Tag Archives: Yakira

Puppy raising video

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Tonight at our puppy class we had a high school student who wants to do a short video on puppy raising for her class. She video some of our puppy class and then asked some of us questions afterward. I don’t like being videoed and I wasn’t at all relaxed so I’m afraid I’m going to look silly. Oh well. It is for a good cause. I’ll post the video here when she gets it finished.

Note: Sarah needed some more footage so she came to our house a few days later and got some shots of Yakira playing and walking down the street. Here is the finished video.

Teething

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Small plastic bag & three of Yakira’s teeth

Yakira is well into the teething process. I’ve found three teeth so far. She lost all her tiny front teeth a few weeks ago. But they are so small that finding one of them is almost impossible. With every puppy I think they are going to go through teething and I’m not going to find any teeth. But so far I’ve been wrong. I found the first tooth on Friday, one of her canines. The second was on Saturday. We were playing tough with her new rope she got for Christmas and one of her back teeth came out. I think this one may have hurt a little bit coming out. There was lots more root left on than usual. Then yesterday I found another canine on the floor. There is a small chance this tooth might be Osaka’s. She lost the last of her canines while she was here for a sleep over but it seems to be a good match in size and color or Yakira’s other tooth. I like to put the puppy teeth into a little plastic zip-top bag with their name on it. This way I can tell whose teeth are whose. One of these days I’m going to put together a little box for each puppy with things like their teeth and their puppy collars in it.

I need to pee!

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close-up of Yakira

Today was the first time out on a walk that Yakira gave me that look. The look that means, “I need to pee, can I please pee.” It was a breakthrough because in the past she would just squat and take a pee. Oh what joy puppy raisers get from some of the simplest things. But now that I know she needs to pee or poop, I can help her through it by having her sit and pull herself together and then head back home. Once home to the relieving area, I can give her the command and after she relieves we head back out on our walk. Yeah!

Swap with Osaka

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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

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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

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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/Hallie Swap

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We have had Hallie here for the weekend. It was lots of fun having her. I especially enjoyed having a break from a puppy trying to mouth and bit me several times a day. Hallie was a good girl except yesterday. I was trying to do too many things at once. My parents were visiting, there was a cousins party that I needed to get some food started for and I needed to go across the street and visit a neighbor. I got the food in the crock pot and ran out the door forgetting to put Hallie in the kennel. My parents were downstairs and I don’t think that Hallie even new they were home. Lindsey had warned me that she could be a problem if she was left alone. Well when I got home she had one of my shoes in the living room. It seemed to be fine. But when I took it back to the closet I found one of my boots. She had taken a nice chunk out of the top of it. I didn’t pay much for the boots and I can still wear if my pants cover up the top. I can’t believe a totally forgot to take care of Hallie before I left the house. Opps!

When Lindsey came to swap Yakira and Hallie back, she said that Yakira was very, very good. She didn’t bit at all. Wow! She left her home quite a bit to try to get her energy built up so that she would show her bad side but she didn’t. She does seem to be a bit tired. Maybe she had too much fun playing with Cobb. Or maybe she is just going through a growth spurt and all of her energy is going to build muscles and bones. Time will tell. But she is being a very good girl. Sinclair is coming tomorrow. It is going to be a very busy holiday season and it won’t be hard to keep her stimulated with Sinclair here.

Yakira 4 months old!

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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.

Christmas Packages

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Yakira

Today I sent off Christmas packages to all of our pups except Casey. We don’t have a way to send anything to her right now. We will have to give her a gift at her graduation. Each puppy got the same thing, a nylabone wish bone. All of them loved their wish bones as a puppy. Well with Waffle it was hard to tell because Casey was always the one actually doing the chewing on Waffle’s nylabone. Along with the bone a sent a large jingle bell with a red and green loop that I wove on my inkle loom. I hope they all enjoy their bones. I also have a wish bone for Clifford too and one for Bill’s brother’s dog Jazzy. Those we will deliver in person next time we see them.

Bad Bitie Day

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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.