puppy update...

Our little puppies

are now big puppies...

Can you believe how much they've grown?  I used to be able to carry both of them at the same time. They are now 6 months old and we have had them for four months.

 

They wrestle and play for hours at a time.  It is so funny to watch them interact.  Each one has his / her own personality and they are funny.  One thing we love is having a fenced in back yard.  The puppies spend hours a day out there playing, wrestling, digging and defending our yard by barking at everything.  Seriously, they bark at everyone and everything.

I spend my morning coffee time out on our back deck under my pergola, watching them play.  It is so peaceful and I love our backyard.  However, the puppies are still a lot of work.  Way more work than we realized before we impulsively got two.

The puppies chew on everything.  They really do.  I have always heard that from puppy / dog owners but until you live with it, it's just a concept.  We are getting very good at putting everything up high.  Just like when we baby-proofed our house.  They are also not house broken or potty trained.  For the first few months it was ridiculous, now it's down to just annoying.  Truth be told, we are going to have to replace our carpets.  Which was something we have always wanted to do, but we were thinking it would be a few more years before we took that step.

We hired a local trainer to help us, well, train them.  Just like raising children, training the puppies is all about consistency.  And, we've learned that we're just not that consistent.  Plus, I think, having two makes it more difficult.  But that can just be me making an excuse for why they aren't better trained.

Kenzie (our all black girl) is so ornery and instigates many of their wrestling matches.  She is also the most affectionate puppy.  She loves cuddles and will sit on or next to us all day long.  Every night when Mark comes home from work, she meets him at the door and her whole body wags.  She acts like it's been eight days since she last saw him, not eight hours. 

Parker (our white and black boy) is just plain funny.  He acts like an old dog until he gets the sillies and then he is all puppy.  If I am showing any attention to Kenzie, he will walk up and body block her out of the way.  He was the runt of his litter and that is why we picked him.  Mark felt bad for him getting stepped on by all his siblings.  He is now close to 25 pounds and bigger than Kenzie.  I have to be careful getting him out of his pen because of the height of the gate and his weight put be off balance and I'm afraid I'm going to pull a muscle in my back.

He will also come up to a chair or couch (yes, we let them up on our furniture) and put just his front paws and top half of his body on the chair.  He waits like that until I notice him and lift his back end and hind legs up onto the chair for him.  I'm serious, this dog is so crazy.  That's what he is doing in the picture below.

Grace is warming up to the puppies, since they have settled down a little bit and no longer puppy pile her when she's on the floor.  She likes to pet Parker the most and when he sits next to her she will pet his back.  Which I just love to see since one of the reasons we got the puppies was because of Grace's love of dogs.  They also love to sit at her feet when she is eating.  Seriously, as soon as I take the tray out of her high chair they run over and sit next to it.  We are trying to train them to stay out of the kitchen when we are eating, but Grace is not making it easy for us.  If she is having a snack and the puppies are next to her, she will feed them.  It is so cute to see.  And since it's a typical child behavior, I love it.

We also went out and bought them a baby pool so they could enjoy the water.  I know, I know, we are spoiling them.  But baby pools are on sale now since it's August and they had to make room for the Halloween stuff.  We all thought that Kenzie would be the one to love the water.  But as it turns out, Parker is our water loving dog.  The boys want us to put an in-ground pool in, so they can teach Parker to swim.  It's a great idea and I would love it, but that is totally not in our budget right now.

I totally love these two mutts!  It's true what they say about pets giving you more than you give them.  Our family has been enriched by having them.  I just hope I feel the same way in the winter and I have to walk them in freezing weather by myself...