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.

A new addition to the family

As with most things, I give in to my children.

For ages they have been wanting a sibling (one wants a brother, the other wants a sister!) They also nag me endlessly about iPad, iPod Touch, iPhone, Kinnect and other technologies. So far, I have resisted. (Well, a combination of me, my sanity and my bank balance, depending on which option you choose!) In practice, I have given in to this:

Welcome Poppy!

Two days in and she is very much part of our family, although I haven't a clue what I am doing most of the time! She is, evidently, gorgeous and so it is easy to give in to her. At nearly 4 months she is quite old for coming to a new house but that also means that she is further on in her training than other puppies are. She is an all-consuming distraction from what I'm supposed to be doing - be it writing or children or meetings or whatever. She has slept well since arriving (two nights!) but really wants a lot more attention in the mornings than I am able to give her. And our adventure to walk to the post box yesterday only got as far as the neighbours' gate!

The name caused much debate. My husband and I wanted 'Pepper' but - as you can tell - we gave in to our children's preference. Surely taking ownership like this means they'll be delighted to walk her as she gets older. No? Me still?