Update on Jackson
Here is an update on Jackson (formerly Jacob of Chloe‘s litter)…
It’s been a while, so I thought I would give everyone a quick update on how Jackson is doing. He has grown to be quite the big boy, weighing in at about 40 pounds at 18 weeks. He really doesn’t look that big, I guess he’s just solid. He is still good natured and loves to see new people and places. He used to cry and whine in the car, but now he goes and sits next to the van sometimes and is happy to go just about anywhere with us.
He loves playing outside, and lately he can spend a lot of time romping in the yard trying to chase moths. He has recently gone through a phase of hiding his bones & rawhides outside. If we are in the house he will sit by the door and whine softly. When we take him out he runs to the base of a tree, sets the rawhide down, then with his paws he digs a hole in the mulch. Then he’ll pick the rawide back up and gently put it in the hole and press it in with his nose. Then, using his nose again, not his paws, he covers up the rawhide and fills the hole. It’s pretty interesting to watch.
Yesterday he got his “big snip” at the vet’s office, so there won’t be any little Jackson’s running around in the future. They sent us home with a cone so he can’t lick his stitches, but it is WAY too big for him, so on the advice of a friend we fitted him with a custom t-shirt which I put over his head, his front legs through the sleeves, and then gather up the shirt over his butt and between his back legs and rubberband it off on one side of his tail. We have to undo it every time we take him outside to go, but it does keep him from getting to that area, and it is much more comfortable than the dreaded cone.
He is slowly getting used to the back to school routine, but hates to see the boys leave in the morning. I hope you and your pups are all doing well.
Update on puppy Poppy
Here is an update on Poppy, a pup from Chloe’s litter. We love getting these updates to pass along!
Poppy also just had her exam and vaccinations last week and she did well. She has grown a bit but is still seems to be the smallest one at 8.2 lbs although I think she has grown since. Like Jackson (formerly Jacob) — Poppy is getting a little more golden in her face and ears — at this point we have not noticed her stripe getting smaller and hope she keeps this as well.
Our biggest challenge has been the biting — but have since yesterday taken a different approach and it seems to be making all the difference. I watched a dog training video that talked about how this biting is the normal way puppies play with each other so we just need to redirect them. I kind of knew this but hearing this again helped me take a different approach. We were almost in a power struggle and I was getting her more riled up than redirecting her, but now instead of continually saying no and clapping my hands — If she bites my hand I say one ‘no bite’ and gently redirect her to her toy and continue to do this in a gentle manner. When she is biting on her toy I continually praise her and if she comes up and licks me instead of bites. I continually say good ‘kisses’ and she still gets a bit riled up at times or starts biting too hard but then I step out of her area for a bit or take her for a walk — and these times that she gets kind of crazy riled up seems to happen less and don’t last as long.
She seems to be fine with her crate and finally slept for 7 hours for the first time last night (11 – 6). She was getting up at 5. She has been to quite a few of my kids softball baseball games and is soooo good at these games (as long as we find her shade) — all the kids love having her there and she really seems to enjoy the kids as well — she is also making a lot of friends in our neighborhood!
Updates and naming the puppies
The puppies are getting the hang of eating on their own – today I counted 5 of the 7 all lapping from their bowls at the same time! A new record.
Tonight I weighed them all and gave them a wormer. Even though their paperwork indicated they were wormed when they came into the shelter I was having my doubts. They’ve been with me since Saturday, making this day 5, and their bellies were still tight. So at 4 weeks their weights range from 3 lbs 1 ounce to 4 lbs 3 ounces!! Most were in the upper 3 pound range. If I kept better records I would know how this compares with other litters but alas I have not. Oh well.
I was thinking, since we had so much success with Annie‘s puppies being named after Rudolph’s reindeers, I was thinking of naming this group after flowers. It took some head scratching to come up with male sounding flower names (we have three males in the litter) but here they are in order of my favorite:
Female names: Poppy, Lily, Iris, Tulip, Daisy
Male names: Sweet William, Aster, Crocus, Jacob (Jacob’s Ladder)
Any votes which we keep and which one of each group we throw out? Just comment on this post (below) and let me know.
