Little Family

Little Family

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Dog Days

Nobody told us taking care of a puppy would be as much work as it has proven to be! We sure do love Ranger and he is a good hearted soul. He has endless energy but is very loving. This week we have been battling his nipping/biting stage. We had been giving him a little whap on the butt and a firm "no" but everything I read online said that hitting was the wrong way to go about it. Oh, I know, I took a parenting class, but there really is no reasoning with a dog! We decided we would nix the butt pats and go for a different approach. We started to follow the direction we received online and when Ranger would bite we would let out an "OW" and then ignore him for a moment. This teaches him that the action he just did loses him his play friend. It's only been a day but it seems to work great! Or, if he's chewing something he shouldn't, like one of our shoes, we just give him one of his toys to chew on instead. I'm glad we learned these tips. It's much better and more loving that a smack.
We try and let Rangie burn off as much energy as possible during the day. He has gotten better at sleeping through the night because of it. In fact, I don't think he's woken us up once this week. He used to tear up everything in sight, including my chair legs and area rugs. He seems to be over that for now though. He still gets very carsick but that should improve over time. My mom let us borrow a small-ish carrying case and we had him in that in the car this weekend and he didn't get sick! I hate to keep him in there but if it helps his motion sickness we'll do it!
Ranger can sit on command very well now and next we are perfecting "lay down." That still needs some work but with some coaxing he usually gets his treat :)
This weekend Rang stayed at my moms while Trav and I went to Ocean City for the night. I was hoping my mom's dogs and he would become fast friends, they are related somehow anyway, but that didn't happen. My mom's dogs are old farts and didn't want to play. At first Ranger, who is at least twice their size, was afraid of them. By the end of the weekend he had found his courage.
We love having Rangie around. It gives us something to talk about and have a common goal. He is very playful; he and Travis are best of friends. We like to take Ranger to the park or to the JMU quad. When he sees other people he usually just sits and watches them pass. Isn't he so cute?!

It's so good that Ranger has Travis as a play pal. I'm not much into the running in circles but I'm good for the video. In the one below Ranger was so excited that he didn't stop running before he reached me. I happened to be sitting on a park bench where I was filming and he let out a yelp when he ran straight into the bench. Poor little guy!!

 

Thanks for checking in! More updates on us and our puppy later!

1 comment:

  1. So how did I not know that you had a blog?!! I will put you on my reader and send you mine via email as well. Love the Ranger pics.

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