pup life

i was gonna do an easter thing today…

…but i figure that’s been done several other places.

plus, it’s not that big a thing in our house. we’re not hunting eggs. we’re not having the family over. and we sure as fuck ain’t going to church. i gotta work, the ufc got a chocolate pre-scored bunny that came with a cup of peanut butter to dip it in, and all is well.

nope, in our world it’s just puppy maintenance.

it’s been half a decade since i had to raise up the budnik, and i’m a little rusty and more than a little less tolerant of bullshit in my older age it seems. but there’s some good and some bad and some mistakes of the past i’ve tried to learn from, so we’ll cover a little of both here…

housebreaking – as stated, gypsy got her name because she had five homes in four weeks due to flaky co-worker’s co-habitators. when you’re not in a house too long it’s hard to learn the bathroom rules. we’re the first place she’ll hit two weeks at our place later this week, the first time she’s accomplished that feat since she was weened, so hopefully it’s just a matter of a couple weeks left. i honestly can’t remember how long budnik took, but i’m hoping we see light at the end of the tunnel soon.

pics – there are ZERO pics of calum or buffi or copper as puppies (in my defense, miss copper came to be as an adult). i took several pics of all of them, but i’m scared to develop them because they’re on throw-away cameras confiscated from shows i worked…so while all but, say, the first six pics are the pups, what the fuck are those first six? kiddy porn? crime scene? no telling – and if i go develop them, i might end up having some ‘splaining to do, since i didn’t get the cameras new ’cause i was a cheap ass.

toys – i’ll be curious to see if she still likes chew toys as she gets older. most of the girls i’ve raised have had minimal interest in chew toys as puppies, and ZERO fucking interest as adults. but budnik has grown up with all the toys in the house being his (since miss copper didn’t care) and so now he has to learn the whole “his” and “hers” thing and it’s…interesting. at least i haven’t gotten bit retrieving hers out of his mouth…yet.

slumber – the guy who had her right before us said one of his big issues with her was that nobody in their house had slept a full night since she arrived. her first night she slept like a stone, the next one not no much. i wondered which would be the rule and the exception…it seems the “sleep through” night is the rule, provided she gets plenty of exercise with the budnik. as long as we make sure we don’t schedule our days where that doesn’t happen she seems to do well. i remember cop used to put him through his paces as a pup, so it’s nice that he learned a bit from her…

my shit – while shane has been posting multiple gripe posts about daddy o (his pit pup) tearing up his shit, so far i’ve done pretty good. i keep shoes and such out of reach, and she has LOTS of chew toys…she’s also rarely left alone indoors when she’s not in her crate, so that probably has a bit to do with it. the only casualty so far has been a dresser knob, which she actually got pulling it THROUGH the wires of her crate in front of my dresser…but i wanted to re-do them anyway, and she’ll soon graduate to copper’s old crate, or so my plan goes…

and finally…

la famila – what’s really nice is all the dogs seem to be getting along. puck’s a little bitter from time to time, but that’s always been there. i was really worried about how budnik would react having to share his dad, but he seems to be doing pretty good on that, too. now it’s just watch ’em grow together time…which is good.