lil' monster

Stella has been our little girl for over a week now! This is Stella at seven weeks old:

• She loves the grassy area outside our apartment, but hates walks. The only thing she hates more than walks would be her leash. How do you train a dog to be okay with her leash?
• She knows what her toys are (okay, there are a few other things, like our ottoman, that she thinks is her chew toy, we’re working on that) and is actually learning how to play with them correctly. She chases her little ball (maybe next week she’ll learn to bring it back). She play tug of war with her little rope, we had to let her win a few times for her to get the hang of it.
• She might be part cat. She climbs up whatever is near the couch to get up the couch. She needs to sit on anything in the middle of the floor. She needs to burrow and sleep in cozy nooks and crannies.
• She graduated from her laundry basket (yes, she was so little she slept in a laundry basket the first week) to a kennel. Saturday she jumped right out of her basket without even trying first – like it was her oldest trick. Luckily she LOVES her kennel.
• She can walk right through the gate we bought her (dangit!).
• She likes to explore everything (makes us nervous as she sniffs around the house…is she curious or looking for a potty spot?!?!).
• When she runs she looks like a bunny hopping (I need to record this!).
• She almost sleeps through the night! She wakes up for a potty break around five am and then sleeps until we get up (sort of).
• She doesn’t know her name at all, but does know our voices and gets excited when we get home!
• Her newest nickname is lil’ monster, or just monster for short.

On day four of her joining our family she got ultra sick - google searches came back with this advice: “go to the vet immediately or instead of a sick puppy you’ll have a dead puppy.” That put me into a frenzied mess and we still had two hours until the earliest vet office opened!  

The vet basically ruled out anything too serious and sent us away with some antibiotics (glad we could pay a vet to tell us that they don’t know what’s wrong). After the vet Husband had to go to school and I sat by her laundry basket and cried cause she was too lethargic to do anything. She didn’t want to eat or drink anything – I finally put some karo syrup on my finger and got her to lick it and that got her appetite going enough that she drank up some beef broth mixed with pedialite. As the day went on she regained her energy and got away with murder cause her mama was so worried about her.

I talked to my parents and they had a ton of great insights (pet store owner and dog groomer…should’ve called them before the vet!). With them I realized that she got her shots Friday, we got her Saturday, she got new food and a whole new environment. With all these changes she had striped her intestines of all their enzymes (she had bad diarrhea and by Wednesday morning she was bleeding out her bum!). My dad suggested that we give her a little yogurt with her food to help her rebuild her enzymes. She’s been doing great since. I’ve never been so happy to see normal poo’s in my life! So there you have it – if your dog is having potty issues, give them yogurt and see if that helps!

Loving my lil’ monster more and more!