11 Weeks

Zoom, times goes by so fast with a puppy! As usual, I have grand ambitions to take a lot of video, as they are small for such a short period of time. I have not succeeded much though, and even the video I have I never seem to have time to edit it down into anything interesting. The goal is to get to it SOMEDAY. And there could have been a lot more pictures, but I figure as long as I have a few good ones for every week, that will do.

The big news of the week is Asher had his first vet appointment, we went in to get his vaccination. Asher did pretty good at the vet, he was happy to chill on the bench and not worried at all about the vaccination. He couldn’t stand on the metal table though, he didn’t like that! Nothing particular to note, he still has little hernia which may go away as he grows, his bite looks good and his balls are still there. I then got lectured about how he really needed lepto. I guess I don’t see lepto sweeping the nation, but I have had plenty of puppies that reacted badly to the vaccination. Anyway, I politely declined and, shockingly, for once actually received the vaccinations I requested. I’m feeling much relieved to get this one on board, as I do very much worry about parvo risks. I tend to think that probably the vaccination at 8 weeks did nothing, but most likely the maternal immunity has worn off (started to wear off?) around now. I will do another vaccination around 16 weeks, but I consider that one to more of a safety measure, like the 9 week one.

Anyway, so I do a lot of carrying around puppies until they get their 12 week shots, and I honestly think I have some sort of arm strain from carrying that giant ass puppy around everywhere for the last few weeks. I was sure he was over 20 pounds, but he proved me wrong – only 17. He may not the biggest puppy! He’s still pretty damn beefy though. Brother Ravi is 16 pounds, while tiny little Flea is actually catching up at 15 lbs. The jury is still out how big they will all end up with. Bright was actually a huge chunky puppy until like … 5 months? I don’t know how she ended up being such a wispy little thing. I can’t imagine Asher is going to be wispy, just hoping for not super huge.

This week Asher grew LEGS, he’s definitely getting taller and more spry. He’s got quite the vertical leap on him, giant puppies can do things I would not expect – like he actually JUMPED INTO THE CAR today. WTF? He still is all floppy and legs everywhere, but a little more coordinated and starting to get dangerously bouncy when he’s excited. He doesn’t think about the landing part, just the flinging himself through the air part. So far I would not call him one of ‘Nature’s Jumpers’, so we’ll see how that pans out. His head is getting bigger and he remains much ‘thicker’ than brother Ravi.

It’s fun getting to see Ravi and Flea, they seem to have a ‘softer’ feel to them than Asher, who seems more edgy. They are getting along well with the other dogs in their households, while Asher remains a pain in the ass. Asher continues to lack bite inhibition, when he does use his mouth he seems to be way too rough and the dogs are like, “OW, STOP THAT!” There continues to be puppy screams when Bright finally tells him enough is enough. And it’s not that he’s biting HER, as he has a healthy respect for her, but Haku can’t defend himself so Bright will actually take down Asher for biting Haku. So when Bright hears Haku growling she’s right there to defend him, which is sweet. Poor little Haku will actually snark at Asher, and he rarely does that.

At 12 weeks, the dogs still don’t like him, but I think they’re more tolerant and Asher is doing better in many ways. I have faith that Bright knows what she’s doing and that this is a stage Asher needs to go through. He doesn’t actually seem to be a dick in anything other than obnoxious puppy biting, he’s not escalating or reacting – so fingers crossed he grows out of it. Though we’re starting to get a new issue that Asher has no concept of not running into other people and dogs. Sigh. Every dog has their issue, I think we can say I know at least one of his at this point. And, no, he still has no friends.

It’s been interesting going through this very different experience raising a puppy because I have always had my dogs as ‘group’. From the time that we got Fenwick after only having Poco, and the amazing change he made in her, no matter how many dogs I’ve had, they’ve always been a group. Doesn’t mean they were best friends, doesn’t mean they didn’t have their issues, but the relationships they had with each other have always been, on the whole, extremely beneficial. I most definitely wouldn’t have a dogs that I had to keep separate all the time, it’s not fair to them. Naturally, they all need breaks from one another, and one-on-one time, but dogs really seem to excel at, well, being dogs together. That is something I can’t provide. I really do assume that Asher will grow out of this bitey phase, and that we’ll get through any body slamming, and we’ll become a happy family. The good news, Navarre is definitely less put out at this point, so that makes me feel better.

So, 11 weeks went by quickly. Asher got to hike with brother Ravi and they did great, Ravi is more into the water than Asher at this point. Asher got to not have a playdate with a border terrier because he’s was, once again, a big dick. Navarre loved the border terrier though, so it was good to see Navarre continues to love puppies … just not Asher. We also went to his first agility trial, as there was an outdoor trial just up the road from me (glad I didn’t enter, too hot!). He did great, enjoyed meeting everyone and got to meet several new puppies where he wasn’t a total ass. He really seemed to like a spunky little pryshep, so maybe a future friend? He played with some border collies and an aussie pup (who plays with everyone, so it didn’t really count). I don’t think he really noticed the agility going on, but no issues with the bustle.

He continues to do well at chillin in the car while I teach. He still gets to come in and visit some, but he doesn’t seem to NEED to go potty that often, I’m usually just waking him up to take a walk. He’s run around a little with the dogs at the arena, which is new. Naturally, they’re okay if he has something in his mouth, but he’s too rough and pulls out mouthfuls of hair if he tries chasing them.

We did a little less training in terms of introducing new things, we worked on solidifying some of the behaviors he already had and introduced stays. His big accomplishment of the week was downs out of motion. Kudos to Asher, he has a lovely foldback down. He likes his stationing platform, he’s good at getting in boxes, loves his leg weaves and hand touches. A little too bouncy on his pedestal pivot, but it’s not a behavior I really care about, so haven’t fixed it. Started recall to heel, his frog continues cute, he loves to roll over, he’s much better at balancing and using his body to get on smaller platforms (but still lacks a lot of patience for that sort of thing). Waves are cute, nails continue to go well and he seems to like being brushed. Recalls were good, quiet in his crate at night (too busy otherwise), good with the cats. A good puppy.

In other news, Haku also went to the vet and, not shockingly at all, they found nothing wrong with him at all. Bloodwork looked perfect, nothing of even remote concern. He did lose 10lbs since the last time he was in last year though, which seems nuts. Even if their weight was off, he is definitely down and the vet did notice the muscle wasting, but has no explanation. So, hey, between that and him feeling and acting normal this week, I’m just going to assume he’s perfectly fine and keep working to keep him active and strong.

He did great in our herding lesson this week, suddenly he had no issue with driving and didn’t seem confused at all. So, hey. He’s still retired from long distance herding, and I have no particular plans to teach him anything new at this point. For trialing he will hopefully continue to do arena trials, which are a nice easy option for him. Carol is still planning on taking him in August or else I’d see about taking him myself. Now I get the best of both worlds.

Meanwhile, as I already entered and took the day off, Ian is going to run Navarre in his debut trial in Haku’s place – in Pro-Novice. Which seems ambitious to me, but, hey, dream big, apparently. They actually had a pretty good practice, Navarre was taking his whistles well and lying down with only minor argument … relatively speaking. And Navarre got to play with trial sheep, which were huge and FAST. So it was really interesting to see Navarre adjust to a VERY different type of sheep than he’s seen before. He figured out pretty quickly to add WAY more distance than he normally does, but he did not figure out that he needed to both listen IMMEDIATELY and make much smaller adjustments to work with those kind of sheep. The trial will be interesting, and I have no expectations. We are going to try to get him down there during the week so he can practice lifting off of other people though, which he hasn’t done successfully.