Snow!

For a week or so, it looked like a real Canadian winter. With snow. And Duncan has decided that he loves snow:

It's wonderful to see him tearing around the yard like this, ears flying, when less than two months ago we had this sad little guy with a badly broken leg in a festive splint! 

Here are a few more:

Officially a Big Boy

Duncan has officially learned to pee like a big boy, at least some of the time. Unfortunately, after all those years with a girl dog, we are somewhat lacking in appropriate facilities for a boy. Let's face it - a guy would need a lot of practice at aiming to hit the skinny little maple tree in back yard! The only decent sized tree is the one in the photo, in the middle of the deck with a well around it, and it could be a tight squeeze when he grows a bit more. But in the meantime, it does offer options for ambidextrous peeing - tree or deck. That's the leg he broke that he's putting all his weight on. :)

And here's a scruffy little pup under attack in his own back yard. Yesterday was just mild enough for some melting to start, and we took advantage of the slightly less frigid temperatures to play outside. There seemed to be an interesting smell right by the corner of the house, but every time he got sniffing at it, a drip from the eaves would land right on his head!

I love the flying ear. I think the actual ear is about half that size - he really needs a trim, but hasn't been allowed to have a bath yet in case a slip hurt his leg. But the leg is doing so well, the first haircut can't be too far off. On the plus side, he seems to like his grooming table - or at least the never-ending supply of treats it seems to produce. On the minus side, he seems to revert to "scruffy" amazingly fast after being combed! 

Teething

I was too slow to catch the snowy snout, but it's a cute picture anyway...

Duncan has lost his two bottom front teeth. The good news is that this is the first step toward losing those incredibly sharp puppy canine teeth. The bad news is that he needs to chew and chew and chew. It's tough to keep him in chewies, because he goes through them so fast - but only if he likes them. We bought the four on the right at the same time two weeks ago (the white one is older). Guess which ones don't meet his standards:

His new favourite is his Bullwrinkle. He wasn't at all sure about it at first:

Is this thing safe?

It looks okay from this angle.

But he's been won over:

And of course, cardboard is always good. 

I wonder if butt-sniffing the socially acceptable way of greeting in the gargoyle world? And yes, those are the remains of the latest stick collection all over the carpet...

Puppy playtime

 

Finally! We were finally able to attend the weekly puppy drop-in class at Scholars in Collars. The first half of it focuses on things like teaching the puppy to be handled, etc., and probably felt pretty much like his regular obedience class to Duncan. But the second half! Puppy playtime. They group the puppiess by size and exuberance, and Duncan was in a group with half a dozen or so medium-sized pups, including another wheaten named Monty.

I was a bit worried about letting him run and play, since the vet would prefer him to take it easy for a bit longer, but he was fine. There was a lot of running, sniffing, and checking out assorted humans for treats, but no jumping or wrestling. His leg seemed to be tiring just as class ended, but not hurting.

Remember when Kerry went to puppy class, and she spent most of the playtime under the chair, only coming out occasionally to play with Rambo the shar-pei? Well, here's Duncan channeling Kerry, hanging out under Colby's dad's chair:

That's Monty on the right. North American coat, very fluffy,
a month or so older than Duncan.

Unlike Kerry, though, under the chairs was only a stopover for a quick rest and to size up his new friends. He invariably plunged back into the chaos:

Nearly normal

There's a story...

Duncan has spent this week transitioning from invalid to nearly normal puppy. He loves playing in the backyard (more on this below!) and is starting to get the idea of walking nicely on his leash around the neighbourhood. On Friday, we had a bonus on our walk when he met little Sammy. Kerry, in her crotchety-old-lady phase, considered cute little Sammy to be an annoying little pup. Now Sammy seems to feel the same way about Duncan. When we parted company, Sammy's nice curly white coat had a couple of new muddy paw prints on it, but he was very polite about the young whippersnapper - possibly because said whippersnapper is already nearly as big as he is!

Have I mentioned that Duncan has something of a stick fetish? He started with twigs and small branches trimmed from the Christmas tree, but he's working up to bigger things. This was one of the treasures he dragged into the house this week. It cost me quite a big treat to bribe him away from it, and even then I had to move fast to get rid of it before he came back looking for it.

The biting that I mentioned last week has improved quite a bit. A lot of it was just frustration, and as his leg improves and he's allowed to do more, his nipping is falling off to more normal puppy levels. Normal teething puppy levels, that is! Aunt Marnie suggested suggested a nice cold carrot. It took a few tries before he was willing to try it, but after a while, he quite like it:

He's not a neat eater, though. In fact, he may not have actually eaten any of it:

And that picture of the soggy puppy up at the top of the post? That's from this morning's playtime in the back yard, when he fell into the pool. Yup. Fell into the pool. He's pretty much cured... Fortunately, the water on the cover was solidly frozen (except for all of the rain on top), so he was fine and able to scramble out with a bit of help from Daddy, but he was a cold and dripping mess when they came back in. A couple of towels and a stuffed Kong in his crate completed the recovery.

Toys take a beating

Way back before Duncan hurt his leg, his friend Owen came to visit him, and brought him a new toy that he'd helped choose. Duncan has played and played with it, and this morning he accidentally chewed right through it with his sharp little teeth. But look what's inside it - a tennis ball! He has a whole new toy to play with. Great choice, Owen!

Other toys have been taking a beating, too. Duncan is very fond of the Nylabone puppy chewies, but he goes through them at a great rate. Here's a picture of his newest one alongside chewie #1. There are at least a couple of others around the house somewhere at intermediate stages of chewedupness.

One of his favourites lately, though, are empty toilet paper rolls, which he happily shreds all over the living room. I caught him the other day trying to hurry the emptying process along by eating some of the toilet paper, but usually he's willing to wait for me to hand them over.

Great News!

Look how blond his face is getting!

Isn't that a wonderful picture? Scruffy puppy enjoying the great outdoors - on four legs!

Duncan's vet appointment went very well yesterday, although I understand he gave Auntie Genna a hard time over the x-ray part of it. His leg has healed very well - the vet said you can hardly tell it was broken; she called it "the power of puppies" - but he has lost a great deal of muscle. Not surprising, when he's spent almost 1/3 of his life not using his leg! So he's been prescribed short walks 4 times a day, plus some other exercises, which should have him back to full strength in a few weeks. He was also warned not to overdo it, but apparently he wasn't listening to that part!

As a bonus, he got the last of his vaccinations at the same time, so we can do his "physio walks" outdoors. Duncan finds this tremendously exciting. Outdoors is full of wonderful things, like sticks. And dead leaves. One of them went blowing past us, so we stopped to watch:

Nothing like a brisk trot to build muscle, right?

Getting fed up

Duncan is getting fed up with his invalid status. His leg seems to feel perfectly fine, and he wants us to leave him alone and let him run and jump and get into mischief like a normal puppy. Unfortunately, until his next x-ray (hopefully Tuesday) the vet wants him to just walk quietly on leash. He's getting very frustrated, and is making sure we know it by biting whenever he's annoyed. Hard! I'm pretty sure the biting will die off as soon as he has more freedom, but to be on the safe side I've emailed his head teacher, who is also a behavioral expert, to see if we need a few sessions on the doggie couch. He's already quite comfortable on the human couch:

By the way, Erin, he misses you. He's wandered into your room and looked around for you several times since you left. 

With his limited freedom, naturally he wants a bit of privacy now and then. But his old hiding spot under the couch is becoming a tight squeeze. He's going to need to find a new spot soon. I'm afraid to open the door on Kerry's closet, in case we lose it for another 15 years!

Bigger and better!

Now that he's allowed to walk around the house a bit more, Duncan's beginning to have a bit more fun. I gave him a wrapping paper tube that was still in the corner of the bedroom, thinking it would amuse him while I made the bed. But he clearly felt it was a treasure, and tried to do his old run-down-the-hall-with-the-prize dash. Unfortunately, he was on leash, so the best he could do was a bit of a brisk walk, but it won't be long before he can run like a real puppy again.

And he's revisiting some of his old haunts. Remember this photo, from back on Dec. 6?

Well, he seems to have grown a bit - it's getting hard to fit under there! And we've had to let that cute little blue collar out a couple of times. Soon he'll be ready for a big-boy collar and leash.

Thanks, Mum!

Just before Christmas, our lucky little pup received a wonderful surprise - a Christmas card and gift from his dog-Mum Bella, a gift card to Petsmart. So on the weekend, we headed out to help him spend it.

What a hard decision! He checked out so many things, sniffing them diligently and trying for the occasional test chew. He wondered about getting himself a pet bird...

...but since you can't chew it, it didn't seem to be much fun. In the end, he seemed to like the Kong Wobbler kibble dispenser, so we got that. And a new chewy rope toy. Plus some treats and a few other things. And a ton of attention from the staff, as always!

Not sure why he's gone green!

The Wobbler is a real hit, to the point where he doesn't want to eat his meals from a boring old bowl anymore!

Thank you, Bella!