18 week (4.5 month) old Ned

Ok so I haven’t updated this for a while, told you I was lazy.
Louis is now 18 weeks old, and well, humungous. Definitely a little adult now. I was watching him this morning and think of how proud I am of him, considering how little effort I have put in recently. Although that is probably a false thing to say – I train everytime I go walking, the dogs have to ‘wait’ ‘come’ ‘stop’ ‘go’ etc.
He is very much a pack member, but also he is turning and looking for me, and immediately responsive to his name, which is fantastic. He is borderline with his people-craze, he can walk down the street now without having to go and meet everyone, although he still gives them a bug wag greeting, even though most people don’t see this. For people in his trajectory he beelines for them as if they were old friends.
Unfortunately a few weeks back one puppy-ignorant member of the public patted their knees to encourage him to jump up, before the whimper had even left my lips Louis had two front feet off the ground dancing on this guy. Great for him, I was left with a youngster who thinks being on two legs is much more fun, and why not try that with other folk too. The behaviour, caught every time (lots more work for me) is dying a death, but this morning it reared it’s ugly head on an unsuspecting teacher, arms laiden with boxes and books, but fortunately it was a revamped version, and one more preferred; a jump in the air without touching the human – until I called him back and he got the much needed attention (!) from me instead.

Puppies are hard work, but they are alot of fun too. Take for example the mad few minutes, likened to a sugar rush, where he will run at top speed over, under and into things, for some unknown reason, a side effect of which seems to be a complete forgetting of pain as he crashes into bodies and walls without flinching. Sometimes there is a toy in his mouth too, which gets thrashed about and thrown into the air as if he were a seal with a fish – only to get slapped sober again when he runs into a sleeping adult who is not as amused as me by his freestyle antics.

I am also majorly happy to report that so far nothing other than raw hide and toys have been terminated by the needle sharp puppy teeth. Oh no, I tell a lie, two house plants have lost a few leaves, or rather have had them shredded; they were still attached, just in slightly thinner strips than how they originally grew. The plants didn’t seem to mind, but I do, they won’t grow if they keep getting thinned. Maybe I should get a carnivorous plant to even the score. Puppies don’t need four legs do they?

A little on toilet training now. Sadly I have been a terrible puppy owner, the laziest kind. (It’s winter!) Even more sad is that this little pup has more brains than me. I had been thinking about using a bell and training him to tinkle it when he wants to go tinkle – cough, but before I got round to it he started to bark at the door to ask to go out. So I am not going to take credit for his house training that would be selfish as he has definitely trained me.

On training, his attention span has increased to a phenomenal level, and he will happily keep going and going. Fortunately I like my training sessions short and sweet as more learning takes place that way. Louis and I have been going to a dog trainer friend’s class, disguised as a normal dog owner (for fun), and the first night someone guessed that I worked with dogs! I was quite chuffed with myself and Louis (can’t take all the credit), sometimes you forget what you have when you are striving for better. I do have a good little boy, he might look like a Ned, but I am going to reform that overused abbreviation to; Nicely Educated Delinquent !

I have been learning lots about puppies this time round because of Louis. Obviously there are puppies in my class who are around his age, and whose owners think that it’s a good match. So they should, except that Louis doesn’t play like a ‘normal’ pup. Since about 10 weeks old he plays with the confidence and etiquette of an adult. Puppy play is very different, and as a result he overwhelms puppies even a few months older than him. I am not sure if I am sad or glad about this. I have seen it in my neighbour and best friends recent pup too. He grew up before his time too. From one side it means that our lives are easier, the puppy stage is over, but then from the other, the puppy stage is over.

I think I am going to state though that the puppy stage is over-rated. It can be summarised in two words, ok four; Pee and Poo Everywhere!