Puppy Update!

So Lucky has been with us for several months now.  Here is a picture of soon after got him, so he's gained quite a bit of weight since then.

He is less of a little puppy and more of a teenager doggie member of our household now.  We are happy to say that he is mostly potty trained and only rarely has accidents indoors.

The kids love playing with him.  And also accessorizing him.  Karina made a bandana for him, and put it on him.  Whether he appreciated that or not, we're not sure.  But overall he is a pretty laid back dog and tolerates things like this pretty well.  

Gabe likes to pick him up and cuddle him like a stuffed animal and Lucky seems to tolerate it ok.

He likes to lounge around...a lot.  He spends most of the day lying around, napping.  We have other friends who have gotten COVID puppies and they talk about how their dogs can't stay still.  Lucky, on the other hand, has staying still down to a science.  

And sometimes he feels snuggly and will lay next or on top of you.

But he does like to go to stretch his legs.  We went out to the local track to ride bicycles and he enjoyed running along.

Here is his meal.  He gets a couple of scoops of kibble in the morning and a couple more at night.  He is not too crazy about it and will only eat it if he's starving.  To make it a little more enticing, Elvin saved some chicken liver and heart that came with the whole chicken from the store, then fried up the organs and mixed them in there.  He loved it!

We signed Lucky up for a manners class.  In the first class, he was VERY distracted by the other five dogs in the room and couldn't do anything but whine because he couldn't go play with the other canines. 

By the second week, he calmed down and was able to learn some stuff.  Amongst other things, he learned how to sit and lay down.  He also was taught to "wait" which is useful so that he doesn't rush out from inside the house to the outside.  And we're working on leash walking, but it's still a work in progress.

On the last day of the six week class, here was a mini-graduation ceremony for him.  They put a little graduation cap on him, which he found very distracting.

He also wanted to eat his graduation certificate.  (He likes to tear up paper.)

Since we've had him, we've given him haircuts twice.  It was sort of a trial, but he ended up not being too weirded out by the clippers and complied well if we kept him distracted with treats.

It took a while and he got bored and did what he does best....lounge on the ground.

We also give him baths weekly.  He used to hate it and go absolutely berserk and try to jump out of the bathtub.  Now he's gotten used to it and is willing to sit there quietly if we feed him little pieces of chicken.  You realize how fluffy his fur is after we get him wet--then he turns into a skinny chihuahua.

And here he is after a bath!

He does do some naughty things, which we try to correct with varying degrees of success.  For one thing, he likes chewing on shoes.  The smellier the better.  Elvin got a new pair of shoes and left them accessible.  They were straight out of the box, with still the new shoe smell and they did not interest Lucky one bit.

Gabe's stinky old tennis though....

And Eliana's clogs are also tasty.

He also likes to get up on the couch.  He knows he's not supposed to so will jump on and then jump off if you approach him to get him off.

He also likes to lick the dishes if you're loading the dish washer.  We are really trying to wean him from this bad habit.

And like most dogs, it seems, when he smells something tantalizing he will try to get it from our dining table or the counter.  

He does like going into our backyard.  We've trained him to ring a bell (shown in the picture) when he needs to go out to go potty.  Well now, he just rings it non-stop when he wants to go outside, even if he's gone potty just five minutes ago.

Once outside, he likes to do various things, like play tug of war with the rope tied to our big apple tree.

He also likes to run around like a little crazy jack rabbit.

He also likes to search around for his favorite snack--chicken poop.  Yes, he loves chicken poop.  It's one of his favorite foods and quite disgusting.

We used to free-range the chickens all over the yard, but to keep them from pooping just anywhere, Elvin built this low fence to keep them contained.  Also, this way, the chickens can stay in the back part and not get chased by Lucky. 

This is the whiteboard in our kitchen.  Usually it lists out our menu for the week.  However when Gabe was in time out recently, he took it upon himself to write a menu out from Lucky’s point of view.  What is Lucky having for dinner on Monday?   Apparently, according to Gabe, chicken poop.  

At night we have him sleep in his crate.  It's not his favorite thing, but he tolerates it.  

The kids do like going into the crate and say they would sleep in there with him if we let them.

So that's our Lucky!  He's growing up quickly!