Never before seen ...

I think it might be an ominous thing when the vet you are taking your baby to is just utterly baffled by a Sheltie's ears being glued.

Maybe it's because I'm in agility and have seen more than my fair share of baby Shelties?! But she didn't say this was the first Sheltie she's seen ... just the first one with ears glued. 

Also interesting is wanting me to spay my puppy before she is even 6 months old ... so I expect on our next visit when I decline the rabies vaccine and just finish the puppy DAPP series (I'll do rabies a month later on its own in case of vaccine reaction issues) that I'll be looked at oddly for that too. But in the almost 10 years since Baxter has come into my life, I've learned a couple of things and always advocate for my dogs.

It's really too bad that vets just push early spay and neuter though. At least with Nike they asked if I was doing health testing when I said we wouldn't be spaying before 2 year of age and that vet was pretty receptive when I explained I just wanted her to be mature before removing hormones/spaying and it didn't necessarily have anything to do with breeding. This one just listed all the things that could go wrong if you didn't spay before the first heat cycle.

I'm not a standard pet owner - not that there is anything wrong with being a standard pet owner. I know a little more than a lot of people about dogs and dog related things. My whole family has me clip their dog nails. Spencer brings his own muzzle to the clinic. My dogs aren't fat. But for the love of Dog - don't try to scare me into doing what YOU think is right- maybe explain signs to watch for IF those things are going wrong. Mammary tumors. What symptoms you'd see with pyometria. But don't tell me Pyo is life threatening (I know it is ...) when I'm here with a 12 week old baby - maybe save that conversation for my 2 year old dog who is still intact, hey?! 

On a happier note, this is 3 weeks since Sizzle came home on 26-Nov-2017. (Or at least it was 3 weeks when I originally wrote this!)

The first week we just settled in and figured stuff out - was a pretty big change coming into a house with 4 resident dogs, none of whom are Shelties. She came out to class with me and hung out in the building after classes. She also came to work with me and met about 20 strange men - working in Oil & Gas is fantastic for socialization with men!! Not really loving food as much as I'd expect, but oh my the play & tug drive!

The second week was mostly a repeat of the first week, except we started coming out to family gatherings and meeting my nieces/nephews and the various other "family" dogs. 5 kids under 8 is a lot of children in one house when you're the center of attention!

She is delightfully confident little ball of fluff. LOVES people. Confident with dogs - some we say hi to - some we just observe from a distance. MANY opinions on everything that she has zero problem voicing.

Loves to chase stuff. Bringing it back - well not so much. But play and tug?! Oh my, someone forgot to tell the Sheltie that she isn't a terrier! I love it! 

She also sleeps through the night. Her first night we got up in the middle of the night and then the second day we got up at 5 am - other than that she has zero problem sleeping through the night and not waking me up at an ungodly hour. 

One Month (and 12 weeks)

Time flies. I've had Nike for a month now, and things are starting to fall back into place and come together. She's 12 weeks old now.

Penny is pretty okay with her, but wishes she'd stop playing so rough now. The boys are slowly starting to accept her and tolerate her better. Once she's got her shots and we can go run off leash I hope she and Spence will discover that they can play chase and that should cement a friendship. 

12 weeks. I need to figure out a better way to stack her!

She's grown like a weed and is now (visually) taller than the other dogs. It may just be puppy fluff, but she looks larger than Spencer already!

She's not a fan of being contained in the xpen - especially since she can't get to the other dogs. However, she is fine kenneled. So she's been coming to work with me and just staying kenneled in the car. That way I can play with her at lunch/feed her lunch and I play with her at the end of the day before we drive home too. So far with the mild weather this has worked great. In the summer I really hope she'll stay quiet in her kennel so I can continue to bring her (it'll be too hot to crate out of the car all the time, but if she's quiet no one cares if she's in the office.)

Self stacked(ish) 12.5 weeks

She is still a very confident little thing.

At puppy play time on Thurs she figured out bullying with a worried Coton. He was a lot of fun. If you bounced at him, he'd run away and you could grab a mouthful of his fur and play tug with him ...

It was also the first day for a 11 week old Mini Aussie. He was twice the size of her! Pretty little black tri with a much nicer head than she has. It was quite funny to watch her gravitate to him.

Finally she ended up having a great game of bitey-face with an older Corgi puppy. It was pretty cute.

This past week she's made appearances at agility since she now has 2 sets of shots and I am slightly less paranoid. With all the melting and dog poop everywhere we haven't been out walking or socializing much and I wanted to work on that, especially since one of her sisters is having some issues with people.

On Tues she came to TA and hung out/ did some shaping in between my runs with the boys. She did really well with both and generalized to working in a new environment. She's not always keen on being touched by strangers. I'm not sure if that is just reserve or if it is just because strange people have no value to her and she is rewarded for turning back to me. Regardless, strangers now feed cookies for the time being. 

I'm not too worried about people having more attraction than I do - what I am concerned about right now is her vacuuming food off the floor at puppy play time (I keep having visions of Penny.)

Pretty puppy profile

She's got "blushing" coming in on her cheeks!

Yesterday I took her to an agility trial to socialize as well. We met many more people and ate lots of cookies. She was very brave and outgoing. Such a fun little puppy!

First time in a comfort flex harness, she fits Penny's harness without any adjustments now. She's also graduated to a "real dog" collar. The tiny puppy collar was too hard to find in her fur and since loose leash walking isn't a thing yet I was worried about how thin the collar is on her neck/trachea with pulling and bouncing like a crazy thing. I will say that I am pretty proud of myself for not buying any new collars/leashes or harnesses for her (yet.) I have so many old ones she can wear those until she stops growing so much!

Crazy? Who, me??

Recalls!

 She did great at the agility trial as well. Met people. Heard noises. Learned to focus on me in this environment too. Did some more shaping. Met a friend's Kelpie puppy who is a week older than she is. Met another friend's Shetland "pony" (17.5" Sheltie.) She thought he was great fun despite the size difference. She is very much a rough and tumble little puppy! We worked on calling out of play (with cookies in front of her nose, but still) Had some moments of brilliance where she thought about leaving but didn't. Good girl!

Weekend Adventures!

Weighed Nike on Sunday, on my parent's scale that may or may not be accurate. She's 5.6 lbs at 9.5 weeks and around 9.5" tall. She is supposed to theoretically finish around 10-12 lbs, but I'm not sure on the height - since under 12" seems unrealistic, I'm hoping around 14.5" to 15". Ideally the closer she gets to 16" the better it'll be.

9 weeks

Adventures this weekend included:

Friday - Visited Kal Tire. Heard lots of loud noises. Met about 7 men and a couple of women. There was also this surprise give away thing and they set off a confetti bomb. Basically it sounded like a loud balloon pop. She stopped what she was doing and just looked, but wasn't too upset and was happily bouncing around again within minutes.

Sunday - we went out to my favorite dog field under the power lines to play in the snow. The boys went out first and played ball until Spencer was cold and Baxter was covered in snowballs. Then it was Nike's turn. She had great fun chasing me through the snow. However, it's hard to get awesome puppy pictures when she just comes running every time you crouch down to get a photo on her level!

Hey! Don't forget about us!!

I think the snow was a hit ...

Pretty ears!

We also did supper again at the Parent's with K & C and my 5 year old niece and 3 year old nephew. Nike isn't worried about the kids anymore, but neither does she particularly want anything to do with them. We did do some shaping of the multi wraps in the living room. She stuck with me and worked! Good baby! I need to video and review this stuff.

This week we start her puppy class, so that should be lots of learning and fun!

The worst part about containing the baby in a xpen to prevent bad behaviors is the fact the bars get in the way for cute pictures =(

Week 1 - Adventure Day!

Today marked Day 5 with little Miss Nike. It was also the first day she was home alone in her pen while I went to work (only a half day today but still.)

When I got home she was still in the pen, so that was a success. I think she was probably sleeping because she didn't start screaming right away when the rest of the dogs did. (They're a little excited when I get home and don't mind telling the world about exactly HOW excited they are!)

Today was also adventure day. Once a week I'm planning on taking Nike somewhere for a big adventure for socialization. Ideally we will do something every day, but once puppy class starts up I'm off the hook for 2 or 3 days a week depending how many classes I want to go to! After fearful Spencer I don't care if this is overkill - I'd rather over kill it than not kill it enough.

Today we went to Sunridge RONA. I have no problem with my almost 9 wk old puppy walking somewhere that isn't a dog centric environment, but we won't do pet stores etc until she's got the full set of puppy shots. Likewise, I'm not worried about agility trials with people I know, but some of the other agility places are a no go as well.

She was very brave. We went pee in the parking lot before heading over to see the sliding doors, which were a little worrisome at first. So we watched those and ate some cookies and finally walked through them. She's never really walked anywhere on leash before so this was quite the adventure in and of itself.

No sense of self preservation with the human feet. Not one ounce! So I have to be careful not to punt her as she squirrels around on the floor. Mostly we got the hang of staying to one side or the other of the feet. I'm glad I practiced this with the Chi's when they were babies who at least had some self preservation. It's just like falling off a bike ... or not punting the puppy!

We walked on a pallet and climbed on 2 carts to move lumber. One was solid but wiggled some and the other had a grill instead of being solid. Both were no problem!

We listened to people loading carts with hardwood floor. To the big saw running. To the squeaky bird noise over by the paint aisle. No worries about the noises, that's for sure.

We also met some people! A few worker people pet her and said Hi. We also met some friendly strangers who also said Hi and some people that we just walked past. She was very good with all of it. No repeat of the backing between my feet growling that we had at the airport when I first picked her up thank goodness. Not over the top mindlessly friendly meeting new people, but also not super reserved and suspicious of strangers. We're also doing well with defaulting in a sit looking at me when I stop moving (not that this is something I've actively worked on.)

Sadly we don't have any adventure pictures from RONA. Not that I mind looking crazy, but she doesn't hold still far enough away from me to get a picture. Enough to handle the puppy, without complicating it with a camera too.

Week 1 Adventures

Friday - Car rides to the pet store and back (didn't come in)
Saturday - E&D's house and met them, the kids and Fiona their dog
Sunday - Mom & Dad's - Met K and her kids as well as Sidney the parent's dog and saw E and kids again
Tuesday - Sunridge RONA - Recalls, Friendly Strangers/Noises and Leash Walking

Saturday - Discovered playing with Penny

Started playing with Toys

Met Fiona, who is 9

Played with new toys at Mon & Dad's after Sidney proved defective in the play department!

Learned to relax and sleep in her puppy pen. It's exhausting being a baby!