PuppyLog

Stats:

Age: 11 months
Weight: 35.5 pounds

A lot has happened since I last wrote in the puppy log. Lila turned 11 months old a few days ago and continues to become easier and more delightful to live with.

We have had major interruptions in her training routine so she hasn’t learned much that is new for a while now. On the other hand she is better socialized, calmer, and more attentive.

Here’s some of what’s happened in the past few months. Winter was busy and we didn’t get out much, just normal walks and trips to the dog park.

On February 12th, we accidentally went to visit the Humane Society of Boulder Valley and Lila got a new little brother. One of our neighbors says that an accident like that has never happened to her. We now have three dogs and there is a fourth in the house - more on that later.

Lila’s new brother’s name is Kaimana, an Australian Shepherd mix. Kaimana is also a handful, but in a completely different way than Lila was. Kaimana loves everyone. He’s a hit at parties and makes an excellent foot warmer if you sit still for a while. He loves Lila and the two of them spend most of their time playing.

Kaimana’s socialization has been easy and care-free. Housebreaking was a bit more difficult. It took a couple of weeks to convince him that going outside was better than inside. It took a couple of days to get him to sleep through the night without barking and whining. He has boundless energy and a short attention span. He learns quickly but remains impulsive. He’ll obey a down command but has trouble holding it. He bounds around and wiggles against your feet, climbs in your lap, squirms around on his back and looks at you adoringly.

The effect all this had on Lila was not good at first. She was extremely happy about it, but all her social needs were taken care of without us. She stopped paying attention for a while and our house was far to crazy with work, various projects, housebreaking, sleeplessness and puppy activity to get things back to where they should be.
With yet another needy little foster pup here, none of our own dogs are getting quite the attention they need. During this time we also got involved with helping to start a rescue group. We have since disassociated ourselves from that because we didn’t like the way things were done.

Our regular walks are the most important thing to the pups behavior. Lila becomes her best affectionate self when we take her somewhere by herself. It doesn’t matter where; even a car ride to the store helps a lot. She has now become one of the calmest dogs I know. She still doesn’t like to be ‘bothered’ but will come up to people on her own terms to be pet and is very sweet with children as well.