Trials and Tribulations

This post has nothing to do with my puppies, but it is just to dang funny. My neighbor's dog ate her hubby's hearing aide. She heard a loud squealing noise early in the morning that was moving about in the room. She was able to "extract" it from the dog, but not without some damage to the hearing aide. Her husband was really pissed; it was a new hearing aide. She went to church to pray for the hubby and the dog.

The Routine

Well, it has been three weeks now and I still love my little puppies, Jesse and Josey. They continue to provide me with hours of enjoyment and laughter. Jesse and Josey are adapting to the Turner household with great ease, well sorta.
Crate training is going well and we have settled into a routine nicely. In the morning, they go outside and have breakfast while I get ready for work. I bring them in just before I leave for work and place them in their crate. It is a big enough crate that they sleep and play on one end and do their business on the other end. They cry for me as I leave for work. Poor babies, I have to leave them. As soon as I get back home, I open the crate and am greated with two excited little puppies. We immediately head outside for exercise, supper, and ~ well you know. I leave them in the kennel outside for about hour, then back in the house where we settle in the recliner and after a few puppy kisses, they settle down and go to sleep in my lap, soon snoring softly. I put them to bed back in their crate and cover the crate with a tablecloth. They settle down for the night quickly and do not make another sound until they hear us stirring around the next monrning. That is our routine, Monday thru Friday. We sleep late on the weekends. I am thinking they will be easy to train as they are so obviously the most intelligent pups that were ever born!

The pups got a bath today, and they did not take kindly to the bath but they do smell better.

Their little personalities are beginning to develop, more on that later.

Poem For A New Puppy Owner

Don't smell crotches, don't eat plants.
Don't steal food or underpants.
Don't eat my socks, don't grab my hair.
Don't rip the stuffing from that chair!
Don't eat those peas! Don't touch that bush!Don't chew my shoes. What IS that mush?
Eat your cookies. Drink your drink,
Outta the toilet! Outta the sink!
Away from the cat box, it's for the cat!
And MUST you kiss me after that?
Yes, raising a puppy, is not for the lazy!
Though puppies are funny, they're also quite crazy.
But don't despair, though its toil and strife.
After three years, you'll get back your life!
So, let's go for "walkies", you can "do your thing"
And perhaps I'll get back my good diamond ring!

Author Unknown

Puppy Play

Jesse and Josey have been in the family for 7 days as of yesterday. It is hard for me to get anything done when I am at home because they want to be in my lap and how can I resist them? We played outside yesterday while the sun was still shining. The hubs brought home a 10X10 kennel for them. We put it up in the back yard and intorduced them to their new playground. They ran and played and wrestled for a couple hours. We just sat and laughed at them for a long time.

I also put them on a leash for a short time. One leash, two puppies. Cute, Cute, Cute! They were sooooo tired when we came in the house, they went right to sleep in my lap. No nipping at my hands, no puppy kisses, just naptime.

Time for a little puppy play.

Well Puppy Check-up + TMI Alert!

Day Four: Took off work on last Tuesday morning to take my puppies in for a check-up and to get them started on their shots. They were asleep in the pet carrier before we got to the Vets Office; a short 9 miles to town. Of course everyone loved my babies. Jesse weighed 3.3 pounds and Lady Josey weighed in at 3 pounds.

Here comes the TMI: Both of them had intestinal worms, which did not surprise me as I had seen what I thought were worms in their diarrhea poop for the past two days. Other than that, they are very healthy. Three days of medicine and they will be rid of the nasty parasites. No heart worms, thank goodness.

When can I get them "fixed", I asked? I don't want any incest and stupid puppies in my household. He said he would do that when they are six months old, adding that Josey would probably not go into heat until 8 months old. Well she better not! That's all I have to say about that.

I am crate training them (or I think I am). I need a "Puppies for Dummies" Manual. The hubs bought them a medium size crate and they eat and sleep in the front of it and eliminate in the other end on puppy pads. They don't mess up their sleep area. It is easier to clean up. As they grow and have more bladder control, we will transition to something else. I take them out in the morning and in the evening a couple of times for exercise. So far, so good. I cover up their crate at night with a large tablecloth. They whine, cry, bark for about 5 minutes, then they settle down and go to sleep and sleep all night. Such good puppies.

Name that Puppy!

So how did I come up with names for the puppies. My husband loves old westerns and we were watching 3:10 to Yuma at the cabin. That gave me the idea. Name the boy Jesse and the girl, Josey. The hubs liked it, but said I had to use the entire name, so they became: Jesse James Turner and Josey Wales Turner. He laughed and said he loved the names.

I spend the first night sleeping in the recliner with them in my lap to keep them quiet. I was afraid if they kept the hubs up he would throw all three of us out in the woods. I actually slept pretty good. Sometime during the night in my sleep stooper, I thought I had broken Josey's neck by crushing her between the arm and the back of the recliner. Panic set in and I picked her limp body and dropped her onto my lap. She remained limp. Tears filled my eyes. Damn, I have already killed one of my puppies!!. I fumbled for the flashlight as I kept my eyes on Josey and she did not move. Finally finding the flashlight, I turned it on and shined it in her eyes. Jesse was beginning to whine due to all of the commotion in the recliner. Josey raised her tiny head and looked sleeply into my face and wagged her tail. A sigh of relief from me and tears once again filled my eyes. This time tears of joy. I think it was just a bad dream and I interrupted peaceful puppy dreams. What have I gotten myself into????
I hope thier mild demeanor is a indication of what sweet and easy puppies they will be to raise. Jesse seems to be the lively one, and Josey appears to be calm and ladylike. They love to ride in the truck and both of the quickly pass out into a slumber as we head home to the Noke. Sweet babies. One of them occasionally whines in his/her sleep while the other one occasionally farts! The farter has to be Jesse. We all know that southern ladies don't fart, they fluff. :-) We stop a couple of times on the almost 3 hours drive home and give them a potty break. Wonderful puppies - no accidents in the truck. My sweet babies.
On the way home I email my boss and ask for 6 weeks of Family Medical Leave to be with my new babies. I won't repeat her response. Needless to say, I am thinking about what to do with the puppies while I am at work.

Puppylove in Lonoke

Saturday I adopted two puppies from a man and his grand daughter in Pleasant Plains, Arkansas. The hubs and I were on our way to the cabin. They are so very cute and so very much trouble for an old woman such as myself. Trouble to take care of, yes, but when they are asleep in my arms, the trouble melts away as I feel the joy of unconditional love.



So, I have decided to blog about the adoption of 8 week old puppies and the challenges and joy it brings as they grow and mature into adult dogs. In my next post, I will introduce the puppies and then see where this story leads.