Time Flies When You Have a Puppy.

Here it is Saturday again, I have been lazy with the blog, my apologies.  It seems as though we are fast approaching Cally's 5 month birthday.  I will work on posting updated pics soon.  We had a very nice and quiet Thanksgiving holiday here.  No major incidents to report on.  Cally has learned to sit this past week, she caught on to that one very quickly. I am concerned with how she will react to the Christmas tree.  I will plan to put all of our most precious ornaments up high as to not tempt her in to chewing on our family heirlooms.  As we pulled out some of our decorations today she was more than eager to taste them all!  Oh the puppy days!

First Snow Adventure

It is October 29th, and it snowed!  Took cally out this morning and caught her first few moments on tape too.  She loves the snow. Check out the You-Tube video posted.   I am pretty sure that this snow will not stick around this early in the season, but being that we live in Pa I am sure it will return!  I bundled up the kids and sent all three out for some winter wonderland fun!  All three returned to the front door soaking wet!  I do think we will get Cally a coat or sweater to put on if the temps drop below 30 degrees.  She did do a good amount of shaking, but still enjoyed herself.  I am not wanting to "dress up" my dog, but I have read quite a few other blogs and pet forums that suggest that this breed is temperature sensitive. Has any other Boxer owners experienced this?  Any suggestions for preparing for the impending cold weather?  Thanks in Advance!

Jeepers

Cally is now 16 weeks old.  She is up to 24 lbs, and growing up fast.  She received her shots 2 weeks ago and did very well at the Vets office.  One more set and she will be complete with all of her puppy vaccinations.  She has had many changes over the last few weeks, she is now sleeping in her crate at night.  The transition was easier than I had anticipated.  She seems to like it now.  I am so excited to have my bed back.  I still enjoy an occasional snuggle, but lets face it she was a bed hog!  I also have to admit too that I miss the heat that she generated, I guess I'll just have to get a few more blankets!
I wanted to share a funny story about Cally,  the other day we were all getting ready to go out and run our errands so no one was paying much attention to Cally.  My husband came down stairs to find her laying on the living room floor chewing on something. At first glance she looked like she was chomping on a piece of gum, you knowhow you chew it when you are bored and almost counting the chews in your head?  Well upon further inspection it was in fact a piece of gum!  Where she got a piece of gum I could only imagine.When I tried to pull the gum from her mouth she gave me a determined look and promptly swallowed it as to say "Ha you cant have it!"  What a turkey!  Her antics keep us laughing!  I do hope the gum does no harm.  I will check back this week to add more stories and add pictures.

Sweet Dreams

I thought I would update the sleeping arrangements for Cally.  Most dogs find a comfy place on the floor, under a bed, even their cage/crate. Right? Well not this pup.  My husband allowed her to sleep with him the first few weeks, and now that she is growing exponentially he has now relinquished custody of her to me.  He jokes all the time that my room is the animal farm, because all the animals past and present prefer to sleep in my room on my bed with me.  I usually do not have a problem cuddling with my soft furry friends, however this particular furry friend is a BED HOG! And by bed hog I mean she wiggles her way up under your arms and pushes her bum against you so that as the night progresses, you eventually find yourself teetering on the edge of the bed. Twice last night I woke up, physically picked her up moved her to the bottom of the bed. Within 5 minutes She was right back up to sleeping on my pillow with me. UGH! I think we have created a sleeping monster.  Have I mentioned she is also a very active dreamer? Oh Yes, She whimpers more in her sleep than she does when she is awake!  She also exercises the whole night by doing leg kicks into my kidneys!  I say all of this with love and adoration of our sweet Cally Girl!  I think I may seriously try another sleeping arrangement tonight, not sure she will tolerate her options of the floor or under my bed but we will give it a try!
 

Catch Up Time

12 weeks old 

Cally is growing fast.  She has learned so much in the last 4 weeks.  She is now just about 12 weeks old.  We are still working on house training.  She has accidents daily still, but it is mostly due to our error not hers.  We praise her everytime she goes outside.  She has learned that when she comes  back inside, to sit at the door and wait patiently for a treat.  She has very good manners.  Cally went for a hike the other day with the family.  We were quite impressed with her stamina and and ability to keep up.  To be honest we may be the ones that kept up with her!  She enjoys going for Jeep rides too!  She has such a laid back personality.  Which fits this family well!   She loves playing with the boys, they love getting down and playing with her when they get home from school.  She goes to the Vets in 2 weeks for her next set of shots.  Cant wait to see how much she weighs by then. As far as the dog/cat relationship...... Well lets just say it appears to be a love/hate relationship.  They are both able to be in the same room, and at night they both seem to be able to be on the bed at the same time, that is unless Cally invades Apple's personal space.  At which time the cat will hiss and growl and swat at Cally.    Will check back in later....

Major Milestone

Quick note......Yesterday we were able to leave Cally out of her cage while we went out for a few hours, yes I said hours!  No messes, No destroyed furniture, No chewed up shoes!  What a good little girl!  Today we will attempt it again.  How is it possible that we could be this lucky?  She is one smart puppy!

First Vet Check

Well Cally went to the Vet yesterday and she did so well.  She was calm on the ride there. Once we got inside she made up with the Vet Tech right away.  She did however give the tech quite the look when her temperature was taken.  All vitals and statistics were taken and she is up to 14.5 lbs.  Growing nicely.  She did receive one vaccination, the distemper shot.   She is due back in 4 weeks for her third set of shots.   We received a special puppy package too, Hills Science Diet food and booklet.  We are currently feeding her Purina Puppy Chow which is what she was started on at the breeder.  We have introduced a different food, Authority Puppy food.  She is doing well with the change.  We also have her eating out of a slightly elevated food dish.  She is growing so fast that it is time to move the collar up a notch already.  The main dilemma of the week is leaving her in her crate.  She HATES being left behind.  We can not leave her out on her own yet.  So my outtings have been left to a minimum.  She cries and scratches at the bars.  I will go online tonight and start researching how to break that behavior. Any suggestions?  Please feel free to comment.

9 Weeks old

Cally is 9 weeks old.  She is now sleeping through the whole night without having to get up to go potty.  She gets up around 7:30-8:00 every morning. She is very, very playful in the am hours!  Yesterday we took her to a friends house for the evening.  They have children as well.  Cally was so well behaved.  She followed the kids around the yard, but never got under their feet. She did spend 98% of the time outside so needless to say there were no indoor accidents.  We took her training treats with us and praised her for her outside successes.  We are noticing her growth, she appears to be getting longer.  It is hard to believe what a difference 1 week makes.  We did have one set back this past week and that was the rain and thunderstorms.  Ugh!  She does not like the wet grass whatsoever.  She feels that the porch or sidewalk are close enough to the grass.  We have been working at getting her to take just a few more steps then praising her for her efforts.  Will try to post pictures sometime this weekend.

Week 1

Cally is making progress with house training. However there have been a few accidents here and there. Some of them have been my fault. I am trying to be a puppy mommy and a human mommy at the same time. It seems the hardest time of the day is when the boys get home from school. In all the excitement of them coming home and getting off the bus, Cally feels that she can sneak a pee in kitchen and we won't notice. But..... we do! I am going to try to have her go out 5 minutes before they get home. Timing is everything!!!! We have been working with her learning her name. She is doing okay, but she does get easily distracted. We have been working on this at night when the kids go to bed. I sit in one room and my husband moves from room to room calling her by name. If she goes to hime right away then she gets a treat. She is responding more to him than she does to me.....Big surprise there! But overall she is learning and responding to our commands. One of Cally's distractions outside seem to be tree leaves. She is obsessed with running with them, chewing them, chasing them if they are blowing around! The crunchy ones are very interesting to her. As I end this, I did have a question to put out there for any other boxer owners. Does your Boxer get red eyes? Do you know if this is normal for this breed? Is it something I need to worry about? Can I do anything to prevent this from happening? It seems that at the end of the day she appears to have bloodshot eyes. It resolves itself on its own. Please feel free to comment. Thanks

Day 1 and 2

With all the excitement and exhaustion of having a new puppy, I did not get a chance to blog yesterday. Cally is one amazing Boxer puppy! She has exceeded all of our expectations so far. Her first night went really well. As I had mentioned before she and my husband have a special bond and she wormed her way into sleeping in bed with him! He took her out at 4 am and again at 6 am. She didn't whimper or cry, nor did she make a single mess. Speaking of messes, she has only had ONE accident in the house so far. She is catching on to the house training. We have been watching her and following her around. It seems that she will whine a little bit when she has to go. As soon as she gets into the grass, she goes! She is an early riser though, oil vey! She loves to play hard first thing in the morning and enjoys a nice long afternoon nap.

Last night was a repeat of the previous night. She slept in the bed and woke up twice to go tho the bathroom. Both times she did her business and came directly back in to go back to sleep. This morning I had her all to myself for a little while before the boys woke up. She has sooooo much energy at the 8 o'clock hour. I plan on taking more pictures later today and posting them up. Tomorrow is the first day of school for my boys so we will see how Cally does without the distraction of them.

Homecoming!

Today is the day! Cally came home! We picked her up around noon today. Although it was a long ride home use did surprisingly well. She stayed on my husbands lap while he drove home. She even fell asleep for some of the ride. At one point we pulled over for a bathroom break only to have her want to play. She made friends with a State Trooper too! He was just passing by and stopped to check her out. Once we got home, she transitioned nicely. My sons have just loved having her here. Cally found the dog bed and has moved it to her designated spot that she has chosen. She even took a little nap this afternoon in it. We have done what any doting parent does and have been snapping pictures all day. We had to laugh as we were in the back yard, she has discovered a few fallen leaves and she loves to play with them. Boy, is she gonna love it in the Fall? While we had our dinner in the kitchen she remained the perfect puppy and stayed in her bed until we were finished. We will be continuing that habit for sure. No beggars in this house. It seems that she has chose to really follow my husband around. At times she does appear to just be sad. I am sure it is difficult for her leaving her Mom and puppy brothers and sisters. As well as her Breeder family too. We want to make her as comfortable as possible during these next few days. I will post again later.

3 Days pre Cally

Well we are down to 3 days till our sweet Boxer Pup gets here. We have been preparing for her. We came across one minor issue if you can call it that. The question was should we crop her ears? After some research we decided not to have the surgery done. It is said that the surgery itself is painless, but the recovery can be quite painful for the puppy. With most of what I read it is mostly done for cosmetic purposes only, and there is no proven medical necessity to have it done. Our puppy has already had her tail docked, and that was another controversial issue on most blogs. I want to clarify that we are not endorsing ear cropping nor are we against it either. We see how some owners would want that look in this particular breed of dog. We just decided that this is not the look we want in our little girl pup. As the adoption day draws nearer, we have been discussing all the puppy rules with the children. As they have had many questions themselves, we have been amazed at the depth of their thoughts and concerns for the puppy. My youngest son feels that we should take a picture of Cally's Mom, just in case she misses her. We could pin up her picture in her crate to help ease her homesick feelings. We are pleased to see them get involved with this journey. We encourage their help. Cally will be so Loved!

7 Days pre-Cally

Hello! Welcome to my Blog. The plans for this Blog are to share our new life and our daily training updates as well as weekly pictures of our Puppy Boxer, Cally. I wanted to start this journey before she actually arrives to our home. Today marks the, one week to go count down, and we are excited. We found her on the internet in a boxer pup search. We traveled an hour and a half to meet her. She made direct eye contact with each of us. My husband knew right away that not only did we just pick her, but she just picked us too! We are new to the Boxer world.

We previously owned a Japanese Chin, named Dixie, she served our human family for 12 years. It was with a saddened heart that we had to put her down. The house just seemed empty without a four-legged friend. We began researching different breeds of dogs to see what kind best met our family structure. As a mom of two boys, I wanted a playmate and a trusted friend for my children to grow up with. From everything I have read, it seems we made the right choice. In seven days we will be picking up our new Boxer pup up from the Breeder. I am filled with many thoughts and emotions. I want this Blog to work as a personal journal as well as a teaching tool to puppy training and its trials and tribulations. I have been trying to prepare the house and children for Cally's homecoming. There are many new rules that need to be put in place for the puppies safety as well as the boys. . I already had the "shoe" talk. We have come up with a solution to keep their shoes safe. They will simply be placed in their closets and they MUST keep the door closed at all times. I am sure that we will institute more rules as we go. There will be so much to learn about Cally and what she likes and doesn't like. Come and check back frequently and follow her progress. All educated and devoted Boxer owners are more than welcome to share their thoughts as we embark in a new journey.