Towards the end of my vacation, I started to make plans with Amelia's breeder to pick her up. Turned out, we didn't have to wait until that Saturday, like we originally thought. We ended up picking her up Tuesday evening. It was a huge day for me, I had woken up at 1:45am, left the place I was staying at at 2:30am to catch a 6:15am flight. After traveling all morning, I arrived back in Iowa at around 1:30 in the afternoon. I had made plans to pick up Amelia at six that same evening. We made the two hour drive back to my home, dropped off my luggage, and we were off again.
I was exhausted. Regardless, e drove up to LeMars, and picked her up. She came to us with her AKC paperwork, unbathed (and completely dirty from being in an outside kennel with her littermates), and without the small package of the kibble she was currently on, for easy switching to her new food. After a tiring day, I was getting grouchy and at that point, just wanted to go home. Maybe the situation wasn't as bad as I perceive it to be, I was just cranky? Don't know.
I held her the entire way home, and as we got off of the freeway to come back home... she got carsick, and threw up all over me, herself, and the car. It was a mess. By the time we pulled into the parking lot to the apartment, I was practically falling asleep.
While I took Amelia into the building, and cleaned her up, Tyler cleaned up the car (personally, I think he got the worst end of that stick). Then I showered, and let her explore the apartment. A little while later, she got her bath, dried off, and we went to bed.
She's extremely active a majority of the time, and whenever I try to get my camera out to take pictures, she runs up and sticks her snout in the lens. I feel like I can never get good photos of her. I made a serious effort this morning, and finally got a couple.
Crate training the first night, went really well. We went to be around 11pm, she only whined for less than 2 minutes, then was out like a light. She woke up again around three in the morning to potty, and again around five. By seven, she was up for the day. And apparently, so was I.
She'd started to get really good with her crate. The night before last, she went in with no whining, no nothing. Just laid down and slept. Last night, however... was not a good night. She went in, and cried for about 5 minutes. Really loud, obnoxious crying. We were unimpressed. Once she settled down, she was up every hour, on the hour, ready to potty... whining for about 5 minutes each time after being put back in her crate. I felt bad for our upstairs neighbor who had to listen to that.
When she comes out of her crate every morning, she is an absolute terror. Of course, I expected some of it. But, I guess it has been too long since I had a puppy, I've forgotten most. This morning, we have decided to take her out on a walk around the complex to get out some of the pent-up energy from the crate. That was huge fail in itself. The whole walk was me literally just dragging her down the street because she refused to walk on the leash. Loose leash walking training is coming next.
We are doing terrible with potty training too. In the mornings, she give us absolutely no notice of when it will happen, and just squats to pee right on the carpet (hence, trying to take her for a walk), usually standing right in front of me. We are attempting to bell train her (having her ring a bell hanging from the doorknob whenever she wants to go outside), but she isn't getting it, and I think the bells are more scary for her than anything. So, she doesn't ring it by herself.
I watch her like a hawk every day while Tyler is at work, we go out as soon as she wakes up from a nap, which really helps with the accidents on the carpet, but I'm getting slightly annoyed that she's not even associating the bells with going outside at this point. I expected her to at least be acknowledging them by now. But she's not. I know it's not her fault, but we do this every single time we go outside, I am not sure what else to do.
We joke that my husband is her personal chew toy, because she is always latching onto his hand, jumping up to his face when he is sitting down. But, I think this is a bigger issue than what it appears to be (he has never had a dog before, so I'm not sure he knows how to act with a dog, at all). I feel like both Amelia, and Tyler need some training on how to act with each other.
Yes, I understand that she is a puppy, this is to be expected. We have only had her a little less than one week, and we still have loads of training to do. However, I feel like I have all the bad puppy traits to deal with, and no enjoyment out of owning a dog. So please, don't mind my venting here.
