Sunday, June 14, 2009

Welcome Wylie

Been almost a month since my last posting, mostly due to being incredibly busy at work. However, amongst all of the madness, I have finally managed to bring home a new puppy. Meet Wylie:


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This will be a new experience for me - he's only ten weeks old, and I didn't get Bailey until she was over nine months old. He's actually not doing too bad on learning - he's already staying in his crate without crying or peeing for hours at a time, and he's already claimed the kitchen as his sleep zone when he's not busy with other things (which is where I was going to have him stay while housetraining). He also hits the potty pretty quickly once he gets outside, so I haven't had to hang around much waiting for him to go.

But - he isn't housetrained. He doesn't know to ask to go outside, and if he's not in his crate or his pen, he'll just go wherever he is. The pee-pads are so far just great things to try to chew on, rather than pee on. So he still has some learning to do there.

Also, he's still just on his razor-sharp puppy teeth. I've found a few puppy-strength chew toys for him, which are his favorite toys so far. But he also is happy chewing on fingers, toes, arms, pants legs, etc. He so far hasn't done much damage to rugs or furniture, but that will likely come at some point (hopefully, just a $3 rug to start with). There will be a steady stream of puncture marks on my hands and arms until the adult teeth start coming in.

So far, he seems like he's going to be a smart boy. He definitely remembers things (like what he was trying to chew on a few minutes earlier when I took it away from him). He also definitely gets into a "Fierce Corgi" attitude when he's prevented from chewing on what he wants. But he's smart enough to know he doesn't want to hang around outside when it's 101 degrees, so at least he's got some basic sense, too.

Puppy class starts in a few weeks. So time to start studying, Wylie!

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