Saturday, June 2, 2012

New Housemate

Our goldendoodle arrived yesterday, and he is quite adorable. I know all new "parents" say that, but he truly is!  He has been keeping us quite busy (as you can imagine) hence the late post today. 

Originally Jeff and I had grand plans to drive to Oklahoma last evening to pick the little guy up, but our breeder was driving down to Dallas to visit Costco to buy dog food in bulk. It seems absurd to drive two hours plus just for a Costco, but if you understand the multitude of puppies she has, it all makes sense.

Jeff met the breeder at 10A.M. in a nearby town and carted our guy back home. We borrowed a small crate for the trip because it can be rather dangerous to drive with your dog unsecured in the car, especially on the Texas highways. There are doggie seat belts, but we thought a crate might be more soothing for him.  He was not thrilled about the crate and cried for a good portion of the ride, but once Jeff started tapping the crate and talking to him, he perked up.

Proud papa

The delivery was not optimal because Jeff picked him up, dropped him home, and rushed back to work.  It was difficult to leave him after such a brief introduction, but that was just the way it had to be.

We have barricaded off a section of our apartment - kitchen to bathroom that will be his home whenever we are out. Jeff bought and cut Astro Turf to protect a small patch of our carpet, and he installed a baby gate.  We are trying our best to preserve the cleanliness of our home and of course apartment damage fees.

I arrived home by 4P.M. to be greeted by this big "Christmas" present in our kitchen!  I made my first mistake of saying hi to him for two - three minutes, rather than immediately take him out, and so he squatted and relieved himself on the AstroTurf.

Puppy proofing


Milton in the midst of things
Throughout the afternoon into evening, Milton pawed and sniffed around getting used to his new surroundings.  In total, he relieved himself four times on our carpet, but only very small patches that Out! PetCare quickly cleaned up in no time. As our dog literature tells us, we need to discipline him while he is in the act of doing something bad and never scold him after the fact. If we yell, "No," even one minute later, he has already forgotten what he did.  This is incredible to me, but that is the life of a dog's attention span.  So in each of these incidents, I immediately growled no, picked him up while chanting "Milton potties outside", and hurtled out the door to show him where he properly needs to go.  So far this has not been completely successful, but we are hopeful.

Poor lighting, but Milton looks sweet.
Milton and his dad












I think he'll fit in just fine












3 comments:

  1. Thanks for the latest update, and welcome to housebreaking 101! The setup you've created for Milton is great.
    Again, I'm very happy for you!

    Alisa Maxwell

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    Replies
    1. Thank you, Mrs. Maxwell! We have had quite a few accidents, but I'm not giving up!

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  2. very nice info
    very cute
    www.babyandnames.com

    ReplyDelete