Week two with my little gremlin

Our little cocker spaniel, Molly, is growing by leaps and bounds.  Thankfully we have gotten into a rhythm and schedule.  I know that she is going to want to play and get into everything right when she gets up in the morning.

The best part about our little Molly is that she has decided to explore more. I say that with extreme sarcasm. When we first got Molly,  I was so impressed that when we took her outside she didn't wander, she just did her business and she climbed up the back stairs when she was done.  Great!  Best puppy EVER! Until Mondat: First, let me set this up for you.  Right now, in the Midwest we are in the middle of an arctic plunge, the coldest temperatures in 20 years.  Monday night the temperature got to -20 F with wind chills -50 F, schools were called off across the state.  The news stations are warning us to bundle up and to take care of your pets.  +Joe Egloff  and I were discussing allowing the dogs to go potty on puppy pads so they didn't have to go outside.  Well, we discovered the frigid temperatures did not bother our dogs.  Especially little Molly.  She thought Monday was a perfect opportunity to explore the yard.  Particularly a leaf that was blowing across the yard.  One moment we were in the approved area getting doing our potty business and all of the sudden "LEAF!!" and Molly chased after it. Mind you I am fighting a wicked sinus infection (read all about that drama here An Ode to Joe) and this is when my puppy wants to run across the yard and explore.

I've said this before, but living life with a puppy is just like living life with a new baby.  With the exception I can lock this baby in a cage without DHS knocking on my door.  I have found I have to do all of my chores, internet posting, knitting etc when my puppy is asleep.  I do give her a bit of crate time each day so she gets used to it and let me tell you when that puppy sleeps or is in her kennel I breathe a sigh of relief.  A sleeping puppy is not pooping on the floor, or finding screws, or tiny pieces of coax (yes that is cable line, Joe mounted the TV in our bedroom and had to run different coax, some how Molly has found all the tiny pieces) to chew on.  The best is when she finds yarn and I am trying to pull out this big wad of yarn out while trying not to be torn to ribbons reaching into her mouth because a puppy's teeth are like needles.  Sharp, pointy needles.

This is the way we take a nap

When we started talking about getting another dog Anna was very insistent that she wanted Molly to be her dog.  Everyone else in the family has an animal that has attached to them.  Emma is Joe's, (fat) Lily is Allie's and Knoxville is mine.  Oliver mostly loves Joe but doesn't sleep with anyone, he is way too cool for that. So Anna felt left out on the four legged animal love fest.  Well, in order to have an animal bond with you, you have to be their primary care giver.  The one who takes them outside, trains them, sleeps with them, comforts them, disciplines them.  Well.....Molly has attached to me. The novelty of the new puppy worn off in the first 72 hours of Molly living with us, so who was their to pick up the slack?  Your's truly....and +Joe Egloff. Thankfully Anna is ok with it because after she realized how exhausting the task of taking on such a responsibility, she was happy to let me have the crown (and we all know how much I like crowns, let us pause while I do my hair flip and beauty queen wave.....)

On that note, I can not tell you how CUTE it is to have this little puppy sit at my feet and whimper for me to pick her up so she can sit with me in my chair.  Or how adorable it is when one of the cats bats at her, she rushes to me for comfort.


In Molly's week with us, she has gotten pretty brave in terms of the cats.  Knoxville tolerates her and will even partake in a game of girls chase boys (meaning Molly chases Knoxville) at least until Knoxville gets tired of it and jumps out of her reach.  Oliver kind of digs the play time.  However (fat) Lily haaaaaates Molly.  With a passion reserved for the Hatfields and McCoys.  I mean we are talking some serious hate.  (fat) Lily felt the same way when we brought Knoxville home two years ago and has barely begun to tolerate his existence so...it could be a long row to hoe with (fat) Lily and Molly.

Yesterday, we leash trained, she is pretty stubborn and refused to go potty while on the leash but wouldn't go in the house.  Guess who won THAT battle of wills.  That's right, your's truly.    I worked with her on the "come" command as she picked it up very quickly.  I'm impressed with how intelligent and willing to learn this dog is.  I've read different articles about cocker spaniels and their willingness to be an eager learner.  How right they were,  we have had a few bumps in the road but I have learned a lot along the way.  She is learning so quickly I am starting to feel like the Dog Whisperer....I know, I need to calm that image down.

So an easier week. I am greatly looking forward to 20 F ABOVE zero later this week, heat wave!!

What are some lessons you have learned while rearing a puppy?

My first day home alone with the gremlin

Today is my first day home alone with our little gremlin.  Going back to work after being off for five days would normally be an exciting endeavor.  I like my time off work, but gosh it seems like when the whole family is home nothing gets done.  I feel like going back to work is my time to clean the house and take care of my housewife duties while hanging out with my babies.  Well.....here is how my first day back to work with the gremlin, our cocker spaniel, Molly went...

• Alarm goes off at 6:45 a.m. look over realize that; 1) Molly is awake and 2) Allie is in bed with me..when did that happen??
• Hurry up run to the bathroom to pee because there is NO way I can stand in the cold waiting for the puppy to pee while I have to pee.
• Grab Molly take her outside.  Did a pee and a poop (score!) back inside.
• Wake Allie up
• Find Molly chewing on a sock, take sock away.  Give Molly puppy food.
• Wake Allie up again
• Find Molly eating the cat food
• Tell Anna to hurry up in the shower (on a positive note she did get up on her own this morning)
• Take puppy outside again.  Did a tiny pee (yay)
• Realize Joe didn't make coffee this morning, not time to make a fresh pot so I pulled the grounds out from yesterday and ran yesterday morning's coffee through the pot again.
• Allie comes out to the kitchen looking for her "Cat-attitude" shirt she got for Christmas that she HAD to wear today (I think Joe even did a special load of laundry to get said shirt clean) I send her to look in her room and upstairs toy room where we fold laundry.
• Coffee is finally done, pour in my special blend of creamer and Miralax (yes I have a poop problem) where's Molly? Trying to play with (fat) Lily.  Lily hisses at Molly, Molly yelps like she is being slaughtered.
• 7:04 a.m. Allie is losing her mind looking for her "Cat-attitude" top she HAS to wear to school today.  I head to the laundry room, tell Anna, who is finally out of the shower, I was coming in.  "MOM!  I am buck naked" My response "Well, cover it up"  Head in the laundry room and look in the drier.  Find the shirt.  WHEW crisis avoided!
• 7:08 a.m. First daycare kids arrive.  Grab Molly, who is still whining from her near death experience with the cat.  Have a tiny break when +Leia Shirk holds the puppy.  Introduce Molly to Wes and Olivia, Leia's kids and two of my favorite daycare kids (they are all my favorite)
• Pull out pentagon play pen (lovingly called the pigpen) for the toddlers and get toys into pigpen.
• 7:18 a.m Need more coffee, top off my cup with what's left in the pot.  Where's the puppy.  Chewing on Allie's hair...again.  Pull Molly out of hair and re-direct with chew toy.
• Have Anna take Molly outside (she peeded and pooped!  My God how much poop is inside this dog)
•  Kids take turns entertaining Molly.  Anna finally decides to dry her hair.  Thankfully both girls are dressed.  I take two minutes to change out of my pajamas and into my uniform of yoga pants and a sweatshirt.  As I am putting my shirt on Molly comes tearing down the hallway, into my room, followed by all the kids.  Ok, first day back to work and all the kids have seen me in my bra...again.
• 7:32 a.m Kids start putting their 29 layers on to head to school.  
• Take Molly outside again, did a tiny pee (this is getting old)
• 7:40 a.m kids head to school.  Molly is whining, take her outside again, into the cat food again. Finally get smart and pick up the cat food.  Get Molly into the kennel.
• Help Anna get her bag ready for school, ask her if she has breakfast.  Find Anna a cereal bar. Take Anna to the high school to get on the bus.
• Get home let Molly out of the kennel. Go outside again.
• Sit down drink a little more coffee.  Finally put the Molly on a leash to keep her with me.  Try to convince Molly not to chew on the leash.  Yes I just admitted to talking to the dog.
• Next day care kids arrive put in pigpen.
• 8:15 a.m change a poopy diaper. Gross
• Take Molly outside 25 more times just to tinkle the tiniest little bit and play in the snow.  During one of those times outside I realize my yoga pants are too thin to be standing outside in the snow.  I can't find my long john's so I put on two pairs of yoga pants. Epic ingenuity I think.
• Next daycare baby arrives, introduce to puppy then put in pigpen
• 9:30 a.m. Need to change another poopy diaper, during which I am trying to keep track of Molly, keep Molly out of baby wipes and poopy diaper.  My cell phone rings I can't answer, get the poopy and puppy all worked out.  House phone rings, can't find it my cordless phone, lose the puppy, answer phone, find Molly, tell friend I'm too busy to talk, feel like an epic jerk.  
• Molly has another run in with the cats, at least this time she tried to play with them and not run away yelping like the cat tried killing her.
• I sit down, puppy takes a nap

This is just a tiny snippet of my first day home alone with Molly.  I know it seems like a lot and that I might be losing my mind with frustration.  But, through all this I never lost my temper, I never felt like I was going to lose my temper.  I knew that getting a new puppy was going to be a challenge and when we discussed getting her Joe and I knew we would be up for the challenge. As I sit here writing this at 2:30 in the afternoon, my little gremlin has been asleep on the couch for the last two hours.  I emailed +Joe Egloff  and told him I needed him to have a smile on his face when he got home and to sweep in an be on puppy duty all the while telling me how amazing I am.

Do you have any words of encouragement for this new chapter in our lives?

Love Always Wins,

Katie

Our first few days as new puppy parents...

Ok so I know my loyal readers are dying to know how things have been going these last 72 hours of having a brand new puppy, three cats and an adult dog.  Let me tell you the positives first, it won't take as long. Molly is a sweetheart, she is cuter in person than she is in pictures.  The whole family has done very well

Molly and I just minutes after we picked her up

pitching in and taking her outside.  As of today I would say she is 90% house broken which is a major kudos to our breeder Jeanie because it is obvious how much they worked with her.

Now let me tell you a few little nuggets of information that I had forgotten about puppies; They are little gremlins!  They are just like an eight month old baby and will find every, single, little piece of paper, lint, yarn, string, paperclip, shoelace, towel, or sock you haven't realized you needed to pick up and chew on it.  Then you have to try to open their jaws and reach in dodging the needle-like teeth to get whatever they have in their mouth.

My moccasins have laces, those are now chew toys and therefore need to be put up.  Sometimes, if the mood strikes her she chews on said laces while the moccasins are still on my feet. Precious. She likes hair and therefore when you are laying on the floor like say playing the Wii U Santa brought for Christmas, Molly will crawl up your back to bite you face and chew on your hair.  Or clothes she isn't picky.  (said person playing the Wii U could have been Anna, Allie or myself)

Puppies like to nap, I relish the times my little gremlin takes a nap because it means we don't have to constantly be following her to make sure we don't go potty in the house or find a new chew toy that is not on the approved chew toy list.  After a nap we want to play and play and play in insane bursts of energy. Yesterday during what I thought was going to be a nice long puppy nap ended up being just a five minutes power nap and back at the playing she was.  The best is when she falls asleep at 10:00 at night and needs to play at 10:15 p.m.  So far we are lucky to get to bed at 11:00 p.m.

Anna learned that we don't feed Gremlins after 9:00 p.m. (shut up I know that it is after midnight but this is my story) because puppy will have to pee and poop within 60 to 90 minutes of consuming food.  So luckily the night we learned that little lesson Anna didn't have school and we stayed up playing with Molly until we
1. Wore her out enough to finally go to sleep and;
2. Worked the poop down (what is with every one of my posts and saying the work poop?)

Allie and Molly sleeping downstairs on her first night

Molly has been sleeping the last three nights with Joe and I, right in between our heads...with Emma under the covers pressed up against Joe's legs and my cat Knoxville sleeping at my feet.  Molly has done really well so far in the bed.  The only down fall is the first day at 6:30 a.m Joe got up for work and took Molly out and then brought her back to me presumably to go back to sleep....NOPE it was "Let's bite Mommy's face and chew on her hair" time. So.....we got up.  This morning she slept until 7:30 and woke me in the same
manner.

The cats HATE her.  I know they will all get used to her eventually, Knoxville is warming up the most but (fat) Lily hisses at her.  Emma (our rat terrier) was growling at her, and now just ignores her.  Hopefully Emma will get excited about having a little sister and will start to play with her.

Honestly all of these little things are minor and are a good problem to have.  Everyone in the house have pitched in and have loved this new little bundle of joy.  When we got Emma, Joe and I worked outside the home and the care of our new puppy fell on just the two of us.  PLUS, Allie was only just over a year and Anna was three.  Getting a new baby when the girls are older MUCH better. We will look back someday and miss how little she was and how much trouble she used to get into.

Tell me about your new puppy stories!

The calm before the storm....the Egloff's are getting a puppy

Molly with Joe 5 weeks

 This is Molly, the cocker spaniel puppy I haven't even met yet, but I am completely in love with.  My husband, Joe, and my stepson, Kyran, went to Cedar Rapids, Iowa to meet her while Anna and I had the stomach flu.  Yes we were plagued with that awful fast moving, feel like you are going to die, virus details of which have been locked and sealed never to be shared with another soul.

I digress back to the puppy.  So I had picked out a girl that I thought was cute and wanted Joe to check her out.  After he met all three girls he and Kyran decided on this shy little girl.  Joe said it reminded him of of when we picked out Emma, our rat terrier.  We walked up to this pen of puppies and this herd of them came running up to the fence and in the back was our little Emma. Her litter mates were jumping up the fence as if saying "Pick me!!  Pick me!!" and in the back Emma flopped down like Eeyore "Here I am. You're not going to pick me but..."

Molly 5 weeks

So Joe told me Molly was just like that.  Her sisters were jumping all over Kyran and Joe and little Molly just laid there.  Joe said that's how he knew she was the one.  On their way home Joe and Kyran figured out the name Molly and it was one of the ones the girls and I were talking about.

Molly 7 weeks

She is playful

Joe had to take a class in Cedar Rapids where he had to stay down their all week.  On a night he didn't have anything to do he took a little side trip to see our new girl.  As you can see she is growing by leaps and bounds. Waiting for her to become available is like waiting for a real baby to be born.  Any other animal we have gotten it was a spontaneous decision, and let me tell you we have made plenty of those.   We currently have three cats and our dog Emma.

The entertainment in our house, a laser pointer

Emma is almost nine, then we have Oliver (6) a beautiful long haired black cat the girls and I picked out at the Human Society in Waterloo.  Then we added (fat) Lily (5) to the group, she is on antidepressants to keep her from peeing on the rug in the laundry room.  No, I'm serious, apparently she is traumatized from a bladder infection and these anti-depressants keep her peeing in the cat box.  (fat) Lily is also on a diet because she was tipping the scales at whopping 18 pounds, when she runs down the hall her fat sways to and fro.  We feed the "herd" at 9 and 9 and the will remind you when it is time.

Last but not least we have Knoxville.  The kitten we found wandering around Marion County Park in Knoxville, Iowa when we were camping three years ago.  It was about to storm so I gave this sweet baby shelter in our pop up camper, for three days.  I was planning on re-homing him....but he is now an Egloff.

So to say the least our already interesting life is about to get that much more interesting.  We haven't had a puppy for almost nine years.  I'm not sure we are prepared for the sleepless nights of crate training or the potty training and let's not forget the million accidents on the floor.  But Joe and I decided now was the time, before we got new carpet and reupholstered our furniture, let's get the puppy stage over with.  Plus we have kids old enough to help.  So say a little prayer and think of us Saturday night when the Egloff's are getting ZERO sleep.

What is your experience with a new puppy?