Welcome to the Family

Welcome Petra!

On Friday night we spontaneously drove to Seattle for the evening (which I will post about some day) and came home with a new addition to our family. She is a 10 week old Boxer puppy from an adorable little family in Auburn, WA. She lived there with her parents and two brothers, but it was time for her to come live with us and keep us company. When we went to Auburn to look at her, I fell in love and was excited to possibly bring her home with us. We had been looking at Boxer ads for a couple of days and really wanted to find a female puppy. It was so fun looking at the puppies, but they were a little too excited- not only did I come away from there with a puppy, I also had a very wet pant leg! Puppies are so funny.

Stubby wrinkly nose.

Kim will miss her.

Precious Moments Petra.

Extra skin- she's going to grow into most of this I think, but it's cute while it lasts.

Restful

Curious

Sleeping. Yes, I rolled up the blanket for her to lean on, she was previously leaning on my leg. No matter what she is doing, she wants to be touching you- whether she is playing, resting or eating.

Lounging

We were totally unprepared to take a puppy home the night we met Petra, but we had newspapers and a fleece blanket in the car. She rode on my lap the entire ride home and didn't make one mess inside the car. We stopped at a 24 hr Walmart sometime in the early AM and bought the essentials for puppy care, which was nice to have the next day. Until her dog house arrives, Petra sleeps in the bottom of our old rabbit carrier, lined with fleece blankets and placed under our covered BBQ. She seems to like it just fine!

She has use of the entire backyard, but doesn't stray far from the back door unless we are out playing with her. I have put her on a leash once, and have walked about a total of 10 steps with a loose leash, which I read is really good. She usually jumps up with all four feet in the air trying to get loose from it and chews it a bit, but I think she'll learn quickly. She is such a good dog and has even responded to "no" a couple of times. We are teaching her that she is only allowed in the house if she is on a special blanket and she is doing well with that as well even though it is a constant struggle.

Today was a tough day for her because it poured rain all day. Tonight she was wining a little, so I warmed her blanket up in the dryer and gave her a treat and she went right to bed. It seemed like I was rewarding naughtiness with good- I am such a softy. It worked, but I might have started something bad, what do you think?! I hope it just helped her to settle down and be comforted in her loneliness. She is used to sleeping with her doggie family.

Welcome to the Family
Turn the blog music off first. :)
(obviously all the lyrics aren't suitable for a dog, but the title made me think of this.)

UPDATE: Petra loves her new dog house. It has a nice fluffy dog pillow inside and she crawls in and spreads out making herself right at home. She goes for at least 2 daily walks and is learning not to pull, go into driveways or on lawns, jump up on people or eat dead crabs. :) She has learned "come" and "sit". She comes inside and stays (most of the time) on a blanket chewing her rawhide bone or her rope bone and then is ready to go outside and play again.