All Puppy, All the Time

My, how we've all grown over the past three weeks.

Luke has shot up physically. He was 8.8 pounds when they weighed him at the vet on August 6, then 9.2 pounds at our vet's on August 11. When I took him in for boosters on August 27, he was 11.8 pounds! And he's so much taller! He already outgrew the awesome crate I bought him, so we traded with someone in the neighborhood for a much bigger, much cheaper crate. Oh well. C'est la vie. 

James took Luke to his first puppy training class last weekend. I'm taking him tomorrow. He has that for six weeks, and we're also planning to get him out to a pool to see if he likes swimming. He seems to have more energy every day, so we're always looking for ways to get him thinking or moving. And the "moving" part can be a challenge when it's so hot out. 

Ironically, this is one of the cooler summers Austin has had in some time. But that's relative, and it's sweltering. Much more humid than typical.

Mal has figured out how to play with Luke in a way that won't get him all chewed up like James and I are (puppy bites are super painful and I scab over for so long, it would be tempting to wear long sleeves if we weren't living in the sweltering days of hell right now). We have two of Luke's toys each tied to opposite ends of a rope. I'd put one on the end just to kind of make it seem "alive." It was a way to play tug that didn't risk Luke's accidentally biting me. Once we put another toy on the other end, though, it became magical. Mal will run around inside during the day and outside at dusk, and get Luke absolutely bonkers over chasing and taking the toy.

We've also learned that he definitely likes to explore the neighborhood. I hadn't planned to try leash-walking until he was about 4 months old, because he's just such an energetic little ball of loopiness that I didn't think it would work. We're not doing loose-leash walks that give me much exercise, but it's nice to be out and about.

Luke sleeps great in the crate at night, but does not like it during the day. We've had a couple of successful  sessions, both when he was just already exhausted and I put him in when he was basically asleep. When we put him in fully awake, even if he's been exercised and fed and tired out and there are treats and toys in there, he does not like it. Work in progress.

He can use the rabbit waterer!

(It's Saturday morning now)

This time last year, when we weren't going anywhere, Mal got out of the habit of wearing clothes. Once the pandemic seemed to be lifting, he was to the point where he wanted to dress in the morning, even if we weren't going anywhere. Now, thanks to the Delta variant, which has rendered indoor spaces unavailable to him since he's unvaccinated (because of his age), plus the puppy, we're mostly home again. And once again, Malcolm is running around in his skivvies. It's hard to find pictures of him that don't involve partial nudity. But he is spending a lot of time outdoors, playing with the dog and hanging out with James and I while we work in the yard. So here's a cutie I took of him last night, and that's why he's not wearing a shirt. Now, why he wears his undies backwards and pulls them up like he's an 80-year-old man? I have no idea.

Time to go get ready for the day. Have a great weekend, everyone!

Summer is cooking

I've spent a lot of time in the kitchen over the past week. 

I tried to make my mom a birthday cake early last week, but I think the frosting I made was too heavy for the very light, springy cake, and it fell in on itself. We still ate it, though; it was tasty and extremely sweet.

Later, I made steamed buns for the first time. It was a Hawaiian take on them, filled with ground beef that had been sautéed with onions and seasoned with five-spice, hoisin, and soy sauce. They were ugly, due to my inability to shape the dough properly, but they were stinking delicious. We still have a bunch because I made a double recipe. I think steamed buns are something I could eat almost every day and not get tired of it.

We recently re-subscribed to Imperfect Foods, taking a break from eMeals for a bit. I am liking it because instead of picking the same types of meals (vegetarian, heavy on the Asian and Latin influences), I'm getting ingredients that I then figure out what to do with. 

Later in the week, I cooked the pork chops they sent, and made a big batch of purple mashed potatoes. We also had some mushroom ravioli with a lovely spinach Alfredo sauce.

This has nothing to do with our grocery delivery, but the past couple of days, I've made yak chews. I've been looking at them ever since we decided to get a dog, but they're so expensive. I found a recipe online, made them. Twice. The first time, I guess I didn't use enough acid so I was able to run the milk through a second time and did a second batch! Now we have whey left over that I'm trying to give to my neighbors who have chickens, if I can catch them at home.

If I ever do decide to purchase yak chews at the store, I'm going to buy these from Yak-9. They're local!

We finished paying for our dog yesterday, and within a couple of hours, got a notice to set an appointment for pick-up. We're scheduled for Sunday, August 8! 

They're getting so big! This is actually two litters together. Ours start coming home next weekend, then the others a week later. (Luke is the mostly-white dog with some brindle spots and a blue collar, sitting right by the big old bucket, watching his bro (or sis) try to chew the dog fence.)

This week, Mal and I finally made it to a different homeschool meetup than the one we usually attend. He met a couple of kids who played the same way he does, and as we left, he told me, "I had the time of my life!"

We met at Casa Costa in Old Leander, where James and I went a couple of years ago (the pandemic makes the passage of time so weird), and it was really good. This time, I got Portuguese fries, which I highly recommend, if they're the special when you visit.

The next day, we went swimming with the group we frequent, and Mal loved the pool so much that he just went back with James. I still have a bit of a sunburn so didn't want to re-expose myself yet.

Mal slept with James two nights this week. The first night, he kept having to use the restroom (his doctor says this is normal, just an immature bladder) and decided he'd rather be in a bedroom where the bathroom is in the same space, because he was scared of running five feet through the living room to get to the well-lit bathroom in the front of the house. The next time, he just decided he wanted to sleep in there. I slept GREAT both nights! 

It's about three years late, but Mal might finally be transitioning to his dad as the "favorite" parent. I don't mind that at all. It's been a good run, and I'm more than willing to share the title with someone else for a few years.

Closing in on puppy homecoming

 Little Luke and his littermates are 6 weeks old! They've been merged with a litter that is one week younger, so there are 15 puppies running around like crazy together.

And also sleeping a lot.

As I've read dog-training books, listened to dog-training podcasts, and watched dog-training videos online over the past 4 months or so, it has made me judge my past self very harshly, as I've dealt disastrously with previous dogs. I like dogs, but each one I've gotten, I've been grossly unprepared. Even with Kaley, when I researched greyhounds extensively, I didn't eve really consider proper training; instead, we just got lucky that she was a "good" dog, who had been taught general human-pleasing manners in her brief stint as a racing greyhound.

The first dog "I" ever owned was a baby sheltie pup. I was living with a man who selected the dog, but the first time I saw her, I was hooked. She was a sweetie. However, I just thought you do the same thing I'd done with cats: get them, they live with you, everyone is happy. We made the huge mistake of letting the dog roam freely in the house, even though both of us worked from 5 AM until 10 AM or 1 PM. Usually, the guy got home before I did, but he said that cleaning up the poop would have made him sick. In fact, even seeing it grossed him out, so he helpfully put paper towels over the piles for me to clean when I got home. (Yes, I realize this was a red flag regarding the suitability of said roommate, but that would be a whole other blog post.) We should have crated that dog.

Furthermore, because I had no knowledge of typical puppy behavior, I just did not understand what was wrong with that dog, who wouldn't leave me alone when I tried to work out. I'd get on the floor to do sit-ups or push-ups, and she would jump onto my head, nip at my hair and hands, etc. If you're saying, "Duh" right now, yeah, so is present-day me. I had no idea how to stop her, because my constant, "Okay, stop" and moving her didn't work. I know now that interacting with her was reinforcing her behavior. And, again, this would have been an appropriate time to crate a dog. After having played/trained with her.

When I moved out, I left the dog because I was moving back with my parents, and knew it was pushing it for them to take my cat.

The next dog I got was Kaley, and she was a dreamboat. I can see now that she had some separation anxiety with me, specifically. She didn't do anything destructive, but she'd FREAK OUT when I got home. We always thought it was funny, and I actually encouraged her to run around and jump up and down because it was so stinking cute. I didn't realize I was accidentally playing into her fear by reinforcing that she was right to party when I got home because it was such a relief. Sigh.

In Las Vegas, we adopted a Husky to be a companion for Kaley when it looked like I was going to be gone a lot for a new job I was considering. I'd take that dog running with me (running was part of the job, or else I never would have done it), and he loved it. He had a lot of energy, but a good run a day would make him manageable. Still, beyond that, I don't think I ever really thought about the different needs a Husky has than a greyhound. He was also boisterous in a way Kaley wasn't, and my ex-husband, who loved Kaley even more than I did, probably, and was very protective of her, felt the Husky was "mean" to her. I saw it as his trying to engage Kale in a way she wasn't used to, and felt like they'd eventually have found a middle ground in which to play. But we ended up rehoming the Husky because of it.

In Sherman, we stupidly tried to adopt a deaf terrier. It was so SO playful, and had really no training before at all. I certainly didn't know how to train a dog, period, much less one who couldn't respond to sound cues. Looking back, I should have established early on a foot stomp to mean "look at me." I could have worked on that several times a day for a week and the dog probably would have understood it. Most dogs respond just as well to hand signals as vocal commands, so it would have been simple enough to move forward with signs, once the dog knew to check in with me in any situation. And, again, we didn't utilize a crate. I don't know why that never occurred to me.

The dog was so small and so full of energy that by the second day we had it, D (who was maybe 3 at the time) was scratched up from the dog giving chase down the hall and jumping up to try to get D to play. We tried telling D to be "boring" when the dog wanted to play, but it's hard to keep a 3-year-old from running away when they want out of a situation. After a week and many bruises and scrapes on D, and D having to keep the bedroom door closed so the dog wouldn't chew all of the Polly Pockets, we returned the pup to where we had adopted her. I'm hugely embarrassed about this one, because it was a small organization run out of someone's home, and I was so out of my mind with stress that I returned the dog on Easter Day.

It was all my fault. I was unprepared and did not think to try to get assistance from a trainer. I felt like it was obvious that the dog wouldn't fit in with our family. Baby gates never occurred to me. Using treats to train wasn't something that was on my radar at all. I just kept treating these dogs like cats. And it was irresponsible.

The last dog we tried to adopt was Shelby, the super-sweet Catahoula leopard dog. She was about 3 years old, and super easy-going. She was huge but not interested in bugging the cats. Aish ended up being the most comfortable with her. We only had 2 problems with her: 1) she barked like crazy every time anyone walked past our house (and since our house is a main arterial to the lake, that happens 10 times a day, minimum); and 2) she made snoring noises every minute of every day. The second issue is what conflicted with D's misophonia, and is likely not something we could have fixed. But the barking. Oh my gosh, I was so bad at it. I just let her outside every time she started going nuts. I'd try to say, "Shelby. Thank you!" and hope she'd get the message that I had heard her alarm and that was enough. But I never showed her what I wanted to do instead. I never incentivized her stopping the barking after that initial alert. I guess that until recently, maybe I thought training was something that pros did, except for things like "sit" and "stay," and even then, you just had to hope for the best and if you had a good/smart dog, they might do it if you were lucky.

As for Shelby, a neighborhood family with three little girls took Shelby, and they LOVE her. I'm so happy about that.

But I was incredibly irresponsible for so many years. I hope to do much better by Luke. I'm not going to lie that the thought that he might whine/bark when we leave him in the crate alone if we have to go somewhere stresses me out a little. As long as D is here, we have to manage noise so carefully to keep D from hating the source of the noise (I think D likes Mal better now than as a baby, because even though he's boisterous today, it's not constant crying). But I'm very hopeful that I have a lot more of a knowledge base to pull from, and support from being on the same page with James on all of this.