Training is working....mostly

Charlie is making good progress with his training. He has learned to sit, stay, lay down, and come. He also knows to ring the bell when he needs to go out. Also, today Kendra tried to teach "shake" and "roll over". I think rolling over is fairly impressive, but no so much with the paw shake. I guess I'm just not that impressed that he can raise up his paw. I'm leaving that one to Kendra to teach. My goal is to get him to bring me back a Frisbee, which seems to be going pretty well so far. Check out the videos from today.






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Charlie Shake
Charlie get the bell

First bath

Well after a weekend of swimming in chlorine and then running into a dirt pile, we decided that Charlie needed a bath. Here are some pictures.

He wasn't crazy about it, but he did ok.

Here's Charlie digging away in the bathtub.

Up North Pictures

We spent the weekend up in Caseville teaching Charlie how to swim. He had a little trouble with the water, but he did pretty good.

Charlie did alright on the raft with me. He just laid down and slept while we floated

Pete carried him around in the water to get him used to it

While attempting to not step into the water, he used Jada as a stair and this cute picture resulted.

They enjoyed wrestling. Jada was great and would roll around on the ground with him since she was much bigger. They are becoming fast friends!
Pete tried to vacuum Charlie so he went and hid behind my mom's feet.

Charlie was tired out most of the weekend.

See how much skinnier he is once he was in the water? And that's him only about half wet!
He wasn't too sure about this whole pool thing.

Charlie at his first concert, the Willie Nash Band!

I LOVE this one of his face. So cute!

Up North

This is Charlie's second weekend in a row up in Caseville. He likes having the big yard to run around it, and so do I. It's nice being able to bring him outside without a leash since it's all fenced in. We just have to watch him with the pool because I don't want him to either get caught in the pool cover, or just not know how to get out.

I'm going to take him swimming later today. We'll see how that goes. He'll either take right too it, or be scared like Jada and immediately get out.

We took him to the Ribstock concert yesterday at the park. At first he was really scared of the drums and all the people but he got better. Eventually he was sleeping under our chairs and enjoying the mass amounts of people that came over to say hello to the super cute puppy. In fact Pete decided he was the cutest one there compared to all those "little ugly dogs."

I'll post pictures when I get home on Sunday.

Charlie learns Tricks

So we started working with Charlie on the Sit command the other day. He did pretty good with it, though as soon as I go to give him his treat he moves out of it... so today I decided to start working with the stay command. We did this a few times and then I decided to videotape it because he's super good at it! I was impressed how quickly he learned it!

Charlie's a Model

So yesterday I took Charlie to get some professional pictures taken. Now before you start judging me.... they were free. There is a couple of photographers nearby that are trying to build up their portfolio, so they are offering a free photo session.

Charlie was pretty good and VERY curious. He loved going around the big studio and seeing what the photographer was doing.

Pictures from that to come soon!

New Pics Post

OK, some quick pictures before I run off to work in this great heat. He fell asleep this way...

Here he definitely had something in his mouth that he was chomping down on.
Charlie loves to climb up in laps to chew his toys. His favorite place is on Pete or my lap. Though it usually leads to chewing of the hand and shirt.

Tired pup

Well Charlie has been one tired pup since we got home from the park. He napped for an hour, got up, napped again, ate dinner and played for awhile and is now back asleep. The key to a well behaved puppy is getting them lots of exercise so they sleep well.

Cute pictures coming later


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At the park

Charlie needed some time to play outside so I brought him over to the local park to play. He's very good at getting himself tangled in the picnic table. A 20 ft leash and he ends up wrapping himself up and only having about 3 ft of room.


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Charlie bit me!

Well, Charlie is a biter, that's for sure. His favorite thing to bite? My wrists! Pretty much every time I go to pet him now he goes for a nibble. I'm definitely hoping he grows out of this phase soon. Of course it reminded me of the famous video, posted here for your enjoyment again.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OBlgSz8sSM&feature=channel

On my way home

Sitting on a plane in Raleigh ready to get back home to our puppy. Sounds like Charlie had a good weekend in Caseville with my mom and Jada.



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Off with grandma

Charlie is spending the weekend in Caseville
with grandma while Pete and I are in Raleigh at his Aunts wedding.
Hopefully it goes well!

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And he slept through the night

Good news, Charlie made it through his first full night.... either that or we were both so exhausted we never heard him, but I'm pretty sure it's the first one. He went to bed around midnight when Pete did, so that was his last time out. Then he didn't start barking until around 6 after I was up. I think he heard the shower and decided it was time to be up and barking! But he went to the bathroom right after we took him out, so that was good. 

It's storming here this morning and looks like it will all day. So far he's been ok with the thunder, so hopefully he continues that way since we'll be at work for a bit. 

Pictures on Demand

So Charlie did better last night. I think it was in large part due to the amount of visitors we had last night and them tuckering him out. Thank you to those of you that came over! Brent, Penny and Jack came first. Jack wasn't too sure about him though, since Charlie was his size and kept jumping at his face. I don't blame him. I also don't like Charlie jumping at my face. 

Then Pete's parents, Barb and Jim came over to visit. Charlie was pretty tuckered out by that point, but he still woke up for a little subdued play time. 

Last night Pete spent some time in the office while Charlie was in his crate. The crate is in the office, so this helped Charlie calm down and not feel so lonely in his crate. 

Pete took him out before bedtime, and then he woke up around 1 and I took him out. He didn't wake up again until 5:30 which was only a little bit before I was due to wake up for school. He went as soon as we took him out and then right back to bed. He did pretty good. 

Here are some much requested photos from the last few days. 

I have a picture, I'll have to scan it, of me holding our old dog Cinnamon when she was a puppy, just like this, except I had an awesome fanny pack on. 

Charlie likes to sleep under the coffee table. 

Jack was protecting his face, he wasn't going to be fooled by this fluff ball again. 

Barb holding a somewhat tired (and looking stunned) Charlie.

Charlie loves this raccoon of his. He enjoys pulling on its limbs and hearing it squeak.

Charlie tuckered out in the kitchen. Lots of visitors!

Traveling puppy

We went for a car ride today up to Rochester to meet our new cousin Jada and grandma.
He had fun playing and thought jada's tail was a good pull toy.





Jada spent a lot of time hiding under the table.



Saying goodbye




Asleep on the way home. He also stole that new toy from Jada.

Cutest when he's sleeping

Ok, maybe he's cute all the time, but it's always nice when he's sleeping. Right now we are still working hard on the potty training. Well, outside training... though it would be great if we could teach him to use the potty!

He'll be hanging out with us relaxing, suddenly get up and go pee on the carpet. No sniffing around, no going to the door, just peeing. Luckily there have been no #2's inside.

We'll take him outside sometimes and he'll just want to play. Then we bring him back inside and he goes right back to the door, hoping to go outside again. I need to find a good place around here to take him to play outside that doesn't have a lot of other animals there to visit. We have to be careful with him since he hasn't had all of his shots yet. We don't want him to catch anything.

I promise more pictures later, but I haven't had the time to update the pics on the computer yet.

Oh, and Charlie did great earlier in his crate when I was at my meeting and Pete was at work. No accidents! Though we can't comment on the crying.

Nightime

Well Charlie doesn't love being in his crate at night but he settles down eventually...
Last night we had to get up to let him out around 12:30, 2:30, 5:30 and then 6:30 is when we got up with him.

He was ready to play this morning. He was a little spoiled at the breeders getting to play outside all the time. He keeps wanting us to let him out to play.

Bring on day 2.

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"Tail" was a fitting name

Well, we made it through our first night with Charlie. Maybe we should have named him Squeaker. He woke up about every two hours and cried. I can't really blame him though. He's never been without his litter mates before. Kendra did a good job of preparing me. I can't say it wasn't expected. However, I can't imagine doing this on my own. Anyway, its just me and Charlie this morning as Kendra has left for her summer job meeting. Currently he is nibbling on the bottom of my chair. He loves to chew on everything. He also follows us everywhere. I guess that's why they called him "Tail" at first. I think today's focus will be on not eating power cords. That's probably a good lesson to learn.

Play/sleep/pee

Charlie is in a cycle today of playing, sleeping and peeing... He rotates about every 15 minutes so I never get too bored.

Right now he's sleeping under our table.


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Round 2

Round two of sleeping. Let's hope he sleeps while I'm at my interview rather than cry in his crate the whole time.
Fun fact about Charlie (and most dogs) - he likes to dig out the water in his bowl.. Either that or he's trying to dive in

Charlie's finally home!

We picked up Charlie this morning from the breeder. We got "Tail". Each of the puppies was marked in a different spot with nail polish. Our Charlie was marked on the tail. Pete and I had both held him the last time we were there and Ann decided he was a good fit for us. I was excited, because I was hoping it was tail. 

We brought him home and he explored the apartment, then we fed him some lunch and took him outside. After a bit of playing with his new toys, he pooped out behind me on the floor and is fast asleep. So I have some time to upload a few pictures and a video. 

Pete and I with Charlie at the breeder's house. 

Here's Charlie and I chilling in the back seat on the ride home and then him playing with his new bone at our house. 

Too pooped to party. Here he is in his new crate. 

Meet Charlie

On our way home





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T minus 25 minutes

Pete and I are headed out to pick up Charlie in about 25 minutes here. We are so excited to get to finally know which pup is ours! I know it probably sounds strange to everyone that we don't know yet, but they are all such great puppies that it really doesn't matter which one we get!

I promise more pictures to come soon!

Charlie's Home

I now have the camera so I could post pictures of Charlie's new home. It's all set up and waiting for a puppy! And as Pete pointed out, the water bottle looks like a gerbil cage water bottle, but it is meant for a dog. That way in case he gets thirsty, he will have water. It's important, especially as a growing puppy!

Here's Charlie's new name tag... no going back now. It has the Detroit Tigers logo on the other side. I blurred out the phone number in case random people are reading this..

Day -1 with Charlie

Tomorrow Pete and I will become puppy parents. We're really excited to finally be bringing Charlie home. It took us awhile to come up with a name, but we both finally decided that Charlie was it. 

Our plan to pick the actually puppy is to just say "Charlie" and see which one comes running. However last time we were there, all of them came running, so maybe that won't work too well. 

Our breeder likes to help assign the pups to the owners. She's been at this a long time and I trust her with that. She knows the pups right now a lot better than we do!

Tomorrow we go out there at 11 a.m. and bring him home. We've got his home all set up for him. I was going to post some pictures but I just realized Pete has the camera in his car at work, so pictures of his new home will come later!

Anyway, I hope to keep this blog current with new pictures of Charlie as he grows, so be sure to check back!

I'll let you now with a few pictures we took along the way as we visited the puppies at the breeders.