Week One with a Puppy

This week has been tough.  Puppy training, house training: let's face it, people training mostly.  Just two weeks ago I never would have believed that the alarm could go off at 6am and I would spring out of bed to take Oskar outside.  I have never, ever, in 38 years considered myself a morning person but now after just a week with a puppy, I am a new person.  I've even had to give up drinking for the last week (I know!) because more than a drink and it is hard for me to get up quickly in the morning.

The hardest thing has been just letting ourselves leave him in his crate for a bit.  Since we both work from home, we think, oh, we should have the puppy around us at all times except when we crate him at night.  But this just ends up with him chewing on his leash, barking at the cats, and driving us nuts in general.  This morning for the first time we put him in the crate after his long walk (long for him is just around the block right now) and he settled down right away with his toys and didn't bark or whine.  Nice!  Also, puppies don't like to pee where they sleep so having him in the crate makes him learn to control himself.  The times we tried to leave him in the bathroom for an hour or so with a baby gate in the doorway, he would pee almost the minute we got out of view.  The crate stops all that silliness.  At this age he should be able to control himself for 7-8 hours but we never make him wait that long. 

I also went out and bought a little play pen for him yesterday because I have been dying to get into the studio and it has been next to impossible.   But he loves the play pen.  He just curls up or plays with his toys and I can finally get some work done.  If we put him in the play pen in the kitchen he squirms and won't settle because all number of things distract him.  The studio is a little mellower.

That felt piece is upside down and is going to be a wall hanging once I do some stitching on it. 

Oskar is a sweet little Cardigan Corgi.  He gets a little mouthy but since we've only had him a week it's hard to get mad at him and we are working on tricks and techniques to stop him biting our hands and clothes.  I bought some bitter apple style spray and it stopped him chewing on the leash immediately.  He has learned pretty much to sit on command and likes to carry big sticks around in his mouth in the yard.  He turns 3 months old this Saturday.