9 Weeks Old

Roxy turned 9 weeks old this week. She's really fitting in very well with our family. Our golden, Calvin, gets along with her and they love to play together. Sometimes though, he gets in his "older dog" mood and just doesn't want to play. Then he'll have to nip at her in that way that says "hey, leave me alone..."

My husband says that Roxy is an "overly dramatic female". When Calvin does have to be a little rough with her to get her to stop chewing on his face she gets SO upset. She cries and cries and cries. Or if he's running in the yard and comes too close to her (doesn't even touch her!) she'll scream. Really puppy? I KNOW you didn't get hurt. Our vet says that GSDs are known for being very vocal.

That brings me to another point. She had her first vet visit with our Dr. Gorr this week. She was a very good girl! No accidents and she even sat on the scale very nice. She weighs 14lbs! She's going to be a big girl. She got to sniff lots of new smells including kittens, other dogs, and some ferrets. Once we were in the exam room though, she cried almost the whole time. Not really crying, but just whining. That's when Dr. Gorr said that it's very normal for GSDs to be vocal all the time. I'm going to keep making an effort to take her out all the time to get her used to all sorts of new experiences.

The potty training has been going very well. She'll have maybe one accident a day (usually while my husband is in charge....) But the past few days she's actually been going to the back door and whining when she has to go out. It's usually when she has to poop (probably because she can tell it's coming) but I still have to be on her like  hawk to make sure she doesn't pee in the house. She goes out just once during the night now, then right away in the morning, right after breakfast, after playing with Calvin, and then every hour or so other than that.

The crate training is going.... okay. I still put her in when she's tired, and I still fill her Kong with some peanut butter stuff, I still turn on the "Dog-Ease" music on my iPod (hey it worked for Calvin!) and she still cries for about 5-10 minutes. There's been a few times where she doesn't cry at all, but 8 times out of 10 she cries. I was concerned at first because it really only took Calvin 3 days to be crate trained. And now he LOVES the crate (only now he gave it up for Roxy).

Update: I just put Roxy in her crate because she was falling asleep after playing with Calvin... and not a peep!! *Knock on wood* Some days are better than others... it seems like the more tired she is the more she appreciates having quiet time in her crate.

Overall, Roxy has been a great addition to our family. She's extremely gentle with our 22 month old daughter, she plays so nicely with our golden, and she seems to be very smart and submissive. She's a great girl. I'm hooked on german shepherds! :)

Oh! I wanted to write about Roxy's "thing." 90% of the time when she's drinking out of the water dish, she has to put one of her feet in it. What a goof. Once it warms up (what the heck, it's almost June and it's like 50 degrees out...) I want to fill a little doggy pool and see what she thinks of it. Her big brother Calvin LOVES to swim, it'd be great if she does too!

*Another update: Roxy had her second bath earlier this week and she did MUCH better. She didn't cry at all and most of the time she sat very nicely so I could get her nice and clean again. :)

8 Weeks Old

Roxy is officially 8 weeks old today! She's now been consistently sleeping from around 10-5:30am. And she's switched over to her new type of Fromm puppy formula with no digestive upset. And she's been playing great with her big brother Calvin.

The only real issue we're still having is the crate training. With our golden, he cried like mad the first few nights so we thought we were lucky with Roxy since she never really cried at night. But during the day is when we have the problem. To help train my golden when he was a baby, I put him in his crate EVERY time he'd fall asleep during the day. After a day or two, he got used to it and realized that his crate was his own personal quiet place. We've been putting Roxy in her crate during naps too, but 98% of the time she'll cry the whole time. We've never let her out while she's crying so I'm not sure why she's so persistent with the crying (more like screaming). We've just been sticking to our guns. When she gets tired, it's straight to the crate. It's been almost a week now so I thought she would have caught on by now... she just fights it every time. I bought some flavored Kong... stuff.... to put inside her puppy Kong. I did that for Calvin when he was little and that seemed to help him get used to his crate more.

Even though someone is home pretty much 24/7 to be with Roxy, I still want her to get used to her crate for when we do have to leave her when she's older. It was a little different with Calvin because I lived alone and went back to work full time after a week. So he HAD to get used to his crate while I was gone. But I don't want to have major problems when Roxy is older (and much bigger) when we need to leave her for a little bit. Calvin actually almost tore his way out of his crate once...

Yesterday was Roxy's first trip to Petsmart! She's **technically** not supposed to go until next week after her next set of shots, but I wanted to take her at 7 weeks, because after 8 weeks they go through a fear period... and I really wanted to make sure she had a good first impression with the store. Calvin used to love going there, but now he's afraid of the store... probably my fault for not taking him often enough... Roxy had a great time! There were probably 20 people that asked to pet her. She got so much attention and got to meet lots of other dogs... even another (older) german shepherd puppy! I let her pick out her own new toy and she was so proud of herself. 

The house training is coming along pretty nicely too. She still has an accident every now and then, but the majority of the time she goes outside. This morning after she ate her breakfast she actually went to the door and looked at me. I asked "outside?" and she got all excited like "yes mom, that's what I need!" Such a good girl!

A friend of mine noticed last week that Roxy has a hernia. It looks like a little bubble on her stomach. I emailed her breeder this morning to see what her advice is. My friend said her dog's hernia was removed when he was neutered, but we're probably not planning on spaying Roxy until she's around a year old (spaying them sooner than that has been linked to urinary incontinence when they're older).

Roxy's First Week

Last Tuesday our family brought home our newest addition, a female black & tan german shepherd puppy named Roxy. We had second pick female of the litter. This was the mother, Oneida's, first litter ever and she was a great mommy to these pups. The breeder, Kelly, and her family were also amazing at socializing the pups from the very beginning. And Kelly knew the puppies as individuals and knew which had the calmest or most active personalities. Roxy was the "blue collar" girl and Kelly said she was by far the most mellow of all the females. Although we have a very active 3 year old golden retriever (from the Raising Calvin blog), we also have an almost 2 year old daughter so we wanted a pup that would be calm and gentle around her. Roxy is definitely that pup! She's very sweet and mellow; very very different from what Calvin was like as a puppy. 

On the car ride home, Roxy cried for a little bit (just like Calvin did) but then slept most of the way home. At home she was curious but cautious about her new surroundings. She was afraid of Calvin at first (up until we started working with him, he had some extreme dominance issues and he was very dominant over her). Plus I'm sure it's scary to see a huge 80lb dog charging at you from across the yard... 

Roxy ate very well from the start. Kelly told us that she might not eat the first day just because of nerves. But Roxy ate almost all of her dinner that night and she drank a decent amount of water. Kelly feeds all the pups Fromm Puppy Gold. Before talking with her, we fed Calvin Blue Buffalo brand, but we realized that Fromm is just as good if not better, and it's a little bit cheaper than Blue. We switched him over to Fromm Large Breed Adult before bringing Roxy home and he did very well. And now we're switching Roxy to the Fromm Large Breed Puppy. She's doing very well! We're also going to be giving both dogs Olewo carrot supplements to help their digestive systems and to keep their coats and skin in great condition.

Anywho, back to Roxy... the first night she cried for about 15 minutes before falling asleep. I didn't expect her to cry much longer than that; her crate is in our bedroom and Calvin slept on the floor next to her so she wasn't alone. She was up about every 2 hours the first night to go outside. But now, after 5 days, she's sleeping from around 10pm-5am which is great! 

She's had a few accidents, which is to be expected. The best accidents are when we see her do it so we can correct her right away and take her outside. If we see the accident after the fact, we don't even say anything, we just clean it up. There's no point in scolding a dog after an accident because they won't know what you're yelling about and it just confuses and scares them. 

We've been rotating Roxy's toys too. We don't really scold her when she chews something she shouldn't; we just say "no" and take it away and give her one of her toys. But after a little while she gets bored of the same toy so we put it away and bring out a new one to keep her occupied. She really likes one of Calvin's hand-me-down teethers; it's a soft bone that you run under cold water and put in the freezer, it really feels good on a teething puppy's gums. It's nice to buy fun toys again; Calvin can only have toys that are "indestructible" because he destroys regular toys in under a minute. 

So far Roxy is a joy to have. She's getting more energy every day, but she's still so mellow and sweet. She's starting to get used to Calvin now too and they're starting to play nice together. 

I'm trying to take Roxy somewhere everyday, just like I did with Calvin as a puppy. The first few times in the car she'd cry until she fell asleep, but now she doesn't seem to mind car rides. Once she has her next set of shots in a week she'll be able to go to Petsmart with me too. She's getting a little better with the leash too. The first time she'd sit and wouldn't follow, but now she's getting the hang of it and we take short walks just up and down the block. 

I've also taught her to sit now too. She doesn't know it 100% yet, but she understands what it means. It'll just take a little more practice for her to really get it. Then I can start adding new tricks like shake and down. She'll be going to puppy class too; it starts in 2 weeks. She had her first bath yesterday (partially because she needs to experience them while she's little... partially because I think she rolled in pee ha). She didn't like it at all! But she'll get used to them :) Calvin LIVES for the water and he loves baths... I'm not expecting her to like it as much as he does, but I hope she'll at least like swimming in the lake with us. We'll see soon!