Merry Christmas Puppy

Tucker's been excited ever since he saw the Christmas stockings. He's learned over the past 4 years to associate them with special treats. Now Brando's been educated too, and now he too thinks Christmas is wonderful . We broke with our tradition and gave the dogs not only pig's ears and edible treats, but also 3 toys. BAAAD idea. Tucker managed to destroy 2 of the 3. We plan to take at least one of the them back to Petco and complain, being as how it was advertised as standing up to "power chewing." (Yeah. For about 10 minutes!)
It was all very exhausting... for dogs.

Snipped!

Brando went in for the Big Snip Monday morning and returned the end of the afternoon, wearing the cone and looking very, very sad. We felt bad for him, but we were only following orders -- the orders of CCI that he be neutered when he reached the age of six months. That's apparently standard for all the crossed breeds. Brando's father, Desi II, was a pure-bred Golden Retriever, but his mother, Avani, was half black lab and half Golden. (She reportedly looked like a black lab.)

Since that first night, things have picked up. Brando doesn't seem very intent on licking his incision (which held together at least in part by some sort of glue).

So he doesn't have to wear the cone when we can keep an eye on him -- while out walking, for example, or hanging out with us in the kitchen during dinner preparations. Steve took him Christmas shopping, coneless, yesterday, and came back with reports of countless ladies swooning over Brando's cuteness and exceedingly soft fur. He feels like mink.

Puppy Kindergarten graduation

Last Monday, Brando and his classmates in Puppy Kindergarten were tested by our teacher, Mike Fowler, and Steve and I were pleased (if surprised) that Brando got almost all 9s and 10s in all the areas in which the dogs were tested. We've now begun taking him out on our grocery-shopping expeditions. Although he typically pees at least one lake per hour, he hasn't yet had any accidents in a store (nor will he ever, we fervently hope). Still the distractions of morcels on the ground and other friendly shoppers are an intense test for him. He particularly seems to adore young ladies. He's seen here with Mike's friend, Maria (in our kitchen, not the grocery store.)

Who Brando reminds us of, periodically

Jar-Jar Binks. See the resemblance? (Well, we can. It's that long nose and friendly look.)

Catching Up

I'm turning over a new leaf, vowing up update Brando's blog more often. A few highlights from recent weeks:

While Steve and I exchanged homes with a Reno couple (so that we could spend Thanksgiving with Michael and Elliot, who flew in from Chicago), Brando went to doggy paradise, aka Retrieverland, aka the home of former CCI puppy-raisers Teri McCartney and Tom Geary. Here he is romping with one of their millions of toys. Brando has made it clear he would like more puppy toys from Santa for this Christmas.

Brando was too young to participate in last week's La Jolla Christmas Parade. Pups had to be 7 months old, and he's only 6 months old. But he and Tucker have switched to their festive red holiday collars.

Three months and three weeks old

Brando stayed with puppy-sitter Chris Harrell while we were on our trip to the East Coast, and he looked noticeably larger when we reclaimed him! He's growing so fast.

I was pleased by Chris's comment that he seems to have an "old soul." I agree. And yet he's still very much a puppy. For my money, one of his more endearing habits is to sit with his tail curled under him -- and then to wag it! I don't know how he does that.

A Water Dog? Maybe. A Mud Dog -- Definitely!

Steve and I decided the other day to give Brando his first real swimming lesson. There's a constant danger that he could fall into the pool by accident, and it would feel good to know that he could get out safely. So we took him into the pool with us and watched with pleasure as he paddled from one of us to the other. He seemed more relaxed and calm in the water than any dog we've had since Astra (our very first dog, acquired back in the late 1970s).

After a while, I led him up the stairs and out of the pool. At which point he immediately ran to the nearest patch of dirt and rolled himself frenetically. Think of breading pork chops for the frying pan -- only this was Brando, coating himself with a nice thick layer of mud.

He was almost black. The only thing we could do was to give him a full-on bath. He hasn't been back in the pool since then -- about which we feel some relief!

12 weeks old!

This is the calmest 12-week-old puppy I've ever had. So often, he's content to just lie near us, wakeful yet at rest. He's so much less destructive than Yuli was at this age. He likes to chew on the occasional twig or rock, but he's not destroying the irrigation or actively attacking plants.

I think he's learned to control himself around Tucker, whom he worships. Tuck's still uneasy about some of Brando's puppy moves, but he seems to be relaxing a bit around him. I'm hopeful they will eventually become pals.

And on the house-training front, I think we're there. No accidents in more than a week. This pup understands that he needs to go outside to pee and poop (though in this hot weather, we haven't put that to the test of requiring him to ask us to open the door).

First Ventures Out

Brando and I went out for our first walk yesterday, all the way around the block. After some initial wrenching and twisting on the Halti, he settled down and trotted along with me briskly (with only intermittent break-downs in which he tried to claw the strap off his nose.)

Steve and I also took him along to a party Saturday night, where he romped ecstatically in the lush grass, then settled down beautifully (only interrupting us with his puppy snores.)

He'll be 11 weeks old tomorrow, and we've had him for three weeks as of today. I've given up counting the peeing accidents in the house, but suffice it to say they continue. (No more pooping accidents, beyond that one.) The unauthorized pees are confounding. He has enough capacity to abstain for 8-9 hours every night (in his kennel). And he's great about "hurrying" whenever we order him to do so. But on Monday, he peed a LOT three times within an hour -- twice in the dining room. We speculate that the explanation may be two-fold: lots of drinking that afternoon and vigorous play with Yuli, exciting his bladder [?] Sadly, he won't have much more of the latter, as she moves on to Advanced Training on Saturday.

Day 12

Brando is a champion sleeper! We LOVE this. Last night was the fourth straight night he's gone all the way through without awakening us. I'm convinced he has accepted this as the pattern of our Pack, and his bladder capacity is sufficient that he doesn't need to go out at 2 a.m. to pee (as

Yuli did until she was at least 6 months old.) But he's a sleepy guy in general. Although he wakes up and explores the yard at times (when we're out there watching him in it), and he spends some time wrestling with Yuli, he naps away great chunks of the day. Taking care of him feels easy.

Meanwhile, on the House-Breaking front, he had an accident on Thursday. And we discovered a little pile of puppy poop in a corner of the living room that appeared to have been deposited there a day or so before our discovery. So the score is now: Peeing in the House: 7 times. Pooping inside: 1. Still he had no accidents Friday or Saturday or today (so far). And he certainly understands the command to urinate.

We've been putting his Halti on every time we feed him, to accustom him to associate wearing the Halti with Good Things (he now LOVES to eat, having entirely recovered from his early pickiness.) But we haven't yet tried to attach the Halti to a leash. We need to start that soon.

A huge milestone

One reason I've started this blog is because I can't remember from one puppy to the next when they got over the worst of their puppyish behaviors. But last night something wonderful happened: Brando slept quietly from 10 p.m. to 5:55 a.m.

Will this continue? I'll report it here first!

On other fronts, he has peed in the house 6 times since we got him. He has not yet pooped in the house, and we fervently hope he never will (though if he doesn't, that will be a first in all our dog-raising experience.)

One thing for sure: he already understands the CCI "Hurry" command (which applies to both urination and defecation.) He pees every time we take him outside and tell him to hurry.

But among the budding bad habits: he LOVES digging.

Meet Brando!!!

This is what he looked like when I picked him up last Wednesday, July 29. He was one day short of 8 weeks old and weighed 14 pounds 9 ounces. His full name is Brando II, as there apparently was one Brando before. This is what he looked like that first day.

In the last 8 days, we've already had plenty of adventures. After a happy day on Thursday, we awoke on Friday to find him looking like a poster puppy for listlessness. When we took his temperature, we thought he was running a slight fever. Then I realized I had given him the incorrect dose of his heartworm medicine the night before, and Steve and I were extremely concerned that we might have poisoned him!

I got him to the vet’s by 8:40 a.m., and there things got crazy. At one point he had a massive diarrheal attack (in the back room), and the vet tech was telling me it was almost certainly parvovirus (which can be fatal). I okayed a parvo test (cha-ching! $32), and of course that came out negative (as I had been certain it would, considering how meticulous the CCI breeders are.) They gave him subcutaneous fluids and anti-nausea meds, and sent me home with special dietary dogfood (total bill: $155), but only after I had to endure a confrontation with the vet in which I had to order her not to do a stool analysis and blood panel (which would have added another $100 to the bill!)

It was all very exhausting. For Brando too apparently, who slept away most of the rest of that afternoon. But by Friday night, he had perked up considerably and seemed to enjoy being fawned over by our friends who joined us for dinner that evening. Our friend Howie Rowen took this wonderful shot of Maya Lau holding Brando: