My first posting will be a quick summary of our life-with-puppy-up-until-now.
Saturday, Sept 22, 2012, I found the most adorable puppy on the
internet. We called to see if she was
available and arranged to see her at the breeders the next day.
Sunday, September 23rd, 2012, we drove 3 and ½ hours to the breeder
to see if Valentina was the right puppy for us. The breeders seemed like good people, and the
dogs were well taken care of. Her Dad, a European Great Dane, weighed about 180 pounds, and her Mom, an
American Great Dane, weighed about 150 or 160 pounds. Both canine parents were laid-back,
easy-going. Valentina was even more adorable than her pictures and had the
sweetest demeanor. And …she had a black
nose --my favorite kind of Harlequin! After stopping at a nearby pet store to
purchase a few basic necessities, we drove back in about 4 hours, including peepee
stops. Valentina slept most of the way
on a pile of moving blankets set between the two front seats. We hoped this was a sign that she would
travel well in the car in the future.
The first two nights were virtually sleepless, and the rest of the week
was a blur. I had made a box for her
next to our bed, using a large corrugated box that the dehydrator oven came in. I placed a pillow wrapped in a
familiar-smelling towel that the breeders had given me and a soft blanket covering
the bottom and sides of the box, and slipped in a clock that made a loud
ticking sound. She cried practically all
night. Every time she started to cry, I
took her on a peepee run to the back yard. Looking back on it, I think the box
made her feel as if she was in a black hole.
She was used to sleeping with her Mom and her siblings, and suddenly she
was required to fall asleep alone, and without visual cues surrounding her. The third and fourth night, we put her and
her bed in a back section of our Master Bath, using a dog pen. Even though she had numerous toys and chews,
she was not happy. We closed the
bathroom door and let her cry for a while.
She eventually went to sleep. The
fifth or sixth night, we placed her by our bed again, this time enclosed in four sections of the dog pen, making a 24
by 24 inch enclosure which made everything and everyone in the room totally
visible to her – success! The enclosure
kept her in, on her bed, with her toys, but with no room to peepee. The seventh
night we added a crucial element to her/our peaceful wellbeing: a Kong with
peanut butter to keep her busy at night until she gets sleepy.
Now, she wakes up about 7AM, whines a little to let us know she’s awake,
yawns, and Tom hurries over to lift a soft sleepy puppy to his shoulders, and, as
he heads for the stairs, she places one big paw on his shoulder and the other
on his head and kisses his ear as he descends the stairs with her. Soon she’ll be too big for Tom to pick up,
and we’ll have to get her used to running quickly outside in the morning.
We’ve had two visits to the vet already – one, the next day after we
got Valentina, for a wellness check and her heartworm med, and the other for
the next vaccinations and a microchip. On the first visit she weighed 8.8
pounds, and two weeks later on the second visit, she weighed 13.3 pounds! She’s growing fast. On her third visit, she’ll be vaccinated for
rabies.
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