April 22: Ildi in the mountains

We've started taking last minute drives to the mountains and take Ildi on a walk out there - she loves the new scents and pathways! her nose never leaves the ground as she's scenting all the wildlife and plants. oh - to know what goes through her head as she's smelling new ground.
of course she's on leash the whole time. I can't wait until we know she's more reliable to be off-leash.

Day 15: on my own!

so 'dad' Chad left today for a 10 trip and that leaves me with Ildi 24 hours/ day for 10 days! yikes! :)
the hardest part - like I've mentioned is that I'm home all day and I end up sucking myself in to spending all my waking time with her - with the exceptions of a few naps, though sometimes I also get suckered in to letting her nap on me :)
The upside is that I truly believe all the time spent with her at such a young age will pay off and she will be a very well trained/ behaved dog; the downside is that I feel like I don't have a life!

She's also started to refuse to go on walks - this is so strange! We normally go on 2 walks/ day and my husband and equally share that responsibility. Now that he's gone, she walks a few steps on the sidewalk outside our house and then sits down and refuses to go. I have to give a tug on her leash and tons of encouragement. Maybe this is just a one time/ day thing?

Today's new experience for Ildi was music. Though we knew she loved TV - she stares at it like any young kid does! I had just realized that we hadn't played any music in the house in the last two weeks. So I turned on the ipod in the other room and she just stared in its direction - so funny! I think she thought a person would show up!

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 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.