Ildi at 14 weeks: Ildi goes to Banff

A friend of mine was in town yesterday so we drove to Banff together - with Ildi of course! I fear I'm turning into one of those annoying parents (of humans) that talks of their kid non-stop.
I was amazed at how well Ildi did - in the kennel for the 2 hour car drive and silent the whole way. I had covered her kennel with a blanket as I was worried that she would get cold being in the car for that long and it seems like that calms her down instantly. will definitely try that again! I would bring out for walks whenever it was appropriate with what we were doing and then feed her lunch in her kennel. I even took her on a gondola ride to the top of Sulphur Mountain. She was a hit with everyone! even becoming a 'tourist attraction' for a group of japanese tourists who wanted to take her picture.

She weighed in at 14lbs this week.
and I'm still having issues with her going on walks - even in Banff. It's getting sightly better, but not perfect.

and on a positive note - her 'stand' command is really coming. I'm now training her on a hand command as she has the verbal command!

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 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.