5 months of puppy love

Caleb has been slowly but surely getting more insistent on getting attention. He now will nose me and but my hand in his mouth to get me to pet him. He really only does this when other puppies are involved. And it is still entirely on his terms. But a very exciting thing has been when he comes in and has to get wiped off. He now “sits pretty” and waits anxiously to get his paws wiped. His tail thumps against the counters the entire time. Considering he would hid outside or if he came in, cower in a corner we consider this HUGE.

He still has issues if we try to bring the dogs inside one by one. He tends to get scared and will hide outside. His confidence is very much tied in to the number of dogs with him. As long as he has his brother and sisters he’s a very brave little guy.

We still can’t approach him. But we are at least getting a little bit closer to him before he flees to his kennel.

Lily is just crazy. She has had a few accidents in the past week but nothing too bad. A few nights ago Lily was being unusually hyper and she barked a lot. We couldn’t figure out what her problem was or why she was so agitated. The hubster finally figured it out late in the night. We had a sleety snow storm and the ice was hitting the windows, he noticed after hearing the ice hit louder that that coincided with a rise in Lily’s agitation level. So storms bother her. Oh goodie. We can’t wait for Thunder Storm season. It should be interesting.

Fabulous puppies

The kids are doing great. We are 1,000 times better on the house training. The only problem we have now is someones penchant for peeing on the rug upstairs. But for the most part they are locked off from the upstairs so it's no big deal. We are just thankful that they have stopped having accidents on the furniture. And are now letting us know when they need to go outside. It's a wonderful thing.

Caleb continues to make slow and steady progress. He comes more and more to me for pets. And he's willing to be closer to me in general. We still can't approach him. Not even remotely. But considering how far he has come we know he'll get there. He's such a joy. He's very intelligent. He knows how to get wiped off after being outside. He lifts each paw up for us to wipe off. Only two of our dogs even understand that concept. Both happen to be our boys. The girls won't sit still long enough for it. But Caleb deals well with it now. No more cowering in the corner over it. Yay for Caleb!

Lily is great. She's very sociable and cuddly. She's hyper. She has a lot of nervous energy. But she's very very happy. And when we look at her she sets that tail of hers a thumping.
She's a ton of fun. Despite the fact that she's a little 10 pound terror.

All is well and progressing nicely. It probably seems like not much is happening but every day gets a little better. A little easier.

The best sign of progress lately has been that we can leave them unattended for more than 30 seconds and they do okay. They happily amuse themselves. This is a huge relief. We no longer have to kennel them just to go into the kitchen to get another cup of coffee, or to use the restroom or to answer the phone. We can trust them now on a level that makes life far easier for us. Yay for my puppies!

Big Brown Eyes

Last night I was laying on the couch and someone pounced on my hip. Expecting to look up and see Sophie I was stunned and happily amazed to see Caleb. He let me scratch his head and then because Lily then pounced on me to get love he fled the scene. I was still in happy awe. A little later, Lily was sound asleep in the crook of my knees, Sophie was snoring on my hip, and because he wanted some love too Caleb puppy commando crawled across the back of the couch to get head scratches.

This was simply thrilling.................