Sunday Update

This past week has been full enough and we have a few updates for Elsie, including surgery and tricks.

Vet Visit (Surgery)

Elsie visited the vet again this week. Instead of shots this time though, she had to have her rear dew claws removed. Dew claws might cause issues in agility and activities like search and rescue and hunting. So, to be safe, we had them removed. The front dew claws normal are not an issue, but Elsie was born with rare-ish rear dew claws.

Happily, the surgery went well. Elsie came out of it and is just as playful as ever!

Tricks and Basic Commands (Little Improvements)

I can happily say now, Elsie has mastered sit and down to almost perfection (not so much on the down, and she already knew sit.) Along with common commands, Elsie is learning to shake hands. She has almost got this all good and will lift her paw (sometimes accompanied with a bite..... OW!) Coming is getting much better. Sometimes a chicken or something else distracts Elsie, but she is doing very well with it.

Crating

YAY!!!! Elsie rarely whines now. She is still crated at night and on Sunday morning (and evenings sometimes). Her whining has gotten very minimal and only comes occasionally in circumstances like time to get up or go out.

Feeding

We have upped her to about 1 1/2 quarter cups of food a day and at 7, 1, and 6 or 7, feeding times. She has such an appetite since not eating for almost 1 1/2 days due to surgery.

~Western Belle

Get the GUN! (Weekend Tricks)

WE are teaching Elsie a new trick and it is pretty cool. Only problem, you have to be the one with the gun to get her to do it... So in a real situation, this would be a failure.......

What we do is hold up a toy gun so that it is in her reach if she jumps and tells her to "GET the GUN!". Once she does, we let her have a treat. She loves to play with toy guns (pistols in particular). It is fun to teach her tricks like these and they are similar to stand (which my little brother likes to teach both Skia and Elsie).

As I have said, I have been working on three other tricks like sitting, rolling over, and lying down. Typically, to get your dog to role over, first you need to get your dog to lie down... and that was little hard. Watching videos on training, I thought lying down was very easy. But it was not so easy with Elsie. With Elsie, dropping your hand and treat to the floor made her stand first and after several practices, she will sometimes lie down... she needs to get a little better at that trick. Her other trick "lie down" related is rolling over. I hold the treat slightly out of reach and move it behind her head. (Don't do it very fast!) When she has flopped on her side, I move the treat over so she has to role over (IT MUST be SLOW, or she may lose it). Some people suggest tickling their tummies to get the dog to want to role over. I even tried this on my eight year old female German Shepherd and she did very well with it. Elsie still learns pretty fast and it is fun to see her learn to do things.

We went on another walk today and Elsie was not near so motivated (neither was I) it seemed to get going, but she and Mom and I, with Skia, made a long stretch of running towards the end. We let Elsie wander up our long driveway.

~Western Belle

Before the Weekend Update!

WOW!! We have almost owned Elsie three weeks. This next week, LORD willing, she should be getting her next set of shots...... I wonder if she will scream as loud as she did the first time. Silly Elsie always over reacts.

This week we have once again seen that Elsie has a huge amount of energy for being a nine week old puppy! She ran about 1 mile today and all together has gone about two miles so far. Both me and her are learning to run along.... she makes me exercise so much more then I had to with my horse (which is good). I enjoy running with her, Skia, mom and my older sister! Such fun! I walk her about a mile to two miles a day and she has been sleeping very well.

As far as sleeping... I cannot complain. She has been sleeping around from 9 till 6:30 AM, with a break at ten thirty PM to go out. So far, she has not had an accident in her crate since over a week. She rarely whines and only gives little ones when it is time to get out.

We are still feeding her on a breakfast at 5-7 AM, a lunch at 1ish PM, and dinner at about 7:30 - 8 PM. She is doing fine on it.... but rarely does she seem hungry enough to actually eat without distraction.

Elsie has been learning to sit (just daily practice she has already learned), to lie down, to role over, and fetch toys by name.

Over all, after two days of no updates, she is still doing well.

~Western Belle