Perfect Puppy

Lexi has been home for just about 18 hours, and while we’ve seen plenty of sparks of the high drive, high confidence puppy we were told about; so far we’ve seen none of the crazy, screaming puppy we were warned about

Lexi was PERFECT last night. She slept all the way through the night without getting us up once. She slept on Esteban’s side of the bed, and while I did wake up and hear her moving around in her crate, she never whined or barked, so we let her be.

I like to take some of the credit for her success. I know they have spent time in their crates at Gayles, but it isn’t the ‘status quo’ that it is at our house. They slept in their xpen with litter box nearby. At our house – she’ll sleep in a crate and she’s seen her last litter box She spent most of the day in the xpen – but I didn’t want nighttime to be her first exposure to her crate. Sometime around mid-afternoon, I put her in her crate with a chewtoy. She immediately started barking, and I immediately covered her with a towel. Now this is where we went wrong with our other dogs; we would forget they were there, covered up, or purposely leave them covered up to keep them quite. Covering them was management – not training. With Lexi, she quieted as soon as she was covered. After about a minute of being quiet, I whispered “good girl” and took off the towel. The second she barked (sometimes within seconds – sometimes a few minutes later) I went right over and covered her. I never told her anything when I covered her. But then – I always uncovered her within a minute or so of being quiet. About the third time I reached for the towel – she laid down in the crate as soon as she saw me REACH for the towel. The next time it was off – it stayed off for an hour or so. She napped, she woke, I let her out for potty and play. And she spent the rest of the day in the xpen (or outside playing).

So – when it came time to crate her in the evening. I put her in her crate. I got one bark. The same towel jumped over her crate. A minute later, the towel was off and not a peep from her for the rest of the night! HUGE SUCCESS!

Today will be more interesting. She’ll have to stay in the crate all day while Esteban and I are at work. We have pet sitters coming twice. And Esteban will be home on the early side (4pmish). But still – that’s ALOT of crate time. She may not be keen to go back in for bedtime.

She hasn’t yet met any of our other dogs (though she’s certainly smelled them and seen them as we walk by the ‘dog room’). But on a walk around the block – she did meet a gaggle of neighborhood kids. Isaac decided he’d rather play than walk about the block – so we settled in on the grass and watched the 5 kids run around. They pet her, which didn’t bother her at all, and ran by at intervals, which just made her want to chase them. We were in the front yard – so I couldn’t let her off leash. I could tell she already knew which kid was ‘hers’ since she always tried hardest to get to Isaac when he came close enough.

The only thing so far that made her truly uncomfortable was our cat! She (the cat) walked right up to the xpen pretty much as soon as it was set up. Lexi tucked her tail, put her head on the ground, turned over on her back and prostrated herself in front of the cat (I’m sure just the reaction any cat expects from her subjects But it was only once. After that – she just watched the cat walk by whenever it made the rounds, which was often. Now, she even wags her tail. I suppose a healthy respect for felines is not a bad thing since Lexi will end up much bigger and stronger than the cat.