Poppy

Her 6-class training course ended last evening. While we did not think it to be of much value-add since she already knew sit-stay and is generally already well-behaved, it did not result in any difference in her. Though, with a lot of other hyper puppies at the training we could tell the remarkable difference from Class 1 to Class 6. The biggest example (literally and figuratively) of this is Diego the 2-year old Great Dane. He was rambunctious and his handler had starting bleeding on Day 1. By Day 3 he was a completely changed dog! I couldn't believe my eyes! In fact at an exercise last evening, 6 volunteers were handling the dogs they didn't own and I got to handle Diego, and he was sooooo easy, sooo well-behaved, never straining or pulling even once at the leash! The good thing is, Poppy got to socialize with a lot of other dogs and humans and came out of her shell completely. She graduated with special remarks from her instructor on how she was the most well-behaved labrado...

Yesterday was a fun evening... We first took Poppy and Preeti-Gautam's dog Moca to Lake Austin. Redbud Trl has an amazing dog park, leash-free zone and places for dogs to enter and swim in the water. Of course all the dogs go crazy there. Poppy tried her first swim and it was incredible! At first she hung out at the shallow edges of the water tentatively, watching Moca play and trying to frolic around the edges. Then VIkram slowly lured her in with a treat and before we knew it, she was doing a little lap in the water. After Moca left to play with some other dogs, though, she lost interest and started growling at something in the water. We got the dogs home and shampooed them clean. They promptly rolled themsleves over on the grass to dry and started playing with each other. AT first Moca had tried to assert himself over Poppy and we thought she was scared, but little did we know! She was licking his mouth and licking and licking till she had the big boy wrapped around her tiny paw...

Poppy is 5 months today! And as of last Saturday she weighed 39.5 pounds at the vet. Doing great I'll say! I hope she crosses the 60 mark with ease as a full-grown :) Pix of her....

It's been one whole week today since I loaded Poppy in my car and got her home. From the nervous, shy, calm puppy who would run away from strangers who visited her or new puppies that tried to smell her, she has suddenly come out of her shell and become this confident, happy, energetic pup. It's amazing! She's now a dog that walks upto people to smell them and play with them and that runs up to new dogs ( even the hyper ones) and keeps playing with them until they get tired of her and snarl! Haha! I am so proud of my little one! Though she does have some excellent traits like she doesn't bite or want to nibble at people, she doesn't jump or bark at visitors either... so for any dog-scared visitors, she's the perfect puppy to meet and make friends with! Puppies are so amusing too. She gets these amazing energy fits where she zooms round and round in circles at top speed on a path she has created for herself (around our sofas and coffee tables). The first time ...

Above, I'm hiding from Rahul and Surbhi... and Below I'm in deep thought

On her first night with us, she did bark (which delighted Vik because that's the first time he heard her bark) and then she whined in that pitiful doggy way for a while after we had crated her at night, but then she settled down. I couldn't sleep all night because Poppy was tossing and turning in her crate resulting in all sorts of sounds. Finally I went to her at 3 am and she woke up and started whining again (my mistake). Then Vikram and I slept outside in the living room for the rest of the night and she slept well too after that. Last night was really good because Ally and Nimish had come over and she was tired out with all the playing so she walked into her crate herself and fell deep asleep by 9 pm. Woke us up at 6:40 am with a tiny bark because she couldn't hold her bladder any more (we rushed her outside and sure enough she peed in the grass). But we had all slept over 8 hours and very well too, so it was a good night. The funniest though is how she sleeps - on her ...

As of today - Poppy is 32.5 pounds!!! And I thought she was 28 (yesterday) but I was wrong!! Wow, she was just 26 2 weeks ago! The vet gave her a clean bill but did say she was especially shy and needed to socialize. So she starts Puppy training from June 5th. It was very, err...different, riding with her loose in the backseat of a car today. I was with her the whole time and in the beginning she refused to come out once we reached Westgate Animal Hospital; she was shaking in my arms when I tried to lift her off the seat and onto the concrete. We eventually did manage it all, and she's learning to relax in the car slowly...

Poppy is a 4.5 months old pure-bred Labrador Retriever (yellow). Today was the day we got her home. While she was excellent and very patient on the drive from Pflugerville to South Austin, coaxing her out of the little travel crate from the back of my 2-door car into my arms so I could put her down on the floor was a scary 15-minutes. Vikram wasn't home yet and she refused to come out, which worried me... But I managed to coax her out with treats and grab her in my arms when she came out excitedly to munch the little treat. By then Vikram drove up too.. We put her first (Aggie) collar on her. Turns out it was too big but what the hell, I'll buy her a puppy one tomorrow. So we took her (on a leash) to sniff her new house and all its corners. She went upstairs excitedly but was rather scared while coming downstairs and refused to budge (from the top of the stairs). Again, it was time to heave and ho and carry 28-pound Poppy down the stairs. She excitedly walked into her new crate...