Happy's wading pool!

By the rate he's growing I have to post more pics. It's already almost a week later than when the pictures were taken. So much is happening every day.


these pictures were taken right after a thunderstorm

On Tuesday Happy will be 12 weeks old. He's learning so fast. I finally got around to digging out the one puppy training book I liked, which we bought back in 2001, before we got Biko! It's from the Monks of New Skete, "The Art of Raising a Puppy". I told you I was still carrying him down the stairs. To my surprise I found out through the book, that he could have learned how to walk up and down the stairs weeks ago! That con man!!! As soon as I saw this, I grabbed him and went to the nearest staircase. He had no problem climbing them, but he was really scared to walk them back down. I clapped my hands enthusiastically telling him he can do it, and ever so carefully he reached out one paw, pulling it back again, whining, whimpering, and finally trying again. Needless to say he could do it, no problem. In the book the puppies were 7 weeks old, when they learned this, Happy was 11 weeks old. Con man, did I say that already?



After a few days of having mastered the stairs, he's still cautious about it, but getting more comfortable each day.



The photos today are about his wading pool. Since he started digging in the water bowls in the house (first with one paw, then with both) we thought a wading pool would be good for him. You can see for yourself, that he went in there by himself. He digs it! He's a water baby! Yeah. Photos are from August 11th. Since then we had him in the big pool as well, and he swam a short distance to the stairs, climbing out by himself. He's got good form, no panic. On a hot day like today, he likes to stand on the first stair in the pool better than his wading pool, because the pool water is really refreshing to say the least, and the wading pool water temp is more like soup.

Anyway here are two videos linsk of him in his wading pool, embedding does not work (again):

Happy 1 and Happy 2.


By the way, a few days ago I suddenly noticed a shift in our house. After a few weeks of puppy madness, there was suddenly calm in the air, which I didn't really notice at once. It just hit me a couple of days ago, that I could sit and spin for an hour without interruption, or do other stuff I like. I'm not exhausted to the point to just fall into bed each day, but am able to read again! How I missed reading. Happy stopped sleeping in his crate a couple of weeks ago. We have plastic crates and it was just too hot in it. He always started to pant heavily after a while, and when I let him out he ran to the water bowl, drank and dropped down right beside it to sleep there. The other change was, that Biko moved out. She moved back to David's room. She did not feel comfortable with Happy in the room, even if he was sleeping in the crate. So he's got the whole bedroom to himself . There are two dog pillows and one dog futon to chose as his bed. He likes to sleep on the towel next to the water bowl.
Long gone (well maybe not that long) are the nights were we had to take him outside every two hours. It's one time during the night now, which is O.K.

The other shift is from Biko towards him. She no longer jumps up and leaves the room, when he enters it. That's progress. Today, while she thought I was not looking, she was lying behind me on the floor, burring like a motor idling, while Happy was all over her, licking her ears, her mouth, and she was sniffing him up and down. Hehe, I saw that, girl!



While he still gets into lots of trouble, there's been a routine to our days, which comes close to those days with Sam and Biko. Biko is helping with teaching him, even though she does not know it. He knows now what "lets go outside", lets go inside", let's go to bed" means, because he saw her respond to those phrases. I just LOVE it, when I say, lets go to bed, and he's the first to run up to the next floor, sitting and waiting at the right bedroom door, while Biko and I are just halfway up the stairs. He also learned "lets go for a walk", because he now joined us on short evening walks. More about those another time.

While he does not sleep in a crate anymore, he gets put into the one in the kitchen during the day to get used to it. He's pretty good now, so we can leave him home alone for a short while, which makes life easier for me.

BTW- since I'm sitting here with only one shoe, I have to mention this. He still loves my Birkis as his sleeping buddies. Whenever he gets whiny because he's tired I give him one shoe, he drags it to wherever he wants to ly down (during the day), chews them a couple of times, and falls asleep. They are worth every penny I paid for them. They are still mostly mine, still wearable. We both love them very much. :o)

So, that's what I see when I turn around. My shoe is under his head. Nice soft pillow.



Hallo sleepy head! He heard Biko shifting in her crate, but kept on sleeping right away. I love sleeping dogs.



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O.K. enough for today. :o) By for now.