The Couch Crew : March 2016

Tuesday, March 15, 2016

Where is the off button?

Sorry a few days late with our update. This weekend I spent Friday night and Saturday steam cleaning the carpets throughout the house. This potty training thing has to progress before it kills me.

MC, Athena, & Peryn

The girls: They've been very chill as of late. Their baby brother is wearing them down. Where they once used to bug us all the time for going to the park or for a walk. That's a rarity these days. They're both content to play with their baby brother and the neighbors. Even MC (Athena's boyfriend) plays with Peryn. It will be awhile before we can take them all to the dog park to play with OTHER dogs, so I'm glad this arrangement seems to be working for them still.
I've definitely noticed a change in Duchess. She's more social and playful (for her) than she has been in the past. Peryn has definitely been good for her. I hope she realizes that he's going to get bigger soon and she won't be able to push him around much more.

Athena & Peryn

His & MC's tether tug

Athena has her puppy that she's always wanted to play with. It will be interesting to see her at the dog park when he can go. Will they ignore each other or will they go to town? A few more months before we can find out.

Peryn. Peryn. Peryn. This boy has some energy. He's hilarious and frustrating at the same time. He LOVES to play fetch. So we try and tire him out with that inside the house. He's gotten so BIG. He's not a little puppy anymore ( to us). He's a little doggy. He goes for his 3 month appt Thursday, so I'll have a weight update then.

Training with him was at a standstill. He knew sit. He's been shown Paw over and over and over, but he doesn't do it on command. He understands Potty. On the FB group there are all these people telling what their puppies can do and Peryn is behind the curve.

I looked into Clicker Training. Read up and watched vids on it. Picked up the clicker yesterday. We now have Lay Down added to the list. We're also working on Leave It, Cuddles, and Come.

I have faith it'll work. He is really interested in the training.
What else to tell you? Some days he's like the energizer bunny. He keeps going and going and going, much to his sisters' dismay. Other days he's pretty chill.
He sure loves his Mommy though! Well, he loves us all. He adores his sisters and it's so cute. They're just not always wanting to be with him --even if he feels like they should. I'm pretty happy at the progress we're making.

He met his Uncle Davey the other day. Uncle Davey lives very far away and was the first in my family to meet the pup. The girls were deliriously happy to see Uncle Davey as well. They all fought for his attention. It was cute. Not sure how much Uncle Davey liked it though.

I wish my parents could meet him as he is now. Sadly, they won't until he's a bit bigger. Hopefully I'll have him skillfully trained by then.

Peryn's doing a little better at night. Some nights we can get in 4 1/2 hours of sleep. Others it's every two. This past weekend was HORRIBLE. Throw in a time change. Oh. It was awful. Good thing he's cute ;)

Uncle Davey!

He's MINE!!

He prefers to be with us, but that is a common trait with Heelers. They are very family oriented and want to be with the family and most especially their Person. I'm hoping with the clicker training, we can have a better track record of Potty time. FINGERS X'd.

So, this weekend marked four weeks with us? I'm losing track--wow 5 weeks. Sheesh. So as I mentioned, he's such a big boy. My little fur ball puppy is gone. Now we have a sweet, rambunctious, little fur ball to contend with.

Snazzy!

TWINS~!!!!

The Pack.

Sunday, March 6, 2016

Field Trips, Exhaustion, Week 4, 9 Weeks Old.......

Hey hey!

HIS spot in Daddy's office

Welcome back. Life with a puppy is crazy. I never realized how good we had it with a 4 month old puppy like Galen. I don't know where we'd be if we didn't have the girls to help take on some of the pups crazy energy.

He's growing like crazy. It's really unbelievable. Even though he's still to young to really hold his bladder, he's doing a good job. The past few days we had a 5 hour and a 4 hour night between breaks.
It really wouldn't be so bad if he didn't insist I escort him out on the break. He refuses to go out by himself unless I'm out there with him. He'll do it without me if the girls go out with him--but I still have to walk him off the patio. It's COLD out!!!

Working with him on the training. The only things he seems to comprehend is Potty & sit. He "knows" Paw, but it's hit or miss if he decides to do it. We started with Come and Lay Down today, but that we'll work on until he gets.

The girls have had a rough few days. He's tired them out! Pooped. No more energy. Leave me alone. They're not up to his speed. He likes that he has two different play mates with different play types. Athena is the typical doggy wrestling type that she does with MC & Bestie. Duchess on the other hand is really rough. She pushes him around with her head. He LOVES it. He goes jumping at her. He and her go at it every morning. I love seeing Duchess getting play time.

We've discovered his love of fetch. When the girls haven't worn him out, a game of fetch will do the job.

Car Ride

This weekend we were 'kidnapped' for an experiment/field trip. Hubby forgot his phone at work, so we packed up the car with the girls & Peryn in his crate. Drove most of the way there before he realized he forgot his entrance key. Turned around to get it and go back to work. (25+25+40=90 min ride there). The girls were getting agitated. Peryn slept in his crate. I happened to remember seeing a dog park not too far from his work, so after he was done we headed there. It was empty like I figured and we let the 3 dogs go wild. IT. WAS. AWESOME!!!!! Peryn had a blast running around with his sisters. The girls got to run off the nervous energy and we were tiring out the pup!

The ride home and the rest of the day was wonderful. They were so mellow. Most of today, Sunday, was like that as well. Their energy has returned this evening and they just came in from playing.

Peryn has taken to MC next door. Their tie outs reach just far enough for them to greet each other and do a little wrestling. We definitely have a social pup.

I'm sad to see the puppy grow up, but he's going to be such an awesome dog as he gets older. Part of me cannot wait. He's already jumping up on furniture without assistance. No where is safe for Athena now.

Sleeping beauties

He sleeps in his crate, but one of our daily routines is to have him hang out with Mommy in the bedroom before Daddy retires for the night. He'll play a bit and then come hang out on the bed with Duchess & Mommy. He'll cuddle with either Duchess or Mommy. He'll stay there until Daddy comes and gets him. When Daddy's ready for bed, in the crate he goes. He accepts it now with little or no complaint. Sleeping through the night is a dream of ours.