On Kids and Puppies.

Marc and I were talking about how similar puppies and kids are.

Our kids can't fall asleep easily unless they've had a good dose of mommy and daddy attention before bedtime. Our puppies can't settle for the night unless they first fall asleep on us.

Both puppies and kids are ruled by their stomachs.

Both puppies and kids have two states of being - busy, busy, busy or dead to the world.

Both puppies and kids become out of sorts if they are not given enough undivided parental attention. We've seen this with our kids for years. Whenever Marc or I go through a busy patch and are not able to give the kids the "right" amount of attention, they end up becoming overly emotional, or badly behaved or just plain out of sorts. Now we're seeing the puppies are just the same.

It's amazing how similar the young of two different species are.

Hershey's first beauty treatment

I had to chuckle, instead of looking uber cute, she ended up looking sinister. She was very upset about the bows and managed to get rid of them within minutes of arriving home.

Archie's first haircut

Today our scruffy little schnoodle visited the groomer for the first time. Oh, my goodness, what a difference a good cut makes.

This is what he looked like before his cut.



Here are the after pics. Is this not just one of the cutest little pups alive? (His "sister", Hershey, is in hospital with a tummy thing. Hopefully she'll be better by tonight and we'll be able to bring her home).

There are plans and then there is reality.

Today I had a good laugh at myself. A few months ago I thought pet ownership was crazy. Now we own two puppies and I am besotted with them.

I thought that doggy daycare was the most ridiculous idea I had ever heard of. Now our pups are going to doggy daycare when we can't be home to take them on potty breaks.

I was insistent that our dogs were going to eat a raw meaty bones diet because that was closest to their natural diet. Less than two days into the feeding plan, my fear of E.Coli and Salmonella got the better of me and we switched to a commercial dog food. I put a plastic tray down on the floor, gave the pups their chicken and then watched them ignore my plastic tray and pull their raw chicken around the floor. I had visions of having to Chlorox the floor 3 times a day and it all became too much for me. I even had nightmares of giant E. Coli attacking us. That put a speedy end to raw food in the pups' diet.

Potty training was a joke. The first week of puppy ownership was more stressful and more sleep depriving than the first week of twin infants. I hated parenting infants and if I found that easier, you have to know how tough I found puppies. I finally gave it all up as a bad job and found a dog trainer who holds puppy potty training boot camps.

Lisa was a wonder. She took two puppies who had trained me to take them potty around once an hour at night and a week later gave us pups who slept through the night. Archie who is now 13 weeks, goes potty at around 9 or 10pm and can hold it until 7am. Hershey needs to go potty at 4:30am. We're busy adding 5 min per day until she reaches 7am.

We now have a schedule and puppies who are crate trained. They are too young to be considered potty trained, but I now know what I am doing and we don't have puppy accidents in the house.

It's amazing how much more enjoyable the puppies are now that someone has told us what to do, how to do it and when to do it.

Why is this blog so quiet?

I've received many emails this week questioning why I've not been blogging. Blame it on being made of wuss material. I do not do well with a lack of sleep. The pups still need to go outside every 2 hours or so and since Marc needs his wits about him at work (who wants a sleep deprived pathologist reading their slides?), potty patrol falls to me.

Whenever I read about Americans being chronically sleep deprived I wonder how society manages to survive. It wouldn't if everyone were like me. I need 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep. When you start messing with my sleep I start losing the ability to sleep and lose the ability to control my body temp. I hate being sleep deprived. I've barely been functioning.

However, it is well worth it. These pups are the cutest little beans you've ever come across.

Hershey is 2lbs of doxipoo love.



Her favorite place in the whole wide world is on me. It's become so dangerous in the kitchen, if I move she moves. She's smaller than my foot and one misstep on my part will result in squashed puppy. She just wants to be with me all the time. I wondered if she would enjoy riding in a baby sling. Oh, my goodness, what a successful experiment. She just loves riding next to my heart.



Archie is far more active than Hershey, but I think that's because he's 2 weeks older than she is. I have to laugh at how I've started thinking of him as the "big" dog. He is all of 3lbs, that's just big in relation to Hershey.

This reminds me of a conversation I overheard between my children. Shira sleeps in a double sized bed and Ben in a single bed. Ben and Shira agreed with each other that he sleeps in the longer bed and Shira sleeps in the shorter bed. I had to pull out a tape measure and demonstrate to the children that both their beds were the same length, that it was the width of the beds that was distorting their perception.

Oy vey!

I didn't realize that dog ownership was so complex. I am reading up a storm on feeding your animals raw meaty bones. I've read enough to be convinced that commercial dog food is junk food for animals so now I have to get over my life long squeamishness and handle dead animal in the name of "doing what is best for the pets".

I am also reading up a storm on how to train dogs. A friend suggested that I read Jan Fennell's books. She's the woman they call, "the dog listener". Her books are fascinating. I'm learning how to be an alpha bitch. No comments from the peanut gallery now. I know that some have always thought I have that role down pat.

I am amazed at how quickly the pups are responding to me being the alpha dog. I am spending today working on them coming to their names and on the children understanding how to train their puppies.

A friend asked me why on earth we got two puppies at once. I had to think about it a bit and then I realized that Marc and I are thoroughly conditioned to think in twins. We didn't even think of only getting one dog, in our world kids come in pairs, and so should dogs.

Shira changed her mind about her dog when we arrived at the breeder yesterday morning. She fell in love with a little chocolate doxiepoo (that's a dachshund/poodle mix). Hershey is the funniest little pup. Her legs are so short that she trips over blades of grass. Yesterday we were convinced that Ben's Archimedes was a timid dog. One night disillusioned us. He's as crazy as his owner.

Marc and I are severely sleep deprived. Hershey does not appreciate being in the crate and she cried for 40 min each time she went back in the crate. It wasn't so bad at 10pm but at 3am it was brutal. Hopefully she'll get used to the crate soon. So far we've had no accidents. She woke me up at 3am to take them outside for a potty break.

Pics to follow soon.

It's official, I have lost my mind!

We're getting dogs. I can't believe that I initiated this situation. Do I really need the extra work two puppies entail?

We're getting two schnoodles (poodle/schnauzer mixes). They are non-shedding and supposedly hypoallergenic. The kids are over the moon as they thought that this day would never come.

We're picking up the pups tomorrow. The breeder sent us pics. Here is Shira's Jasmine

and here is Ben's Scruffy/Archimedes/Alpha

Tales for Tails

The Friends of the Norfolk Public Library hold a great program for struggling readers called "Tales for Tails". Therapy dogs sit quietly and listen, non-judgementally, to young children read.

I was very excited when I heard about the program, not because Ben and Shira are struggling readers, but because Shira is totally terrified of dogs. A rambunctious lab puppy knocked her over when she was 2 years old and ever since then her fear of dogs has increased. It had become so bad that she became paralyzed with fear if a dog even walked past on the opposite side of the road.

I thought the therapy dogs at the library might be a great way to help her. We spoke about how the dogs are specially trained to never jump on children and how they are special "doctor" dogs. We read all about therapy dogs and spoke about them ad nauseum.

Shira finally agreed to go to the 'Tales for Tail's" program at the library. The poor child was terrified, but adamant that she was going through with it. Initially she and I sat on the floor, well away from the dogs and she watched other children read. We spoke about how quiet and calm the dogs were. Then we moved into the circle of children and waited for a while. Finally Shira decided to read to the dogs.



She even petted the dogs. She is not completely over her fears yet, but reading to the therapy dogs has made a huge dent in her phobia. We plan on going to the "Tales for Tails" every month until Shira is over her phobia.

Ben read to the dogs for good measure.