meeting new family, etc...
On her first afternoon with us we successfully attempted to put on her collar and leash. She was fine with the collar, but using her leash to walk up the steps to the house for the first time was not her favorite thing. You could tell she didn't like that she wasn't in control of where she was going, though she didn't freak out at the having a leash on her - just that it controlled her. We ended up just carrying her in rather than try to make her walk on the leash.

Inside the house we had used baby gates to keep in the kitchen nook - which, thankfully is hardwood. So this controlled the area she that she had 'accidents' in and kept us all calm as we weren't running all over the house trying to limit any chewing damage she could have done.

We also felt lucky to call on my brother Jon and Randy to puppy sit that night. We hadn't known exactly when Ildi would arrive so we already had tickets to a play that night. Uncle Jon and Randy have been just as excited as us at the arrival of little Ildi so they jumped at the chance to sit for us! and they taught her well to cuddle! (see picture of Ildi and Jon)

We called Day 1 a success as Ildi seemed to have bonded with us right away, nothing was damaged from her chewing, she ate her first meal with us and fell asleep in her crate at night with hardly a protest.

She collapses after such an exciting day with her new toy/ companion - duck.