Nitey-Nite

This picture was taken on July 1 when Emme was born.

When we are ready to put Emme in her crate, we say “Time to go nighty-nite.” About 80 percent of the time she dashes for her crate (and the puppy biscuit that she gets when she goes inside). The other twenty per cent of the time, she thinks it is an invitation to play keep away. She dashes all over the house and is much faster than either of us. Ken has discovered that when she starts running, if he says “Sit” she sits right down. Then we swoop her up and carry her to the crate. It seems to work every time. Soon she may realize what we are doing and won’t respond, but for now it works.

She also is beginning to sit high up on her back legs with her back straight up in the air. She did it the first time when I was opening a package of Pepperidge Farms cookies. She has never tasted people food, but she heard or smelled something she liked with that bag. We decided we needed a command for the posture other than “Sit” so we wouldn’t mix up the commands. So now we say “Beg” to get her to sit straight up. She gets that well. She still doesn’t get any Pepperidge Farms cookies.

Emme and Rudy are starting to eat their evening meal at the same time. Rudy has learned that he needs to do a “Down stay” when Emme is eating her lunch so we tried yesterday to feed them their evening meal at the same time. It worked well. Of course Rudy was done way before Emme but he just did a Down stay and watched her finish her meal. She didn’t bother with his food so I think we will continue to do this. Prior to this time, one of us would take the puppy in another room while Rudy ate and then we would switch: Rudy in the living room and Emme in the kitchen while she ate her dinner. This makes things less complicated.