Day 1. Thursday. Aug 29

Woke up earlier than I remembered was a time of day. Heard the sound of yelping, whining, yipping. What greeted us was almost overwhelming. A lot of poop and pee. What have we done?

We cleaned up the mess instead of having leisurely coffee. Got that done. They were starving. Got that done. They needed to be taken out to pee and poo. Got that done…but couldn’t leave them because of gaps in the fence they could squeeze through. They needed something to chew on. Got that done. Old sock knots. Done. Tee shirt snakes with a knothead. A coke can. Yes, a coke can. Just like Ditto. We laughed as we watched them skitter their coke cans across the sidewalk, and run through the grass holding coke cans in their mouths. I realized it was the first we’ve laughed about a doggy antic in a long time. Ditto had been so very sick and old for a long time. They needed to take a nap. So did we. Recliner time. Got that done.

One little pup was aggressive about the food bowl and would bully the other pup from eating. Can’t have that. Joyce solved that by making two bowls of food about 6 feet apart and showing the little bullied pup that she could have her own bowl. The aggressive pup ran over to the other bowl and bullied…so Joyce showed the bullied pup to run over to the other bowl. The “little” pup, (one is just a wee bit smaller than the other), caught on to the idea right away. Within minutes it was almost like needing traffic control as they switched from bowl to bowl. Got that done.

Noticed right off that if the bully pup was aggressive toward the other pup, chances are she would be aggressive toward people or kids with her food and snacks. Can’t have that. So, more training. Joyce reached down to take the pup’s food away. Joyce knew exactly what to expect and was ready for it. When the pup nipped at Joyce’s hand, Joyce flopped that pup onto her side, held her down by the neck and hip, and they had a chat. She learns fast. We can now take her food, snack, toys and she’s submissive. Training is easy when a person acts likes a mother.

We started considering names. I sent out a FB query for names. A lot of responses and most were cute ideas. But we delayed choosing names, waiting to see if a personality would shine through.

Night of day one, Joyce got smarter and put newspaper and their bed in the breezeway, to confine them to a smaller space. It worked. Not near as big a mess to clean up, the newspaper was good, despite some of it was shredded, and mopping the smaller area was quicker and easier. So, got that done.