I know, thought I. When Nell arrives, wouldn’t it be lovely to blog every day about her adventures?! Wouldn’t it be lovely to record for all posterity her puppy journey, marking the milestones, the joys, the hiccups and the (hopefully) forward progress.
And here I am, four days later and thinking, well THAT was a mad idea, wasn’t it?
Here she is, asleep. Meaning I can grab a few minutes to write this…
Raising a puppy is like raising a baby. My long-dormant Mum’n’Baby skills have been hauled out of storage and, given my youngest child is 35 years old this week, the skills are somewhat rusty and suffering with the passing of three and a half decades. However, unlike my baby raising days, this time I am unencumbered by having to go to work AND I know that puppyhood vanishes far quicker than childhood, so as long as I remember this, all will be well.
Nell has settled in way better than I expected. Thus far, she is getting used to toileting outside, the piddle pads I purchased (all bar three which have mostly been used for mopping up her wild spaniel-eared water drinking ways) going unused. I take her outside every couple of hours and twice during the night, and she pees every time and sometimes poos. Only a handful of accidents indoors and I think they’ve been because she’s been so overjoyed by playtime she’s excited a wee out of herself!
She is walking nicely on the lead which is just as well because it took her all of two days to realise that the garden is huge and she can outrun us in her pursuit of mischief. In the garden she likes to gnaw moss from trees and the lawn, dodge in and out of the various hedges, race up and down the bottom garden, pursue the Idiot Bantams, and eat their poo, which is revolting behaviour to be discouraged.
We’ve had an excursion to the library and although she was a little stressed by the outward bound journey, coming home she settled down in the travel box and watched the world go by with her head hanging over the edge. The excursion to the library should have taken no more than half an hour, but we were stopped so many times, it took twice that time. She was good with all the people she met. And she is happy to be toted around in the puppy sling, although whether my back is happy remains to be seen.
She nearly drowned me when I decided it would be a good idea to give her particularly muddy paws a bath. Climbing into the washing up bowl of her own free will she splashed around and then leapt out onto me. I got wetter than she did!
We are training everyday, focusing on ‘sit’, ‘fetch’ and ‘leave.’ ‘Leave’ was especially important as she decided it was a good idea to chase Bambino which concerned me. However, this morning when I was sitting between them on the floor playing, ‘Bit of Chicken for Bambino, Bit of Chicken for Nell’ in a sort of peace talks picnic, she decided to chase him BUT this time he stood his ground (hurrah!) and gave her a bop on the nose. And now she regards him from a respectful distance and he can go about his normal business. It had to happen and it has, thank goodness.
Other favourite Nell things include: chewing the bricks on the fireplace hearth, chewing the wood burner logs, carrots, flinging herself into her toy box to choose which toy she wants to play with, barking at wheelbarrows, barking at food mixers, cheese, sitting on my feet whilst I’m washing up, roast chicken, peanut butter and apple.
This is her favourite toy, which, ironically I bought for Bambino a couple of years ago and he largely chose to ignore:
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KJ