Bedshredder

Dionne has been sleeping a lot today, perhaps in preparation for going out with us tonight to celebrate the dawn of the New Year.  She still has a marked preference for curling up in her little fleecy bed.

As for me, I'm confused about the whole bed thing. Years ago (when we were maybe on our second pup), a very experienced puppy raiser firmly instructed Steve and me that it was a bad idea to provide the dogs with a bed. She said they didn't need them -- a drowsy pup will sleep anywhere. Moreover, she warned that we would actually be making it harder on our puppy when she or he went into the Oceanside center for advanced training. I think I may have ignored her advice, but then I found that my puppy ripped the bed apart.  Still when we had Darby (#4), I relented and paid about $25 for the little fleecy bed -- only to see her start to rip it up.

So we put it away. But after Dionne's forlorn first night, I got it out again.  Since then, Dionne has extracted a good deal of the cottony stuffing, which she chews on but doesn't appear to swallow. She clearly enjoys sleeping on the remnants. Maybe we'll take it away from her when she's a bit older.  Or maybe she'll spare us the trouble and just gradually make it disappear...

You may think it doesn't snow in Southern California.  But not from the look of Dionne's x-pen.

Haltered

Halters are an essential element of any CCI puppy's life -- as well as that of the puppy raiser. I get asked more questions about the halter than anything else -- by folks mistaking it for a muzzle, or just curious to know why the puppy has "that thing" around its face. Like many puppy raisers, I've developed a stock response. I explain that that thing is just like a halter on a horse -- it makes it much easier to control and direct the puppy -- who will soon turn into a 60-80-pound dog -- than it would be by trying to pull it around by its neck. I explain that the dog can do anything in the halter (which are often referred to by the most common brand names: the Gentle Leader or the Halti) that it can do without it -- eat, drink, lick, bark, etc.

Usually I don't explain that most dogs hate the halters. If they're not trained to wear them, they usually will try to rub them off (and as often as not, they succeed). Eight-year-old Tucker still tries to rub off his Halti when we get back from a walk.  When told to "Dress," he stands patiently while the Halti is put on him, but he won't turn his nose to accept it willingly, as some dogs do.

Several puppies ago, we learned that the best way to accustom the pups to the halters was to put the halter on at meal time -- removing it as soon as the puppy is done eating. This way they associate the halter with something pleasant and wonderful -- eating!  We've been putting the halter on Dionne, at least for lunch and dinner.  But we'd avoided using it on walks because of the staples in her lower eyelids.

They came out Thursday morning, but Dionne went to Susan and Frank's for two days. They delivered her back to us last night, and this morning was a Sunday, when Steve and I normally begin the day with an hour-long walk. With a bit of trepidation, we put Dionne's Gentle Leader on her and set off with Tucker (and the puppy stroller).

She typically takes a little while to settle into a walk. This morning was no different. She sat down and looked at us, unmoving.  We would coax her with treats, and she'd bound along for a few seconds, then sit down again. Or she attacked poor Mr. Tucker.  She particularly enjoys grabbing his Halti and trotting along with it in her little jaws (the Power....) Several times she was being such a pain in the ass, we put her in the stroller, but there she squirmed and barked and tried to escape. What she did NOT do, however, was to try and rub her Gentle Leader off.

And after about 10 minutes, back on the ground, she settled down into lovely walking.  It wasn't always in the perfect textbook position -- right at our side, just slightly behind our knee. But she wasn't pulling on the leash. She was paying attention to us. And she never once stopped to try and claw the halter off her muzzle.

Last night Susan and Frank said they loved her and would be happy to care for her on another occasion. They particularly complimented how well she walked on a leash. This is a good sign.
Here she is, walking so nicely this morning with Steve:

OMG! I forgot where I put the puppy!

All day long, Steve and I have been doing mental
double takes, thinking: Where's Dionne? Then we remember: she's with Susan and Frank. They're dog lovers whose situation isn't conducive to raising a CCI puppy themselves. But they're willing to puppy-sit, even during those dark days when a little one is most demanding.

We needed puppy care because my nephew, Lee DeWyze, who won the American Idol competition a couple of years ago, was performing at a music club in San Diego last night. We wanted to go to the concert, but Dionne is way too young to be taken into such a setting and too young to leave at home for 5-6 hours. But Susan and Frank volunteered to care for her from yesterday through Saturday evening, which will also enable us to go on a multi-hour beach walk with friends on Saturday night.  Not to mention giving us a break today.

It amazes me to see how quickly one adapts to the major change in lifestyle triggered by the arrival of a new puppy. You suddenly are on guard all the time -- thinking about containment and elimination and destructive potential. Even when the puppy's sleeping at my side, I feel like I'm racing against the clock to accomplish what I can until the puppy stirs and immediately needs to be taken out.

From experience, I know that over the next 8-10 weeks, this will gradually change. Bit by bit, Dionne will transform into an easier companion. Fractionally, our guard will slip.

But for now, we're still on full alert mode.  And if disconcerting, a 50-hour reprieve feels great.

Frank and Susan -- with a handful

 

Black (sheep) is beautiful

I really wanted a yellow puppy.  We've raised two yellow males (Tucker and Brando) and three black females (Pearl, Yuli, and Darby). The two most important dogs of my childhood (Dixie and Jemima) both were black labs. Still, for reasons that are probably completely irrational, I'm attracted to blondes.  As a child, Steve's hair looked like spun silver. Not that I knew him them, but both our sons were pale yellow-blondes as toddlers. In the dog world, I think the yellow faces communicate more than the ebony ones. We joke that the black dogs can't be photographed; they suck up the light like black holes. I love trying to read the expression on my dog's face, and the black ones can be tough to read.

When we submitted our application to raise another CCI puppy, I specified that I wanted a yellow dog.  (Truth be told, I would have been happiest with a blonde male, but I agreed that a female would be okay too.) When Becca called to ask if we would be ready for a pup by December 5, I asked about the color, and Becca reconfirmed we'd be getting a yellow female. I e-mailed her a week before the pick-up date to reconfirm that -- and again she said the puppy would be yellow. So my heart sank when I learned Dionne in fact was black.

I've since been told that the local office was informed that all 8 pups in Dionne's litter were yellow. But in fact, Dionne, the 6th of the 8, was a black sheep.

In the three weeks since then, I've been surprised by how often I exclaim over how cute she is. My reaction still puzzles me. Although our Puppy Mentor LeAnn had said she thinks Dionne is one of the prettiest CCI puppies ever, I don't think she's as classically pretty as several of her predecessors.

Baby Yuli

Baby Darby

Baby Dionne

Steve and I have commented that Dionne has an old, old face -- a face that looks as if it has borne heavy burdens and experienced woe. Adding to the picture have been those nasty eye staples. 

Today Steve took her back to the animal hospital, where Dr. Scoggin removed the staples. 

Note her new Christmas collar.

Staple free at last! And note also how much her muzzle has grown in just 3 weeks.

What impresses me most is that I've stopped noticing what color she is. Far more than her appearance, I'm responding to her personality. It is lovely. 

A bit more immune

Steve took Dionne in for her second round of immunizations today (she had the first up in northern California.) Although the vet's office was a madhouse, and she was wildly distracted by all the other dogs, she handled the injections without a whimper, according to Steve. She'll have two more sets of immunizations after this.

More confusing was the adamant assertion by one of the vet techs that the staples keeping her lower eyelids from turning inward would NOT come out by themselves (as we were told by CCI) but would have to be removed, the sooner the better.  Later this afternoon, I finally got in touch with Stu Wahrenbrock, the puppy program manager, who reiterated that the staples normally do fall out. But he said we could have them removed if we preferred. Steve then called back to make an appointment to do that and was told by the person who answered the phone... that they normally fall out, and we could wait and see if that happened.
Argh!

Both of us would prefer to see them come out, one way of the other, me because it will make Dionne more beautiful and Steve because he's afraid of their getting infected.  But neither of us think it makes any difference to her.  She was much more interested in the new pack member we brought home with us last night -- our older son, Michael, here in SD for a Christmas visit.

A puppy Christmas

Steve and I no longer have children to wake us before dawn on Christmas, so Dionne stepped into the breach, barking commandingly to announce that she was ready for her morning journey to the far back yard. Drifting back to sleep almost always proves impossible after that, so Steve and I leashed up the dogs for an early morning Christmas morning constitutional.  (Note Steve's festive socks.)

Our gift exchange (Steve, Elliot and me) began shortly after 9, and as usual Tucker was enthralled by the pig's ear in his stocking. For the longest time, he merely stood by us, wagging his tail, the pig's ear extending his mouth into something that looked a lot like a grin.  We all felt like he was somehow trying to let us know how happy he felt; how deeply he appreciates this annual bounty.

It's a violation of the CCI rules for puppies to have rawhide bones, but we let Dionne chew on one of Tucker's gifts for a while, supervising closely to make sure she didn't swallow any parts of it.  She found the gnawing to be riveting.

In the past two weeks, she's made an occasional lunge at the lowest lights on the tree, and she's dislodged an ornament or two. But she's never come close to making our darkest nightmare -- knocking down the 10-foot-tall installation -- a reality.

It's lovely to think that we should also have her with us next year for Christmas. We might have to relax the rules even more, to give her at least a little time with a pig's ear. 

Party animal

Reasons to take your 11-week-old puppy to a party:
-- What else can you do with him or her?
-- When they make their appearance, your fellow guests will be dazzled by their furry cuteness.

The problem, as we were reminded last night, is that an 11-week-old dog also can be a royal pain. When we arrived at Larry and Virginia's last night, Steve controlled Dionne on her leash for a while. Some folks oohed and aahed. When the resident shih tzus realized what had been brought into their domicile, they were enraged. They tried to attack Dionne, barking furiously. Steve was able to swoop her up and keep her away from him.

By 7:15, people were making their way to the buffet table, and we stashed Dionne in the kennel that we had brought with us. But instead of curling up and sleeping, as she surely would have done at home, she howled and whimpered and barked,, imperious. She tried to bite the kennel bars.  All this was very annoying, and in an effort to shut her up, I took my plate and sat on the floor in front of her.

After a while she seemed to settle down and I sneaked off to a more comfortable chair. But she soon began barking again. Steve pulled up a chair in front of her kennel, and stayed nearby as he consumed his dinner.

Eventually, he and she rejoined the main group, and she more or less settled down for the rest of the evening.  But I can tell you this: I'm not looking forward to New Year's Eve (where we'll repeat the challenge at the home of another set of friends.)

Memo to self: avoid getting future puppies right before the heavy holiday party season.

Envy

Several friends came over last night, and Dionne made us look like liars. We've been talking about how good she is, but when they walked in the door, she went bonkers, sinking her teeth into Donna's sweater and scarf and tugging on them, grabbing at the hems of various pant legs. She napped for a while during dinner, but then we all moved downstairs to watch a movie.  I held Dionne in my lap, figuring she'd chew for a while on a toy that I held and then conk out, like the little angel that she is so often.

Instead, for 90 minutes, she kept up a steady chorus of moans, distressed panting, and squeaks. She kept trying to gnaw on my hands, and her squirming and noise-making were a distraction from the film.

Steve has a theory. Dionne and I were sitting right next to the couch, where Tucker had climbed up to snuggle next to Donna. (It's the only piece of furniture he's allowed on in the house.) Steve thinks the sight of Tucker, so near and cozy next to a new human, drove Dionne crazy with jealousy.

Did this sight push her over the edge?

Who knows what goes on in these animal minds? I don't. We're taking Dionne (and her kennel) to another gathering of friends tonight. I'm nervous.

Preventive measures

I went to Petco today to buy presents for Tucker and Dionne. (I know that's gross, what with world hunger and all. But we try to be restrained. No doggy jewelry, such as I saw in the store today. Just a few pig ears for Tucker to chew on and baby toys for D.)

While there, I called Steve to make sure he wanted me to buy more de-smellifying solution -- the stuff you squirt on the rugs and floor to extinguish any trace of excretory smells that might inspire further transgression. We still have part of a quart bottle of the "Nature's Miracle" we bought when we were training Darby. Dionne has been doing spectacularly. Yesterday Steve noticed her heading to his office from the kitchen, where we all were hanging out. She went to the door and he rushed to open it for her, then tailed her as she trotted briskly to the lower yard. She peed under the fig tree, then again under one of the pittosporums. Then she went to the pear tree and pooped.

Clearly, she knows what she's supposed to do. I predict she won't have many more accidents.

But Steve thinks it would anger the Housebreaking Gods, were we to assume our puppy was mostly trained after only 16 days. He's not one to spend money frivolously, but he ordered me to buy a gallon (though he agreed that the Petco Stain and Odor Remover for $17 was probably close enough to the Nature's Miracle ($28)).

I think all we need is for her kidneys to grow bigger so that she has a bit of reserve capacity.  But if I'm wrong, we're all set.

The charm offensive

Steve and I think Dionne is one of the more charming dogs we've raised. Tucker is learning that too.

He's a tolerant and courteous fellow, but he's learned over the years that these pipsqueaks (whom we, bafflingly, continue to import into the household) range from merely annoying (ambushing him; grabbing all the attention) to downright dangerous (sinking their needle teeth into various parts of his anatomy in their demented idea of "play"). He's learned to issue warning growls, but he would never come close to hurting a puppy. Mostly, he just tries to stay out of their way.

Dionne seems to worship him, though, and she's been making further inroads into his turf than most. I think it's partly because she's a bit more restrained than most. She'll approach him gently at times (rather than tackling him any time he's in range). She even manages to insinuate herself into his bed. As recorded here:

Oh, please, he thinks. 

Puppy heaven.  (Tucker Purgatory.) 

The two-week mark

She still fits under the couch -- but barely now. 

The staples that were put in to keep Dionne's lower eyelids from curling in (and thus stop the lashes from irritating her) are still in place, although when we picked Dionne up from CCI two weeks ago, the puppy training coordinator told us they should fall out after about two weeks. But it feels like so many other things about her have changed.

Already she understands a lot about our daily rhythms. Almost always, she sleeps until 6 or so, and then she trots briskly back to the lower yard to pee and poop.  Often we see her escorting herself out to deposit a little pile far, far from the house.

Days ago the in-house accident counts dropped. Now it's once a day that she screws up  -- or not at all -- or twice if we get very lazy and ignore the signs we've come to recognize. Soon we'll be counting the days that have passed without any accidents.

Likewise, we've already begun to relax our guard at times -- to allow her moments when she's not in the kennel or the pen or on the leash or directly under our gaze. Tonight Steve and I were dipping the Swedish Heirloom cookie dough balls into colored sugars in preparation for baking, and Dionne was right underfoot. A heartbeat later, she had disappeared. I eventually located her out on the patio scampering around in the herb bed (she seems particularly fond of sorrel.) But now I can glimpse how those uncaged moments will stretch out... and suddenly, miraculously, she'll be a full-fledged house dog, more content to hang out around us (in anticipation of dropped crumbs of dough... or anything else) than interested in striking out into the dark on her own.

Already, she's taking much of the place for granted. She no longer hurls herself into the pile of dried leaves under the fig tree every single time she's in that part of the yard.  Been there, done that. Yet she's not exactly blasé. She'll be laying down looking calm and angelic, just taking the world in. And then she'll be up to snatch a shoe and gnaw on it. Or drag a doormat around. Or conk out in someone's arms, emitting loud snores.

School's in session

Steve and I took Dionne to her first puppy class last night. Attending class every two weeks or so is something you're supposed to do throughout your time with a CCI pup, and we go to the ones held in central San Diego in a facility that the SD Police Department makes available for community meetings. Our instructor, Bob, is a SDPD canine cop, as was his predecessor Mike. The two have had different styles, but we've liked them both -- both know a lot about dogs.

It's kind of a hassle to get to class, particularly the first level (known as Puppy Kingergarten, or KPT), held as it is at 5:30 p.m. Mondays. That means we have to fight the traffic  at a time when we're getting hungry. But last night I was reminded of its value. Even though we're now on our fifth pup, we forget a lot from one to another -- or never learned various skills well enough in the first place. Last night Bob reminded us of subtleties in the best way to lead a young puppy into a "down" command and other fine points. Other experienced puppy raisers in each group jump in to make suggestions about one thing or another. When the little one last night next to us started barking aggressively at one point, one of those veterans commented, "Time to get a squirt bottle" (a useful tool for squelching bad behavior.)

As for Dionne, she was enthralled for most of the evening. When we entered the room, she almost exploded with ecstatic excitement: there were other DOGS in the room! Small dogs like her! They smelled so fascinating!!! If we would just let her go, she could go up and play with them!!!!

Obtusely, we continued to hold her. She quivered, squeaked, moaned. From time to time, she lunged for one attraction or another.

But she also walked fairly nicely on the leash, when it was our turn to perform. She has already learned to sit, and she demonstrated that nicely.  She practiced going Down.

As hard as it is to imagine, she'll be a largish dog waiting at doors, doing Down-Stays, and performing other tasks in just a few months.  Puppy class is the path to that.

Dispatches from the front

-- Dionne got through all of yesterday without pooping or peeing anywhere in the house.
-- This morning, virtually the first thing she did after eating her breakfast was to run into the front room and start to poop.  (But I yelled at her, interrupting the action, which she completed outdoors to my enthusiastic applause.) She's had no in-house accidents since.
-- We took her on our regular hour-long Sunday morning walk this morning and let her accompany us on the ground, on her leash, for at least half of it.
-- She was so sleepy for much of the rest of the day that I worried about her.  Briefly.
 -- In answer to my question the other day, she is capable of eating the linoleum that we bought to put under her x-pen.

-- For the record, here's what she looks like at 10 weeks, compared to what Tucker looked like back in early 2005: 

Fast walker, slow eater

I walked around the block with Dionne for the first time yesterday and was impressed by how well she did. She trotted right with me, more or less in the proper position. She didn't stop to sniff things or veer off on her own. Today when we went out, I ran for part of the way, and she particularly seemed to enjoy that.

Steve and I haven't begun making her wear her Gentle Leader (halter) for these little outings, and though I'm dreading it, it's probably time to start. I haven't yet met a puppy who doesn't dislike them and try to rub them off. It takes a lot of training, but they all eventually learn to tolerate them.

We've at least started the process by putting Dionne's Gentle Leader on her for most of her meals. The idea is to create a positive association between something wonderful (eating!) and wearing the halter.

The only thing: Dionne so far seems the most blasé, leisurely eater we've ever had. Steve swears she picks up and chews each piece of kibble individually. Contemplatively.
She couldn't be more different from Obrien, the pup we recently hosted for 8 days. He was so voracious we were instructed to put his food under an actual large ROCK in his bowl, in a (largely vain) attempt to slow him down.

Often at lunchtime, Dionne will eat about 3/4 of her cup and then turn away  to try and scrape the halter off, against the sides of the kennel.  We exhort her to finish, but often we have to take uneaten food away.

She's none the worse for that; still one hefty girl. But we hope her attitude changes. It's easier to train a dog who worships food. 

Dionne descending

My back is killing me. My shoulder is killing me. I had to teach Dionne how to go downstairs. Carrying her was/is too hard.

She learned fast. A little peanut butter, a lot of encouragement. Here she was, going down one of the biggest sets in the house this morning:

She's still a tad hesitant at times.  But that won't last for long.

Puppy containment -- Part 2

Back when we had our second CCI puppy, I remember desperately asking a highly experienced puppy raiser what she did to survive the trying early months.  As I recall, she replied that she couldn't live without an "x-pen." I ran out and bought one. 

"X" stands for "exercise." Ours has 8 folding panels, each two and a half feet tall and made of metal wire. We can clip the ends together to form an octagonal pen or arrange them to form other shapes (a 2x6-foot pen, a 4x4-foot square, etc.) 

Over the years, we've set our x-pen up on the patio and put various pups in it, mostly on sunny days, mostly for just a short time (until the puppy gets bored and cries to escape.) But with Dionne's arrival, I had a new idea. From the garage, I got a piece of heavy-duty plastic tarp.  I lay that on the carpet in my office, set the x-pen on top of it, and added a couple of toys. 

The first attempt

After just a few days of puppy attacks.

It seemed a brilliant solution. Dionne could occupy a big space right next to me, where she could snooze or play with her toys. She could see I was at her side, but she couldn't just roam around, to randomly pee on the carpet or chew my electric wires or rip up my artificial ficus or discover one of the many other possibilities for getting into trouble. 

What I didn't envision was that she would eat the plastic tarp. By yesterday she had chewed some great gaping holes in it, as well as making many small punctures. When she peed in the x-pan, the urine leaked through the punctures -- onto my rug.

So now Steve has had another idea that we hope will actually work. This afternoon, he went to Home Depot and bought two remaindered pieces of vinyl flooring.  They're pretty ugly. But we don't care.  We've set one up on the carpet next to the kitchen. The other is in my office, under the x-pan. 

Will Dionne be able to chew up linoleum?

Stay tuned.

Will this work?

Third time's the charm

In my last post, I mentioned that Steve and I only relax when Dionne has pooped within the last 5 minutes. This morning, I learned that's a mistake.

She has continued to be angelic about sleeping through the night, but this morning she began to moan and yip a little before 6, so Steve took her outside. Upon his return he reported that she had pooped with great urgency, spending no time at all stalling and sniffing. "She appears to have heard that there are poop-production quotas," he said. "And she's behind."  He put her in the kennel in his office and returned to bed. Around 6:30, I got up to feed both dogs their breakfasts.  Dionne acted ecstatic as I filled the bowls, and she dove into hers when I set it down in the kennel. But less than a minute later, with the puppy chow only half consumed, she was whining and barking. Puzzled, but thinking of the lessons of just yesterday, I took her to the lower yard where she immediately deposited a second large pile.

With that prelude, I felt cheerful as I set off on what I thought would be an hour-long walk up Mt. Soledad and over to my neighborhood coffee shop. With Tucker on his leash and Dionne in her stroller, we started down the block. I felt a little disappointed to see Dionne once again standing up and looking over the front of the stroller, looking for all the world as if she were thinking of jumping out. As we started up the hill, her agitation increased, and she began yowling like she did the first time I took her out in the stroller last week. I told her to be quiet and calm down. But I didn't understand what she was signaling until she backed up against the side of the carriage (as if trying lift her little rear end up high enough so that she could keep the stroller interior clean) and pooped for a third time. Those of us who become caught up in the bizarre subculture of obsessive puppy-defecation monitoring develop keen eyes for assessing the firmness of the production, and I can assure the world: this was NOT diarrhea.

What followed put me in a foul mood.  She'd gotten it on the sides and fleece of the carriage, and I got it on my bare hand. I returned home; abandoned my workout.

"Now," Steve noted, "she probably won't poop again for another day." Yeah. Right. 

The picture of relaxation (after all the excitement of the morning.)

Puppy containment

The CCI manual makes it sound so easy. It offers this sample schedule for a 2-4-month old puppy: 

6:30 a.m. -- Toilet pup, feed and offer a drink, play with pup, and toilet before returning to crate. 
Midmorning -- Toilet puppy, keep pup out of crate for play and/or training, toilet puppy before crating. 
Noon -- Feed puppy second meal and offer water, toilet puppy, play time, toilet before crating. 
Mid-afternoon-- Offer pup water, toilet them, quick walk or play time, return them to crate. 
5:00 p.m. -- Feed puppy third meal and offer water, toilet puppy, allow puppy to play in kitchen while preparing dinner, toilet puppy before crating. 
7:00 p.m.-- Toilet pup, play/training time, practice cradling while watching tv, return to crate. Cut off water access at this time. 
Bedtime -- Toilet pup, play time before bed, pup sleeps in crate for the night. 

Why can't we do that? 

We have various puppy-containment structures: three dog crates and an exercise pen. Dionne spends part of the day in one or more of them, sleeping or playing. Often contented. 

But unless one of us has just witnessed her peeing and pooping -- and I mean like within the last 5 minutes -- we react with alarm to any whining or barking or crying within a confinement vessel because it may mean that she needs to go out to poop or pee, distress that we ignore at our peril.  So we scoop her up and carry her back to the farthest area of the yard and and watch her like a hawk until she poops and pees.  Or we get tired of watching her screw around and give up. 

I've had a fair amount of time during the last week to reflect on the difference in appearance of a puppy who needs to poop or pee from a puppy who's just screwing around. Puppy fun often consists of sniffing the ground intensely, moving from one spot after another, sometimes at rocket speed, but often stopping to rip up clumps of grass, chew on randomly encountered stones or pieces of bark, gnaw on plants, dig, squeeze under or behind the creepiest, most spider-infested objects in the yard, plow through piles of leaves, flop down on the ground. But puppies who need to poop do almost exactly the same things! The only way you can tell the difference is if they actually poop. 


During the course of writing these last few paragraphs, I had Dionne in the exercise pen in my office. Twice, after she whined, I put down my iPad, took her down the stairs and all the way out back. Each time she peed. But then she only screwed around. I returned her to the pen, started writing again, and she barked at me and whined loudly. Then she began to race around in circles within the pen.  I knew what was happening. I jumped up and grabbed her as she squeezed out two little balls of poop, but I terrified her by snatching her up, running down the stairs, depositing her on the patio, and yelling, "HURRY!"  

She deposited the rest of the very substantial load and is now sleeping like a little angel.

Because Steve and I have raised four previous CCI puppies, I know -- intellectually -- that in just two months, she'll be so well adjusted to our routines that I will once again begin to forget what these earliest days are like.  That's why I'm recording it. 

Excellent progress!

This is one lovable puppy. We went to bed around 10 last night, Dionne didn't make a sound until 6:15 this morning. I scooped her up and hurried downstairs, thinking she must be ready to burst. But she was so overjoyed to be alive and outdoors and within sight of Tucker, that she raced around, attacking him for several minutes, before she could turn her attention to the mundane business of elimination. 

All this while she's still so small she easily fits under the couch (a trick we've never seen before.) That won't be possible for long. 

Rock Starlet

There may be exceptions, but most people who raise puppies for CCI find the first two months to be tough. Beyond the normal challenges (housebreaking, stopping the pup from chewing, digging, garbage-eating, etc.), it takes a while for puppies to learn to walk well enough on a leash to go for serious outings. Furthermore, CCI tells puppy-raisers not to overstimulate their charges or expose them to potential disease. (Full immunity from their vaccinations doesn't come until they're 4-5 months old.)

It's confining. But with Darby (Dionne's predecessor), I discovered a lifesaver. Another puppy-raiser (Pattie Urie) loaned us her puppy stroller.  Using it meant that I could keep up my normal exercise walks. It even enabled Darby and me to participate in a puppy drill-team event in Balboa Park. When Darby got old enough, we returned the stroller to Pattie but I started looking for a second-hand one on Craig's list. We got lucky, and now with Dionne, we're breaking it in.

I zipped her into it for an hour-long walk on Friday and she howled, barked, and moaned almost the whole time. But on a shorter outing yesterday, she was calmer. This morning, Steve and Tucker came along, and we didn't even close up the front. It had occurred to me that any puppy who was afraid to walk down a few stairs wasn't likely to leap out of her stroller. Wrong! She did leap out -- probably because she didn't know what would happen.  She wasn't hurt, but she didn't try it again. Our hope is that she'll very quickly get used to riding in plein-air. That's more fun for her -- and for us.

Exposing her to the world, like this...

... gets you a lot of attention.  People literally stop you in the street. Everyone smiles, and many coo and ask to hold her or pet her. I've had at least two grown men pull out their phones to photograph her. Neighbors have stopped their cars in the street to exclaim over her cuteness. This morning, one woman told us we were saints for raising service dogs.

That's just silly. We truly want Dionne to graduate and change someone's life for the better. We'll do our best to try to achieve that goal. But the truth is that we're also in it for the fun. Steve and I don't normally crave attention when we're out in public. But it's fun to feel, however briefly, like you're in the  entourage of a rock star.

A Temporary Respite

Miss Dionne will bound up most of the stairs in our house, but at least for the moment, she still finds it too scary to go down them.  This is wonderfully helpful for us, when we're working in the kitchen, for example, and want to make sure she doesn't wander very far (which involves going down stairs in most directions.)  It is deeply comforting to Tucker, who can escape her by going down some stairs.

Here's a glimpse into why he'd want to escape her:

Still Making Mistakes

Like the pain of childbirth labor, I forget certain aspects of raising a puppy as soon as they’re over. Case in point: how obsessed we become with the new pup’s elimination of waste products from his or her cuddly little body.

We weren’t always like this. Back in 1977 when we got our first dog, Astra, house-breaking seemed a somewhat mysterious process, one that involved scattering newspapers throughout the house and yelling at her whenever she failed to deposit her urine or feces on them. By the time we brought home our first CCI pup (Tucker, early in 2005), we’d already learned a lot. We knew that having the puppy sleep in a crate expedited the training process, since dogs instinctively dislike soiling their dens. We’d learned that you have to take the pup outside as soon as it wakes up and to praise it lavishly for performing. CCI refined our knowledge, instructing us that very young puppies usually need to pee at least once an hour (when they’re not sleeping), and that they need to “toilet” 10-15 minutes after eating or drinking. If you followed this regimen conscientiously, within a few months, you would have a young dog who never urinated or defecated in any indoor space and, miraculously, would reliably pee or poop (and sometimes both!) when given the verbal command to “hurry!”

Given all that we’ve learned, I’m not sure why Steve continues to get so upset every time a new puppy has an accident. I myself do not love when this happens; the thought of bringing armies of additional bacteria and viruses into my den does not make me happy. But every dog we’ve ever owned – before CCI and since – has eventually stopped pooping and peeing in the house. Steve continues to react as if something horrible has happened; as if we’ve failed in some fundamental way as puppy-raisers. 

And we continue to fail. Last night, for example, I’d had Dionne up in my office, playing with me for a while and then napping in the little kennel next to my desk.  Around 9, I woke her up, carried her down into Steve’s office, and offered to take her out to toilet before I went up to my bedroom to read. “No, I’ll take her back in a little while,” he responded.  So idiotically, we put her in the large kennel next to his desk – where a minute later, she peed.

Hurrying nicely, in response to the command. 

She’d defecated around 6 p.m., and then again a few hours later (that was a good save; I’d spotted her beginning to squat down, snatched her up, ran her outside, and heaped praised upon her for depositing her load on the patio.) So we weren’t concerned when she wouldn’t poop again on Steve’s last trip outside with her around 10 p.m.  The night went reasonably well, although when she started whining at 2 a.m., he took her out and she wouldn’t do anything except run around in the dark and pick up leaves to munch on.

By 6:15 she was squealing again, and Steve nobly took her out (pee but no poop), fed her breakfast, left her in the kennel in his office, and returned to bed where we dozed, exhausted, for another 40 minutes.  But when we went down to her kennel, she had pooped in it.  We’d screwed up yet again! Just five minutes ago, I suggested he take her back to pee again, even though she had peed a copious amount for me 35 minutes earlier (see photo). Five minutes later, he returned reported no action. He put her in the crate, and two minutes later she peed again. "You jerk!" he bellowed.  (He wasn't talking about himself.) 

Is this too boring to read about? It’s pretty tedious to live through. Maybe that’s why I forget it all the minute it ends.