She's a Puppy Alright.

Our first night together was a little noisy... she decided to cry all night, and was pretty adamant that 4:30am should be when everyone gets up for the day. I gave in at 6am after she quieted down enough that I wasn't rewarding her for hanging from the top of her crate yelping for attention. 

Shortly after awaking we went outside and played. We then came in for breakfast, she hadn't eaten much of the home-cooking the day before so I was anxious to see what she would do for breakfast. She looked at the bowl and appeared to be saying not this again, she licked it a few times and resumed playing. I was wondering if I should give it more time, but she's a puppy I didn't want her to go to long without food... I ended up making a grocery store run at about 7:30am to get the ingredients for a few more recipes from the Hilary Watson cookbook, thinking maybe she is just not liking one of the flavours. The recipe did smell very strong of vegetables since sole fillets were the main protein and though they are tasty they don't smell much. With the morning spent baking the next recipe when I put the bowl in front of her I was already prepared to start on the next one, so much I had already boiled the eggs and started on it. All of a sudden she started eating it! Perfect! I walked away to the kitchen to clean up... and a little black puppy followed me. No, no, no, she wasn't done already. I brought her back to her bowl and she ate some more. I sat with her and she licked the bowl clean. I think I was repeatedly telling her she was a good girl, but really I was patting myself on the back for making something worthy of her delicate palate.

Throughout the day she ate more of her food, however I am a little concerned that she is not eating as much as she should. The recipe book recommends she eat about 440 grams and she is eating about half that. I ended up emailing Hilary Watson who wrote the book, to see if she has any suggestions, maybe I can increase the calories per gram so she can eat less, or if she will moderate herself. She's not hungry, but I want to make sure she is getting all the nutrients her growing body needs. Hopefully I will find an answer soon.

Today we also had our first puppy play date with her Uncle Andy. I was very amusing to watch Andy try to figure out what exactly Penelope is. Andy is a great 10 year old Shih Tzu who lives at my parents house. Actually he was the last puppy I trained since my last dog came to us at about 5 months old. I would trust Andy with anything, he is great with rabbits, chinchillas, even the rats and mice we've had. This endearing feature of his however was not so useful when it comes to a nippy Penelope. He had no idea how to respond to her tugging on his ears, leg and tail. Luckily for Andy Penelope hadn't slept at night, she was quickly tired out and thought our play date would be the ideal time for sleep... Err.


The rest of the day consumed of trying to keep the puppy up, crate training, and leash training. I need to grow a little bit more confidence. The keep walking even if she is dragging behind concept, I really need to work on that! I give in to easily which will just make training longer and more difficult. 

Puppy kisses at the end of the day, make every sleepless moment and hours spent baking worthwhile... just don't ask me to repeat that tomorrow morning.