Beat

It's not like I didn't know it was coming. As a matter of fact, I had a whole week's notice. And, actually, I instigated the thing.

Not only was I prepared - I tidied up the house, went to the grocery store, did a full spring cleaning in the bedroom, cleaned up all the loose bits in my office including get through almost three of my four boxes of crap I have to deal with - and then, unlike what happens when I'm leaving town, I even had one day of peace.

But all of my preparation mattered not. Life as I know it was over at around 9:20pm last. That's when this arrived at my door...

Meet Pumpkin.

She is the puppy that Jaimie and I rescued from an Oakland shelter as a service dog to protect Jaimie and help deal with some of her new-found disabilities since her surgery. Unfortunately, Jaimie can't handle the training of a young dog while she is recovering from recent setbacks that have occurred since her August brain surgery.

So, I sent Tyler up to the Bay Area on Sunday and he returned with her last night and am now in charge of training her to do things far beyond the call of duty. On my own. With no help from professionals. Mainly because I can't afford the super-duper training folks. Can't be that hard, right?

Night # 1 I had Pumpkin in my room and Drama was in Tyler's room. I figured that was the only way to get some sleep since they really love to play together. Wrong. I ended up taking Pumpkin out front to pee a few times between 10pm and 2am. Then I got to listen to whimpering for Drama by the door. I put her in her crate for a while until she decided she had to be with Drama, circa 3am. I gave her her bully stick, which distracted her enough that I could get some off and on sleep until she was running circles in my room by 6:40am. Then I took her out again, on the leash out front so as not to get Drama riled up. 'Cept he already had a paw protruding under Tyler's door.

By 7:30am I got up and put them both in the back yard and managed to catch an hour of uninterrupted sleep. Yup, I'm beat.

Here's some of today's playtime...

It starts our nice and calm.

Then Drama shows his ball.

Pumpkin would like to have the ball.

And she'll shark-bite his leg to get it.

Woof.

Pumpkin's vampire move.

Where's my ball?

I'll trade you this nifty leaf for my ball.

Whatever.

That was fun.

After that I did leash training with Pumpkin. She was too tired to pull on the leash and was happy to sit whenever I stopped...even when their was a cat trying to annoy her from across the street. I figure I'll have the basic training done in a couple of weeks. Then it's on to the hard stuff.