Trying to wake Louie up is quite the task, he's a heavy sleeper. Talking to him, shaking him, even picking up his head with both hands doesn't work really. He moans and sighs and just keeps snoring. I took this photo with his face in my hand and he still 'slept'. I think he's just faking it so he doesn't have to get off the bed and go outside in the cold. Since he does sleep with his eyes half opened a lot of the time it's hard to tell. The first time I saw him asleep with a blind eye opened it scared me, now it's just a sleeping Blind Louie! The one word that will wake him up? Breakfast. of course.
Today is our fifth day of our Canine Good Citizen (CGC) Class.
This is the last day of actual class, next Saturday is our final day and test day. Test! Ah! I never felt that I tested well in school. Something about the pressure made my mind go blank. I quickly found out how to avoid tests by dropping out of school at 16 and working full time instead. Phew. No tests at work... or is there?
Everyday I'm tested, quizzed on things I've learned before. It's just not called a test, exam or quiz. Every time I tell Louie to sit and stay we're practicing. As long as I can let go of that evil word 'test' then we will do fine. Louie doesn't know that word, he doesn't know what a test is and he won't know we're being tested so I'm sure he'll do fine. Again, I'm jealous of Louie's simplistic nature. He's always in the now, in the moment. Louie is also very happy... maybe he's onto something. If we don't let our past or future scare us, we can truly enjoy the present. Oh Louie, always such sage advice.
So today I will go to class with an upbeat attitude. If we do not pass the test next week we can retake it, and even if we don't, we had a blast taking this class. It's something I thought I would never do and now that I have, I hope to do it again! I'm already thinking of taking my dad's puppy to class for him. It's not something my dad would want to do but I think it would be fun to try to teach new tricks to an open mind and a clean slate. This puppy is fresh! His mind is like a sponge! He's eager to learn!
Which brings me to our next exciting thing for this Saturday!
Budde the Puppy is eight weeks old and it's his one week anniversary of being a part of the Swift-Waschke family! How did we ever live without him? I'm sure my dad is wondering that. It has been a great week. Budde never needed to be left alone and we all took turns taking him outside to potty, trying to do that about once an hour. It's annoying but he's so tiny, he needs to go very often. Also, the less accidents in the house the easier it will be for him to understand that he is supposed to ALWAYS go outside. He's too little to tell us when he needs to go yet. That will come with time.
Budde the Puppy is doing a great job following along and coming back when he's called now. I know from experience that will get worse before it gets better. He will have to test his boundary over and over time and again. That is how a puppy learns, or even how a child learns for that matter. It is our job as the adult humans to be constant in calmly showing what we expect from them as appropriate behavior again and again. and again and again and again! Patients, above all else, raises a great dog. Thanks again, to my Blind Louie for another valuable life lesson.
I decided that I would have the family fun photo shoot time only once a week.This is a photo of Snorp and Budde the Puppy last Saturday, the day that we picked Budde up and brought him home. They are cute and playful, but after a whole week, things have only gotten cuter yet!
There is a new puppy, and taking pictures of him doing cute stuff could quickly become a time consuming addiction. So I definitely had to set myself limits. I decided to take photos of Budde every Saturday. Shots only once a week consistently will overtime provide a really great album showing him growing, and this will happen so fast! He's already a little bigger, a little stronger and a little smarter. He knows how to get up and down the front steps now and he's really getting the idea that he needs to be the one to get out from under Louie's feet. Smart guy, it only takes him being tripped over a few times and he gets the idea.
Please check back for two more new posts before the end of the weekend!
'Canine Good Citizen Class, Day 5' and 'Budde the Puppy is Eight Weeks Old!'
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