dog

Kira: 2 years

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I know so much of my blog has been centered around Zach. But I am due to give you an update on our dog Kira. Kira celebrated her 2nd birthday in July with us, it’s hard to believe because we feel like we have had her so much longer.

Having a dog door at this new house has been life changing, although sometimes she still looks at the door and waits for our permission to go out. Two huge fenced in yards to play in is a blessing too. Kira spent a good deal of her summer running around the trees in the front yard or laying on her back sunning herself in the grass.

Kira loves that we have property to explore. Every couple of days she goes to Luke begging for a WALK, not just to play in the yards. She knows the route through the trees well and we can trust her off leash. If  her nose leads her down a different trail, Luke can whistle and she will come back to the house within a few minutes.

She is learning some new tricks living in the Northwest.  When we go to a coffee kiosks she thinks “if I poke my head out , they will see my cute face and give me a treat.”

Kira loves her cousin Pepper, the two of them wear each other out playing, which is great for us. We have to not say Pepper’s name for a few days after a visit or Kira looks for her and gets excited. Kira loved going to the beach and Lakehouse this summer. She seemed less scared of the dock then last Christmas and wanted to stick her whole head in the lake on a canoe ride.

She did great when the niece and nephews were here; she loved playing with the smaller humans.

On that note, it has taken Kira a few months to warm up to Zach. At first she didn’t know what he was and was shy. She was a little upset that I wasn’t playing  with her during the day and asked for attention often when I was breastfeeding, I guess she thought I was just sitting and relaxing.

All of a sudden Kira has realized Zach is part of the pack, a young fur-less puppy. She gets excited every morning, or when we come home to greet him. Now we have to keep her from licking his face constantly. A few days ago I filled a water bottle with dried rice as a rattle for Zach. Well, Kira loves water bottles and was unsure why this wasn’t her toy. I gave her one of her own and that seemed to concrete something in Kira’s mind. Now she is protective of Zach too and is shaping up to be a good furry big-sister.

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Happy Birthday Kira!

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Kira our hound/terrier mix puppy is a year old! I say puppy because she may now have a mostly adult body but she still has the energy of a puppy.

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We don’t know her actual day of birth, but we estimated based on paperwork and guessed she was born around the first week of July.

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To make it easy to remember we decided to give her the birthday of 4th of July. When I told my family this, my grandmother said she is a firecracker puppy! My mom agreed saying she is definitely a firecracker.

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Kira at 8-10 weeks old

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Kira a few weeks before her birthday

Kira is very curious and full of spunk. Mostly obedient now, she still will test the boundaries. We are now working on teaching her to settle, to calm down and sit when she sees a cat, person, etc. outside and wants to hunt or to guard us. We are also hoping to teach her roll over very soon.

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For her birthday treat she got homemade whipped cream with blueberries and a homemade banana, oatmeal, and peanut butter treat. I know a little spoiled.

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trying very hard to be obedient as I take a picture

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She also has some new toys coming in the mail. We are trying out a few new toy brands for our super chewer, more on that to come.

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Kira update

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Kira is now 6 months old and definitely in her awkward teenager stage where not all of her body is the same or right size.

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She loved having my parents here last month and it was a great opportunity to practice not jumping on people.

But it definitely confused her routine and we have been working on that this past month while I’m off of work. She’s getting used to the new routine quickly and now knows the time of day to look out the window waiting for Luke to get home.

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She loves the snow even more than she did the fall leaves. She rolls around in it, loves digging for sticks in it, and snacking on it while she runs around. Our first day of snow she wasn’t even surprised by it just took it all in and ran in circles.

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Kira has almost all of her adult teeth in, there was a week or two where her back molars hurt so much we had to give her some orajel (which she hates).  She has also a week ago was neutered. She did so well with the procedure and  is healing very quickly.

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Kira with post surgery with her favorite soothing toy: leather stuffed animal

She has learned most of her commands well and now we are working on lay (lay down), and shake (shake off when wet). She also has a habit of chasing her tail until dizzy.

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All in all she is turning out to be a wonderful, smarty little puppy.

Kira’s first outting

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Our lab-mix puppy Kira is now a little over four months old.

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The past few months adjusting to a puppy have been a fun challenge. It was entertaining to watch Kira discover fall winds, rain, baths. It was especially enjoyable to watch her jump into the neat piles of fall leaves Luke made with the blower.

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Through this process we have had to not only be patient with her as she became potty trained, and learned new commands, but we also had to be patient for her to be old enough to go out with people.

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Finally she has all of her booster shots and her rabies shot. To celebrate last weekend we took her for her first official “non-vet” outing to a local state park: stony brook (for more on this see stony brook park). We got set with water, bags, training treats, and collapsible water bowl then drove to the park.

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Although it was cold it was beautiful. There were many starts and stops along the way as Kira pulled on her leash, got over-excited, and went off the trail. The further into the trail we went the more she became comfortable with the pace and staying by our side.

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We were not the only ones at the park. It was not crowded at all but there were some people and dogs. Kira loves people but is still learning about the different sizes and breeds of dogs.

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It was a great chance to show her how to be social. But it also made us realize we still need to train her to not jump on people when she is excited and wants to greet them.

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I was all set for a vigorous walk but quickly realized-this was a training session. We did not come close to completing the trail but it was beautiful and I know we will go back soon.

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Puppy Love

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I have a confession.

I have wanted a family puppy for more than a year now.

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Back in Corning we knew we couldn’t have a dog in our rented house, but that didn’t stop me from looking at dogs on pinterest, adoption locations, and dream that maybe if/when we moved we’d be able to get one.

Well we moved, been in our own home in Wayland for more than 6 months. All  winter I researched adoption locations, shelters, dog breeds/mixes. I nagged Luke with puppy pictures and my list of yes/no adoptions or rescues we were willing to work with in our area.

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We knew we wanted to wait until after the winter and snow. As I waited for this forever long winter to pass we talked about “what if” questions and planned out the practicals of owning/training a dog in a colder climate.

We have talked about the dogs we grew up with and how they were cared for and trained. We talked about what we will do differently based on where we live and our routine.

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In the last few weeks the snow finally thawed-I started to get anxious; we went to the local pet supply store and thought through what we would need to get.

This past weekend we finally put in an application with a dog adoption agency a few hours away who rescues litters of puppies from high kill shelters.

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Our newly bought doggy blanket from the pet supply store is by the door ready to go in the car once we have been approved.  We are hoping to very soon have a little lab retriever mix to care for in our home