Poppy puppy progress

The weeks fly by in a mad, manic rush, so apologies for the tardiness in writing a blog post. I blame the dog.

In four weeks of ownership, what has happened?

Sleepless nights: the dog chose to start barking at 3.30am one night. She didn't quieten for long when I went to see her so I went down a second time. Then the smell hit me, and I had to open the door to let her out whilst I cleaned up the mess. But of course it is cold outside and neither she nor I wanted to go out. So puppy and mess and me in the utility room with door wide open: not a good start to the day.

Mess: toilet training has involved a lot of mopping up. Despite the previous paragraph, she is usually dry overnight (wahey!) and the sunny weather has meant she has been outside a lot, but the minute someone comes to visit she gets very excited. Very excited. So I mop up more damp patches and apologise to everyone for her (a) waving her tail in the liquid and then (b) wagging the wet tail with vigour...

Chewing: I fear this is only at the beginning of the phase, but paper does appear to be a favourite. This doesn't help much with the toilet training, given we leave out newspaper for her to go on! It didn't do much for last night's bible study notes either, and my daughter wasn't too chuffed with the loss of her work of art.

Walking: What a battle! She is excited when she sees the lead picked up (but see the note on mess and excitement...) and then spends the whole walk sniffing at every tree and lamppost and cigarette packet and leaf. Yanked along she'll eventually be persuaded to walk beside me, then gets a sniff of something new and practically pulls my arm out of its socket as she rushes to reach it. A tug-of-war push/pull fight to the end.

Eating: this she does a lot, but I'm trying not to let my husband know that I had to replant his row of box hedge plants (gosh, I hope they still grow: I'm not the gardener in the family!)

And yet...
She is good at sitting.
She is patient with children, loving being petted.
She rarely jumps up.
She doesn't bark much.
She can be bribed with a cube of cheese.
She is gorgeous.