Been awhile

What with work and Brian and the daily duties of puppy ownership, this blog has been sorely neglected. Remus is coming along slowly in some aspects, and rather quickly in others. I don't like babying dogs like they're, well, babies, but at the same I spoil my puppy rotten. I'll make two lists to illustrate what I mean.

Remus gets spoiled by:
1. I greet him every morning and fuss over him every time I get home from work.
2. Every once in awhile I feed him tiny bits of cheese as a treat instead of just doggie biscuits.
3. I feed him doggie biscuits way more than is probably good for him.
4. I wheedle with Brian to allow Remus out into the living room with us as often as is feasible.
5. I give belly rubs to Remus whenever he demands them. I'm a push-over.
6. After I scold him for doing something bad, I leave the room like I'm supposed to to make the lesson stick, but I usually can't manage to stay away for longer than 5 minutes.
7. I play with him as much as I can during my days off instead of doing anything else constructive. He's too cute to resist!

Remus does NOT get away with:
1. Chewing on the blinds, molding, or cabinets. It's a smack on the nose mid chew and some outside alone time if he does. He mostly doesn't anymore.
2. Remus is not allowed to nip, even friendly playful nips. It's a firm NO and a smack and me leaving the room if he does. He only forgets and nips when he gets excited.
3. Remus walks next to or behind Brian and I, not in front, there will be no leash wars.
4. Whining. He whines, especially if Brian and I are watching TV/movie, we check to see that he has food and water, and if he does, it's outside he goes for a good thirty minutes. We'll let him in and if he starts whining again it's right back outside. I think he's slowly getting the jist that being quiet lets him stay in the house.
5. Being dirty. He gets bathed, rinsed, or wiped down regularily. Plus the FURminator at least once a month, and I wipe the inside of his ears clean of wax.

Right now he's asleep (I was playing with him outside and wore him out). He's much bigger, a solid 52lbs when I had him weighed on Tuesday, so he's probably closer to 55lbs now. He gained 8lbs in 9 days. Finally he's put on enough weight so his ribs don't show beneath his coat- he was pretty darn skinny when we got him. I can still feel his ribs and he's definitely not fat by any stretch, but he looks a lot healthier. I think it's safe to say he'll be at least 70lbs by Thanksgiving. He's going through some sort of growth spurt while he's teething, he's eating between 6-7.5 cups of food a day. I'm going to have to take him to PetsMart again pretty soon to keep up with the socialization aspect. I'd love to take a puppy class, but Brian and I's schedule is just too irregular to make it to even half of the scheduled classes. He's bark is now a lot deeper, he sounds three feet taller than he is when he woofs. And he's woofing at things now when we leave him outside with the electric fence. He is also finally exploring the yard on his own. Puppy steps...

Training is ok. He does well when he pays attention to me, though I guess he is still young. He sits fairly regularily and down and stay. I think he knows what I'm saying, but some times he's just being stubborn. Still working on spin, dance, right paw, focus and freeze. Spin is the best out of all of them, focus and freeze he reacts to pretty much the same way, R paw is challenging, and he hasn't figured out how to jump up on me when I say dance. I don't practice that command much either, because I don't want him thinking he can do it any old time.

If we get into an environment where he's distracted or scared, I might as well be speaking cat, he definitely won't listen to me. Ah well, I keep trying...

Walks are tough, his stride is long, it's turning into more of a jog for me. He handles on the leash better for me than Brian, but he's getting better at that too. I think thats all for now :)

Coincidence?

Ok, so the more I look at these growth charts, Remus isn't just runty, he's TINY. He's exactly a month behind where he should be. If he were a month younger he'd be right in the middle, average. Not big or small, but exactly where he needs to be. Now, if I look back at his heights and weights back to when we first got him and the next couple of vet trips and subtract a month he is always right on track, and I mean dead on how heavy and tall he should be IF he were a month younger. If he were a month YOUNGER it would explain why it took longer to potty train him (took longer for him to get old enough to hold it) why he's teething so LATE (almost four months and he just lost a tooth? usually teething starts around 2-3 months...) and why it took him so long to eat solid food. I thought he just didn't like it at first, he took the smallest bites and took forever to chew.

I think the breeder may have screwed us over. I know some puppies can be taken from their dams at 6 weeks, but if I count backwards, we would've had Remus at FIVE weeks. Some breeders won't let wolfhound puppies leave until they're at least ELEVEN weeks old. it would explain a heck of a lot. I'm trying to keep an open mind, maybe Remus is just small, he'll be the smallest wolfhound in history, practically a toy breed in comparison. I'm trying not to get angry, more research is necessary. Maybe he's just a late bloomer...somehow I think my hunch is right. That would make Remus 11.5 weeks old today.

Runt or Giant?

Remus is 37.5lbs and 21-22 inches at the shoulders. He's exactly 16 weeks old today. According to some growth charts I've found online, this puts Remus at the short end of the stick as far as size goes. According to other articles, wolfhound puppies tend to be bizarre in growth, some of the smallest puppies waiting to have their last growth spurt much later in their first 18 months and usually ending up huge, and others reaching full height potential in as little as 9 months. Usually puppies of any one breed follow the same pattern of growth, but trust me to find the one breed that's wildly unpredictable. So either I have a runty adorable wolfhound puppy who might only make it to 30 inches at the shoulder and 120lbs, or I have a late blooming adorable monster that might top the charts.

Either way, he's still cute.

Newsflash, we have mastered the stairs! Now, I just need to get him to come when I call but when he CAN'T see me. He'll come the second I'm in view, but until then he is a whiney confused upset puppy.

Oh, and I think I'd like to breed him, but I don't think I'm going to show him, which means I'm going to trim him how I see fit. His face whiskers will be duly tamed and managed, even if that type of grooming "insults the dignity of the wolfhound" according to one article. At least his underfuzz has grown out from his buzzing (I'm sure that was quite the dignity insult) and his adult coat shouldn't grow out until he's at least 6 months. Less shedding, and much less dirt drug in the house. He got rinsed off in the tub again today, dirty Remus.

Matthew came over last night for spaghetti and xbox night. Remus still doesn't like Matthew. He warmed up to him a little by the end of the night, but at first he seemed terrified and pressed his scared body against my legs whether I was walking or still. His bark is getting deeper, I noticed as he grumbled and barked at Matthew. by the end of the night they played tug of war, but I'm thinking Remus still isn't quite sold. We're working on it, if ever a cowardly lion needed courage it would be Remus...

The Laws of Physics..

Physics and wolfhound puppies apparently do no agree. What goes up, must come down, for everyone except Remus apparently.

I put him outside with his wireless collar on after I got home from work so I could sleep before my next shift. He had the usual spoiled puppy assortment of toys, and his bed, water, and food out on the deck. I played with him a little before leaving him to entertain himself while I took my nap. Yeah, so, when I got up seven hours later and walk out on the deck, no Remus is to be found. I call his name, not panicking yet, he sometimes roams under the deck. No Remus. I call again. Panic! Maybe he's in the front. So I walk back inside, open up the front door and lo and behold, there is my stupid puppy doing the "I gotta pee really bad" dance on the front porch. Sigh. Judging on how long it took for him to completely empty his bladder, Remus had been stuck on the porch for at least four hours.

I let him walk through the house to the back so he could run down the ramp and pee, but we really needed to tackle the stairs issue. As I've written previously, wolfhounds and stairs on a regular basis aren't a good idea, especially while they're growing. On the other hand, waiting to teach a wolfhound how to master stairs until he's full grown is also a problem. Remus has managed to figure out how to get up the four brick stairs to the porch, but no amount of coersion can convince him that it's safe to come down.

I told Brian when he got home, and he dutifully got the leash and tried multiple methods of getting the puppy down the stairs to no avail. If anything, Remus is now even MORE terrified of them. We tried gentle tugging, physically lifting him and setting him down on each step, luring with treats, nothing worked. Remus has a mental block, and it's only with the first two stairs. Once we get him on the third step he trots down without a trace of angst. We figure if we keep working at this Remus will either master the stairs, or develop a fear of the entire porch. Oy.

Dancing and fencing....

I think Remus has pretty much gotten over the dog attack incident, he's a little skittish on nighttime walks but he's a lot less so and still improving. Like most kids, he's mildly afraid of what lurks in the dark. We've also continued our, if slightly haphazard at least frequent, training. Remus has finally mastered down, sit, and sometimes stand. We're doing puppy pushups running through the three commands in random order to see how well he remembers and reacts. He seems to like the game, though too many treats give him diarrhea.  I'm also attempting to teach him "spin". He's still dependent on the lure for that one, but I'll keep working him. I'm also teaching him "up" to where he stands on his hind legs and puts his paws in my hands. The command is actually "dance" since he will soon be tall enough to be my dance partner if I need one :P I just gotta be careful lowering him down since I don't want to damage the growth plates in his forelegs.

Speaking of growth plates, half the material I read on wolfhounds seem to be pretty adamant about discouraging a puppy from rearing up on his hind legs and then dropping...but Remus thinks this is the most fun since he discovered chasing his tail. It's one of the reasons I haven't started really working on the "dance" command, since I don't want to hurt his legs, but the durn fool goes bouncing along like it's an aerobics excercise. None of the stuff I've read says HOW to discourage him either, it just says I SHOULD. Big help.
They also say not to do forced walks until he's sixth months, but at the same time I should lead train him really early. Well, lead training involves very short forced walks. I try to let Remus have a break, not walk him every day, and the walks are rarely even ten minutes long with copious amounts of relaxed sniffing. And he seems a heck of a lot happier when I take him on them, he's like a cranky baby without his pacifier if I don't.

In other news, he's still cute. He's eating close to five cups of food a day, sometimes more-sometimes less. Brian had to buy another fifty dollars worth of dog food. We're trying not to think about how fast he's going to be breezing through these giant bags of food, as he gets bigger, and as the weather gets cooler.

Right now he's outside on the deck, and I should be sleeping getting ready for night shift. We bought the wireless fencing system and he's wearing his little red collar. Not like he wanders anyway, he's sensitive and smart and likes to stick close to home for the moment. It only took a few tingles for him to avoid the white flags. He'll most likely stay on the deck for most of the day. I put plenty of toys out there since he's teething (he's got a little gap in the front teeth of his bottom jaw, it's funny) so he should be happy. I just hope it's not too cold for him since it's in the high 50's outside. Brrr! Too cold for me!