Crating DOESN’T Suck

{ June 22, 2007 @ 3:45 pm } · { Crating, Tank }
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Well, I spoke too soon the other day. It has been surprisingly successful. The first night, as I stated earlier, was a disaster, and even since, he is an early riser. Waking at around 4 to 5 AM. That is hard, but now, after only 3 full days, he is right at home in the crate. He will sleep in it without whining while everyone is right there in the house. I am so glad I went ahead and bought it even though I didn’t really have the money this week. He still does whine just a bit when we put him in it, unless he’s real tired, but I can’t believe how quickly he’s been adjusting.

I think the only thing I really see an issue with is the neighbor’s dog. First of all, he came from the neighbors right next door. They are keeping a puppy from the litter in their house, but the mom, and the other two from the litter are in a pen outside. So, every time Tank goes outside to do his business, he immediately runs towards the neighbors house. It is a little annoying, but he is still not quite comfortable on the leash. We are still just chasing him down, otherwise he’d hang himself on the collar with every change in direction or speed.

Well, I have to go do a little work. Just wanted to say how proud I am of the little guy. He’s a quick study. Makes me confident about training when I take that on in full force to see him respond so well with this.

Crating Sucks!

{ June 21, 2007 @ 10:04 am } · { Crating, Tank }
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Last night was the first painful night of training our puppy Tank in using a crate. He hates it. Yeah, I know, first night. But it still sucked. He apparently had enough sleep in the afternoon yesterday, than when I came home in the evening, he was able to stay up a good portion (90%) of the night yipping and whining. I think I could handle it, but I do believe my wife will be weak. I thought she was committed to the idea of crating last week before we got the puppy. Now I’m not so sure. I have a sinking feeling she will not use it at all when I’m not there. Which will only prolong the amount of time it takes him to get used to it. It will be interesting to see how it all works out. I hope it does work. I think the idea of crating makes a whole lot of sense. Giving the dog his/her own space, protection from my 2 year old, etc. I’m not sure my wife is emotionally able to handle it though. I’ll just have to keep my fingers crossed, and wait and see.

New Addition to the Family

{ June 18, 2007 @ 10:42 pm } · { Tank }
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So the house wasn’t crowded enough, you ask? A cat isn’t enough for the two year old to torment? Well, no. Actually, it wasn’t. We got a puppy.

Okay, let me back up a bit. We’ve got four kids (10, 8, 4, and 2) and one cat. Well, we had that many. Now of course we have all that and a little puppy. He is the cutest little thing you’ve ever seen…okay, owner’s prejudice there, but look at the picture! Can you blame me???

Sherman Tank Its gonna be hard to turn down that face! Tank refueling.

So anyway, he’s just over six weeks. We brought him home (from next door) on Saturday morning. He was quiet and shaky for the first 24 hours or so, and Sunday he was a little more active. But man, today he was completely out of his shell and adjusted. Quite the ball of energy. Wishing now we had named him Taz. Actually, no. When I see him walk I still think of a tank. Granted, its a bit of a spastic tank…

We are going to crate him, especially because of my youngest girl. She says “Let me nice her” when she wants to pet him, but she doesn’t quite understand that pets get petted, and humans get hugged, not vice versa. So we are going to use the crate. Which does imply that I don’t have one yet. We’ve walled off the kitchen a bit, for a temporary fix. Well, tonight, I was sitting down to write this, in fact had started to write, with the intention of saying how great Tank did falling asleep. He only whined for about 4 minutes before he crashed on his blanket. Well, in the 10 minutes or so it took to write the other paragraphs and upload the pix, he had woken up and started whining again. This is the first night in the kitchen, we were trying to use a clothes basket the first few nights, but that was not even partially successful.

I am looking forward to having a dog. Its been quite a while. I am looking forward to the training and the running and playing. I’m also looking forward to the adjustment to be over, but I’m willing to go the distance. So, I guess I’ll keep you posted as things progress.

Woof!

P.S. Here’s a sample of his “scampering”…

The first of many?

{ November 19, 2006 @ 3:52 am } · { brief intro }
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Okay, so maybe this will be the one. There’s just too many different versions of these type things out there, and I guess nobody wants to have to join to read these things. So here goes…

I don’t really know where this all will go, but for now it will probably be mostly just ranting on whatever comes accross the old synapses when I’m sitting down to post. It may be a little ridiculous, but whatever. That’s the point. Life can be easier to take when you look at it as ridiculous.

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