More Puppers

Kila will be 14 weeks old on Wednesday. She's only been with us a month, but she already feels like an old/established part of the family. Do you see how she and Loki are sharing his carrot?

Carrie took it away, because Kila has been unraveling the fabric at the end. Carrie's seen too many episodes of Critter Fixers with dogs eating things they shouldn't to allow Kila to eat fabric!

Normally, they don't share so calmly. Tug-of-wars are frequent. Shane asked me to take some pictures of it here (and made many, many faces in all the shots).

Loki loves to fetch. Kila loves to chase him, take the toy, and make her chase him. When things work out, every throw of mine turns into two fetch attempts!

It's all working out well. Loki wants to be near me, Kila wants to be near him, and I want to watch Kila. 

She's teaching him about how dogs play. Sometimes they're a little rough, but both respond well to directions.

Usually. Kila loves to hop on Lokes. He'll be fixated on whatever I'm holding and she'll be chomping down on mouthfuls of hair (All that fur is Loki's anti-puppy armor!).

When Kila is not chewing on Loki, she prefers fabric (being a toy is optional). She would love to munch on socks, but we confiscate them.

Sadly, she's also shown a taste for wood. We keep a close eye on her, but needle teeth can make a mark before you even notice she's chewing!

I have a little game I play with her to run off energy and keep her out of trouble. 

It works best when Loki's not around. But he knows how to bypass the gate at will, so if it looks like we're having too much fun, he lets himself in!

I can move a chair to brace the cage, but that kills part of the convenience of it (Dumb, smart dog!).

Kila acts like a fearless warrior when it comes to jumping on and wrestling Loki, but she's still afraid of some of the oddest things. The hallway to Shane's room? Clearly full of monsters. The front door? Catch her fast to carry her out, or you'll end up chasing her all the way back to the living room.

We made a little progress on the space behind the couch. I picked Kila up and sat down with her halfway. Kila started to struggle when she realized where we were going. I set her down and pet her while blocking the way. Loki came along to ask me for belly rubs, but it was probably the speck of cat poop on the ground that lured Kila forward.

Then there was the empty bag of dog food.

And look!  A cat butt!

Kila has progressed to where she will sometimes be willing to walk into the kitchen as long as it's the route behind the couch. The fridge? The pet water bowl by the fridge? Highly suspicious and probably death traps. 

Overall it's going well.

But there's always a set back somewhere.

In this case, it was Kila's bedding. We thought it was water proof. 

I put Kila in her crate, so I could poop. It didn't take long, but she peed (because of course!). I didn't take her out of her crate right away, because I didn't want her to think peeing equaled a quick escape. 

So I checked in with Carrie to vent for a moment. It couldn't have been more than 5 minutes. 

When I returned, I'd notice there wasn't as much pee on the pad. I felt around with my hand and discovered it had been absorbed. If I hadn't seen that Kila had peed shortly after the fact there may have been no visual clues to cue me in.

We had to rethink the bedding situation. Hopefully, all the progress she's had holding her pee overnight hasn't been an illusion! I'm looking forward to more sleep in the future!

And that's the puppy update for now. This last shot is Kila on the couch with Carrie's approval. Kila can't jump up on her own yet, so if she's on future it's from a human assist.

Carrie likes to spoil animals when they're young. That includes treats with training. She's working on "Come" and "Lie down" with Kila.