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| Diesel on the day we met, 12 November 2016 |
The first 100 days with Diesel have been quite adventurous.
We've had our challenges:
- Potty training: for anyone reading this that has a small puppy in their life, I promise, it does get better. Even though those first few weeks can be trying, one day it will just click and they will go potty in the correct place. Until then, be prepared to clean up the messes, and if you've got carpets it's a little more tricky.
- Fleas: OMG, this was a nightmare. I'm not sure where they came from or if they had always been in the house in a dormant state until Diesel arrived. I thought he was protected, because I'd applied a spot on treatment - but alas, no. The spot on treatments from your general grocery store are a waste of time. Frontline Plus also didn't work. Apparently fleas have become immune to some products and this seems to be the case here. After a three week battle with fleas on the dog, the cat and around the house, I eventually got the situation under control with Revolution for the cat, Bravecto for the dog and Fendona for the house. Plus lots of vacuuming, and cleaning of beds, blankets and toys in the washing machine at 60 degrees celsius. After the amount of research I did, I'd now consider myself an expert on combatting fleas. :-)
- Destruction: puppy teeth are itchy, and he still likes to bite things. I've had to treat a few minor wounds, fix a few holes in clothes, and sew up his bed and his ducky a couple of times. For a labrador, plants are also quite appealing. I've lost a couple of pot plants and trying to grow a potato into a plant didn't quite work out. But overall he has been quite good, mainly dragging sticks from the garden garbage pile into the house, which I don't mind being chewed to pieces, although it makes quite a mess. The funniest incident was that he chewed only the bottom half of the sponges hanging in the shower, so I had to replace those and the new ones are stored on the higher shelves of the shower caddy.
We've had our achievements:
Diesel graduated from puppy school on my birthday.
He learnt to sit, down, stay, heel (although we're still working on that one, particularly in places where there are lots of people or dogs) and a few other tricks. And he got his first taste of socialising with other dogs. He's very good, preferring to back away from confrontation and rather give lots of kisses.
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| Sitting on a box for body awareness |
We've had our adventures and learning experiences:
- Getting home: the two hour drive home from Nigel, where he was born, made me realise that I have a good boy who is very tolerant of the car. No sooner had we arrived home than we were back in the car again, off to a housewarming. He won the hearts of everyone there that night and has stuck by my side from that night on.
- Having a bath: as a labrador he likes the water, so it's not too difficult to bath him. But he goes a bit crazy afterwards, darting around all over the place. After the first bath he darted straight to the sand.
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| Sand bath |
- Swimming: strangely, he wasn't so crazy about swimming at first. There is no pool at home so I got him a shell. In the video he is more interested in getting the sticker off the side of the shell than swimming.
- Icies: he loves ice cubes. He used to lick them, but has since learnt to chew them.
- Fishies: I've put him on a raw food diet, which is mainly the Doggobone packets. But he gets some raw treats too, and he wasn't so sure what he should do with the frozen fish.
- Walkhaven: we had our first trip to Walkhaven, the off-leash dog park, last weekend. I thought his recall was pretty good until we arrived there. He was so excited to see so many people and, of course, so many dogs that he was all over the place. There was a game of fetch the ball in the water that a group of dogs was playing. Diesel didn't even know there was a ball, he was just hopping around after the other dogs. At one point he hopped in a bit too deep and sank. His reaction was to bounce up and around, stare at me with googly eyes and then attempt to swim back out, although it was a lot of splashing with the front paws, while the back paws found the bottom. He headed straight out to me, then proceeded to dive bomb the mud to get the water out of his ears. After a few silent seconds he realised he was fine and was off chasing the other dogs again. But I guess he needs to learn how to swim properly.
He has grow substantially in the first 100 days.
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| From this |
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| To this |
And of course there has been lots of cuteness:
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| In between the glass and the wood of the coffee table One of his favourite hideaways when he was still very little |
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| Sleeping at someone's feet another favourite spot |
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| The couch is also a comfy spot |
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| He was so tired, he decided to hide away |
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| Just chilling on the lounger after digging in the mud |
