Pupdate

I guess I shouldn't be surprised that a month would pass without posting after my last post was entitled "We Adopted a Puppy." Basically 100% of our free time has been taken over by this little guy.

First things first, though. We named him Ripley. After Ellen Ripley in Aliens. (I think I kind of love those movies. Remember my surgery post with the reference to the movie?) We still call him Puppy most of the time, and Pooch or Poochie sometimes too.

As for how he's fitting in, it was definitely an adjustment at first. He wasn't able to sleep through the night without potty breaks for the first three or four weeks that we had him, so we were running on very little sleep. And half the time, I'd get up at 3am only to find he had already relieved himself in his crate. Frustrating, to say the least.

So add onto sleeplessness the fact that our kitties went into hiding, he was nipping at us constantly, and we couldn't let him out of our sight if we didn't have him penned up in a safe area with a baby gate. Did I mention it was an adjustment? At first I thought we had made a huge mistake. Clearly we are cat people and not cut out for this.

But luckily that phase has passed. Our kitties are getting used to the puppy, although that certainly doesn't mean they like him. Ripley is pretty much fully house trained and only has the very rare accident when we make him wait too long, so it's our fault, not his. He nips less, although he definitely still uses those puppy teeth on hands and arms, so that's annoying.

But Ripley loves to play with other dogs and cats that will allow it (we've found one so far!) Loves people and especially kids. He gets so excited and wants to greet every person he sees at the park.

He's picking up his training really well. He's a smart dog and he seems to enjoy when I work with him on new commands. He knows sit really well. He's getting "stay", "down", "come" and "watch me." He doesn't like wind so he figures out which direction it's coming from and sits in the appropriate part of the yard so he's protected from it. He's definitely not a dummy. haha

The biggest bonding experience we've had so far is that he loves loves loves to run. We've taken him on one-on-one runs around the neighborhood and he's not great at that. He doesn't stay with you on the leash that well yet and tries to do his own thing. But we have taken him on our hash runs a couple times (where we run with 40-50 other people through the woods, neighborhoods, etc). and he is an all-star. He loves to run in a pack. He can easily go four miles and have energy to spare. He's really fast and gets annoyed when we stop for a break (or a beer). lol Everyone loves him at the hashes, too, so it's fun to see him interact with other people and dogs. We're so happy that we can bring him along to things like that. It's especially impressive considering how small he is. Most of the other dogs that go have 20 - 100 lbs. on him.

All in all, I'd say Ripley is fitting in pretty well here. I think it will only get better with time as we continue to work on his training and he grows out of his puppy stage. But honestly, we're not in a huge hurry for that. He's such a cute little puppy and when he's not running around like a bat out of hell, he's pretty well behaved. A man on our hash run said to us the other day "A well exercised dog is a happy dog."