July 4th, 2011

Independence day. And if this plan works, Reilly will prolong my independence. It's fitting.

We had a much better night than I anticipated. In the evening before I went to bed, I heard puppy growling and snarling coming from the mudroom where I had bedded Reilly down. I assumed he had found one of the toys and was attacking it. Chris went to check, since I was tired, and found that Reilly had seen the pipes behind the washer and was threatening them with death and destruction. A judicious move of the crate took care of that.

He only cried twice during the night. The first time, he had pushed the crate back out, gotten behind it and couldn't back up. I rescued him, talked to him for a bit, and he was content to lie back down. The second time, Chris went. He just wanted someone to talk to to him for a minute.

All nighttime accidents were on the paper except for the freshest. My fault...he'd run out of clean paper. Martha had told me that he'd been the quickest at catching on to the puppy litter area, but I had watched his littermates peeing and pooping on her kitchen floor, with her following right behind the for clean-up. I figured that his picking up on it by 8 weeks was simply relative to the rest of the litter. I was wrong, and she was right. He understands paper. He also understands outside, and as his capacity to hold it grows, he'll transition easily to going outdoors all the time.

When I got up this morning, he was awake, and stretched out on a towel I had put on the floor. His crate bed was clean as a whistle; he hadn't slept in it, although he'd removed all the toys from the crate. I guess after the drive, he'd had enough of it! So, today we'll fix him a bed that's more comfortable than a towel on the floor, and he can choose the bed or crate. I took him out for a bit without the big dogs, then came back in and fixed their breakfast. After that, we all went back outside to feed the livestock. We didn't do any face-to-face introductions today, but Reilly has seen chickens, turkeys, rabbits and sheep now. The sheep were rather startling, and he walked away about ten feet, to turn, sit, and watch them for a few minutes before he came closer again. Very thoughtful puppy. After the big morning exercise of chores, he came in and went straight to bed.

Later today I'll figure out how to post pictures better, and links as well, hopefully. The breeder, Martha Hartley, has given me permission to post pictures from her, and provided me with two disks full! Yay!

Meg and Reilly