Swap with Osaka

Posted on December 30, 2011 by tellingfamilytales

Yakira – photo by Karen Fuller

On Tuesday Yakira went on a puppy swap and Osaka came to our house. Karen brought Osaka here and the girls had a grand time playing before she took Yakira home with her. Osaka is a lab golden cross who is mostly golden and has that soft long golden coat. She is a couple of weeks older than Yakira. I could tell before Karen left that Osaka was going to be easy to integrate into our home. It just felt like she was already at home here. And she was easy especially after having Sinclair here who was a good pup in many ways but a challenge most of the time. Today we met Karen and her mother at The Old Spaghetti Factory. We enjoyed a good meal and lots of fun conversation before we swapped puppies back. It is good to have Yakira home but we enjoyed having Osaka here too. She can come back to our house anytime.

Christmas Day

Posted on December 25, 2011 by tellingfamilytales

Sinclair wearing a Christmas collar stretched out between Bill’s legs

With Christmas being on Sunday, church was the first thing on the schedule today. We were singing in the choir so Bill and I both had puppies with us. They both did just fine. After church we had some food to prepare for Christmas dinner. Christmas eve was with my family and Christmas day was time will Bill’s family. So we packed up the car with Yakira and Sinclair along with food and some Christmas gifts and made the hour drive to Tooele. No puppies to play with at Bill’s mom’s house but the pups were good. We took along the fold-up kennel and the two of them did good hanging out in there together for quite a while.
After dinner we use the carol books to sing Christmas songs again. This time we had Deon to accompany us on his guitar. I didn’t realize that he could play the guitar that well. It was really fun to have the added dimensions of his guitar. The carol books have been a good success. There are some words on a few of the songs that are different that what we normally sing so I’d like to fix those before next year.
We have never had two family days back to back quite like that before and I thought it might be a bit much but it turned out to be a nice way to spend the holiday. But we were all tired by the time we got home tonight. It is Sinclair’s last night with us. Lindsey is picking him up tomorrow so he can spend some time with her before his family gets back into town. I think Yakira will miss him, but we have plans for her to do a puppy swap with Osaka on Tuesday so she has a busy week ahead.

Christmas Eve

Posted on December 24, 2011 by tellingfamilytales

Danny, Clifford and Jacob on Christmas Eve

We took Yakira and Sinclair with us to my sister’s house for Christmas eve. She had Clifford (a career change black lab) so the three pups had a great time playing together. The humans and a good time eating dinner and chatting with family members. Then we gathered in the living room to read the Christmas story using their nativity to illustrate. Last of all we sang Christmas carols. This year I put together a booklet with words from all the familiar Christmas songs. It was fun to get to sing songs that we know but can’t remember all the words without a little help and other songs that have verses that we had never sung before. Sinclair is much more adjusted to being with us but he is a high maintenance puppy.

Yakira

Sinclair and Jacob

Yakira 4 months old!

Posted on December 16, 2011 by tellingfamilytales

Bill snuggling with Yakira

Boy our little monster girl is four months old today. She is headed off for a puppy swap tonight. Hallie will be coming here for the weekend and Yakira will be at our club leader’s. Hopefully she will be able to give us some help with some of her more challenging behaviors. Her biting has been better since last week but it is frustrating at times. If she doesn’t get several outings a day and a walk she gets bored and looks to me for entertainment. I’ve got to figure out how to get her enough stimulus each day to keep us both from going crazy.

Bad Bitie Day

Posted on December 7, 2011 by tellingfamilytales

Yakira with mini black Goughnut

Today Yakira and I had a bad day. I guess the stuff we have done so far this week just haven’t been enough to drain out her energy. Monday we had puppy class at the Murray Library and stopped at Costco. Tuesday we went to the vet for her shots and did a 15 minute walk. This morning she woke up ready to go and wanted me to do something about it. She nipped at my leg and ripped a hole in my jeans. We went on a 30 minute walk and that helped but it just wasn’t enough. I’ve never had a puppy that used their mouth the way she does. I hope that we can figure out how to help her with this. Yakira is a very smart puppy and somehow I’m not sending her the right kind of messages about this biting thing. One thing I’ve got to do is to make sure she gets enough socializing and exercise everyday so that she isn’t bored and looking for trouble.

16 Weeks!

Posted on December 6, 2011 by tellingfamilytales

Yakira with Christmas tree in the background

Today was a big milestone in a young puppies life. At 16 weeks they get the last of their puppy vaccinations. Now she is fully immunized against all those yucky puppy diseases. The restrictions are now lifted on going to parks and other high traffic dog areas and having to carry her into the vet. I’m looking forward to taking her down to the Jordan River Trail in the next week or so. I know she is going to love it.

First Sleepover

Posted on December 4, 2011 by tellingfamilytales

Yakira went on her first sleepover this weekend. Lisa has been wanting to take her and show her off at church so she took her for a few days. She was a good girl on Friday and on Sunday but Saturday she was a real challenge to handle. Now Lisa knows some of the challenges we are facing with the spunky little girl. It was good for Yakira to have her first sleepover. We went to Lisa’s tonight to pick her up. Lisa kind of wanted to have her stay another night but I just wanted her to come home. It is so good to have our little black monster back home.

Trip to "Our House"

Posted on December 1, 2011 by tellingfamilytales

Our local cub scout pack has a tradition of going to a local nursing home called “Our House” each December to decorate their Christmas tree and sing carols with the residents. As part of my job as the cub scout committee chairman for our pack I go along. So Yakira came with me. We all had a good time singing. One of the boy’s mother is a rather talented piano planner and I put together carol books so we would know the words. The funniest part was when one of our boys picked “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer” to sing. I had never really paid attention to the words before. So there we are singing about Grandma being dead with a bunch of old “grandmas”. They seemed to enjoy the song anyway. Maybe they enjoyed the humor of the situation.

Bringing Home the Tree

Posted on November 26, 2011 by tellingfamilytales

Yakira in the parking lot

My family has the tradition of going into the mountains to cut down our own Christmas tree. We like to go the Saturday after Thanksgiving. There wasn’t much snow down in the parking lot but it got deeper as we climbed the hill to our favorite area to find a tree. Yakira had a great time. She got a little cold when we got off the beaten path and the snow was deeper than her legs. I sat down on a log and picked her up, cuddling her inside my coat until she warmed up. Meanwhile Bill got our tree cut down and headed off to help Eric and Danny get their tree down the hill. Our tree is rather little because we put it up on a trunk. This keeps the tree from being too tempting to the puppies. But my sister’s house had 16′ ceilings in their living room so their tree is much bigger and is hard to get down the hill. I was really impressed by Yakira on our trek back down the hill with the tree. She just plugged her way along, keeping a steady pace until we got back to the car.

After the trees were all back to the cars we ate baked potatoes with chili, hot chocolate and other yummy treats. Yakira was very tired after her tromp through the snow and slept on the way home. She loves to put her chin in the notch in the folded up seat in the back of our station wagon.

Yakira sleeping in the back of the car

Three Months Old

Posted on November 16, 2011 by tellingfamilytales

Yakira on a quilt

Today Yakira is three months old. She has been with us for a whole month and it is hard to believe that it has been that long already. She is such a smart little girl. In someways too smart. She makes connections sometimes that are not intended. Yakira is a very oral puppy and she likes to not only put her mouth on you but she likes to clamp down with her sharp little puppy teeth. I’ve been working do redirect that biting to toys but instead she has learned that if she bits me I will give her a toy and play with her. Opps! So now I’ve got to work to teach her another way.