Monday, March 4, 2013

new dog no tricks

On Saturday, maybe against my better judgement, I went to look at a puppy. She was advertized as a Boston Terrier/ LAb mix but no one knows if that is true. It is just what the kill shelter in Princeton WV told our rescuer at PetHaven in Falls Mills. So I went to check it out, thinking that my Boston Lady was so special that I wanted another Boston, but thought A mix would be better. We drove hours two hours to the rescue place. It started to snow once we got there and our thoughts were we are going to get snowed into a place that has no hotels.

We found the kennel/ rescue place and found about 8 kennels with 2 dogs/kennel except for some really little puppies who were not spayed or neutered. We really wanted to take all the dogd home because though it was "heated" there was still only heavy plastic curtains keeping the chill out. Our rescuer was doing all that she could to save the dogs providing them with indoor/outdoor access on a limited budget. We were greeted by a cacphony of dogs barking. Which calmed down when they knew we were okay. I went to the kennel with Bella and Cricket, this was the two boston/lab mixes. They were mostly lab in looks, with some of the white markings of a boston. When they let them out all chaos broke loose. I wanted to rescue both of them but seeing by the way they were running around I knew that would be an impossibility. I hated to seperate them, they were both lovable dogs.

I was hestitant, I remember many stories about labs and wanting to please but hating being on a leash. This puppy was 5-6 months old and only knew about life in a kennel, no rules, just eat sleep and wrestle with her sister. My daughter was told that Bella was always being picked on since she was the runt of the litter. Needless to say we took Bella who would be renamed home with us.

Why not keep her name as Bella, though she was beautiful we did not think the name fit. And as she was not used to being called a name we went through many possibilities before we settled on a name. We had planty of time as I gave the wrong directions and we were headed  away from home about an hour before I realized this. So we finally settled on the name Kai. When my daughter looked it up we found that it had many meanings including Dog in Cornish. Plus it meant Ocean, Harbor and probability all things that seemed to fit, deep black for ocean, we were harboring her, and we are probably sure she is at least lab, not too sure about the boston.

I do have to say we made a quick trip to the store, Walmart was nearby and picked up a crate, food and treats. Katy sat with her in the backseat and Kai was really good, she just snuggled up to Katy and relaxed. When we got the crate she went into it without a problem and settled down for the long ride home. I think because she was really warm for the first time she slept most of the way.

She is getting settled but it was crazy the first night. I think she cried out every hour on the hour all night. I let her out at 2:30 so she could pee, very cold at 2:30 in the morning.

I am trying to teach her things like sit, to walk on a leash, I am trying to crate train her but she thinks I am punishing her. We did by a gate to put in the kitchen so that she has some room to roam when not in her crate but I think that  I am doing this wrong. I think she needs to be in the crate when I am not playing with her, because today she is becoming very independent. I actually found her starting to chew the furniture, so I had to reintroduce her to her chew toys. I thought we maybe out of that scenario since she was close to 6 months but not yet.

I will crate her everytime I leave the room. But she maybe a little more work then I originally thought, especially since I am sure that I do not have a clue on how to train a puppy. Tried to go for a walk in neighborhood, still too many new sounds for a country dog. She definitely does not know how to be a dog at least a domesticated dog. i have never had a dog that did not think going for a walk was fun, even if they were stubborn whenit came to smells.

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