Cool Puppy

As requested, Orent has been photographed with his ice "hockey puck," showing what a cool little guy he is. It's been added to the last post!

In other chill news, he's been sleeping late. Saturday morning we got to sleep 'til 7am, and Sunday 'til 6:30. And he's been waking up quietly and just chewing his green rubber toy. So this morning we decided to try having him walk himself downstairs. And... he was completely successful! He made it all the way downstairs before he had to "hurry" which was amazing considering it had been almost 8 hours. Hooray Orent!

We also got him a bed yesterday, hoping that having a spot would be a good start to teaching him to settle down outside of the crate. We put it in his favorite flop spot (the foot of the bed, near his kennel and water, where we train him and where the AC points) and he loves to flop on it and hear "Bed... good bed, good boy!" He also really, really loves to chew on it and wrestle with it! We're working on that.

After his lunch training it was time for people lunch and so we brought him and the bed into the kitchen. Kaytee worked with him on "Bed," "Sit," and "Down." He did fine until he decided to get off the bed (unrealesed) and come sniff the kitchen. I herded him back towards Kaytee and he ran towards her... faster... faster... and all the way past her full tilt down the hall into the office where he met... Robot the cat! When Kaytee got there a split second later he was sniffing Robot's nose very politely and being hissed at. Kaytee got his attention and sent him out of the room where I helped him into the bedroom and gave him a lovely chew toy for his crate. Oy, little dog! After the toilet paper I think that was his best full-tilt naughty puppy moment!

The rest of the day we kept him busy playing with his puppy friend Violet (only for a few minutes but it wore him out) and his grown-up dog acquaintance Shasta (she tolerates him because their people like each other) and supervising our construction project. We made a lovely fence thingy to go around the bed so he can't get under there any more. He's growing so fast we're worried he'll chase a dust bunny under there, grow an inch, and be stuck forever!

(photos of this coming soon! they're stuck on Kaytee's memory card at the moment.)

Like all Labs I've ever met, he was an excellent project supervisor, keeping a close eye on every aspect of the process. The vacuum cleaning at the end caused him to sit back in a far corner of his crate, but since he'd been (miraculously, to him, I'm sure) provided with a peanut butter-stuffed Kong moments before it whirred to life, he overall thought it was a pretty cool thing.

Speaking of crates, it's only a few more days 'til we'll have to expand his section again. He is growing like Popeye eating a case of spinach, like the Incredible Hulk on a rampage, like, well, like a super-puppy!