If you haven't already... meet the parents!
Malakai:
Madison:
It's going to be hard having to wait another 8 weeks to bring her home, but that time will fly with prepping the house for her arrival and deck building while we wait. We plan on limiting her to a few area's in the house only for the first months -- a hard thing to accomplish when you consider that our house is pretty open concept. But we are pretty adamant about a couple of things:
1) Absolutely NOT on the bed or on furniture!
2) Bedrooms are off limits (this one's Marnie's because of a friends suggestion; she had a new baby recently who was allergic to the dog. They had to give the dog up in the end - if they had kept one or two rooms off limits, they would have been able to keep her). I don't think I could give up the dog like that...
3) Crate Training is a must as is Obedience School.
4) We will prove the nay-sayers wrong. "Good luck keeping her off of the bed/furniture", or "just wait until she cries in her cage, you'll give in to X, or "that dog is too big for a house", etc, etc. We've heard a lot of negative in the last few months. So, to those supporting us and not offering the unwanted negativism, THANK YOU. We're excited, obviously, and the last thing we want is to try and convince someone else that we know what we want!? No doubt there will be challenges, but don't try and deflate our excitement. It's not cool...
A few other house-changing preparations that have happened, or will be going on in the next while;
Doggy Bed:
Our Christmas present from my Mom this year was a Dog Bed for the dog. It measures about 5x3 Feet. We picked out the fabric and Mom sewed away breaking her machine in the process, but after borrowing Teresa's it's finally finished and looks great! The spot we had in mind for it (near the front door) looks a little empty now because a chair was there before.
Gates:
Yes baby gates. We "might" purchase one or some child gates for the upstairs area blocking off the 3 steps up to the bedrooms. Not sure how we're going to work that in yet.
Crates:
We found someone in Ontario who sells wire crates on eBay at really good prices compared to the big box stores (like, under $75 for a "Giant"). We'll probably purchase one soon and get it set up just to get used to looking at it upstairs where we plan to keep it.
MiniVan:
All the cool people have one! yuck. Let me reiterate this point; The van is strictly a financial decision and an easy dog-transporter! Maybe after a few years when we decide to get rid of my car, we'll get a cool FJ Cruiser or something similar ;)
Flooring choices limited:
We have really fallen in love with cork flooring and really wanted to do that in the kitchen some time in the future. Well after having a closer look at it, I don't think it's the best choice. It's pretty expensive, and doesn't seem like it'd be very durable - especially with a 140lbs dog walking around on it with those nails. Can you imagine a gorgeous floor like that with tons of punctures in it? I think it would get ruined very quickly. Bummer, because I love it... also hardwood on the rest of the main floor *could* be out for a while. I have a friend with 2 Doberman's (1 female, 1 male) and their gorgeous 1 year old hard wood floor has dents and scratches in it from the dogs nails when they run to the front door. *cringe*
Puppy Schools:
I'm starting to look into puppy schools in the area and don't want to go to PetSmart, SuperPets, or other "big box" pet stores.
My Boss's wife, Pam, took their Rotty to a puppy and obedience school outside of Cambridge called McCann Professional Dog Trainers and had very good results with her. They were concerned about getting such a big and powerful dog so classes were mandatory in their household - similar to us. After looking through the website and talking to Pam about the classes and methods, I decided to email them to ask a few questions. They seem really nice as they invited us to attend a few classes to help us make our decision. The costs are reasonable, I think, for professional trainers. $200 for puppy class and $150 for "grade 1" - basic obedience (after $50 discount for taking puppy class). It's a small price to pay for a well behaved dog. We will do training at home as well, but these classes will really force us to stick with it. I can't wait! I absolutely LOVE a well behaved dog... and it'll be a requirement if we take her to BC with us over Christmas. That's incentive enough.
Speaking of well behaved dogs... Chester, my Dad's dog came over with Dad, Barb and the girls on Sunday night for dinner to talk about the deck plans (which we forgot to do). My Dad wasn't going to bring him, but I said that it was fine if he did. Anyway, he's still pretty hyper, but has calmed down QUITE a bit. Maybe it's because he was in a newer house, but he was pretty cute and well behaved. I hope our Dane doesn't take as long as Chester to settle down (2 years?). It was mentioned that our dog will weigh more than Chester when we get her home. He is 17 lbs now, the Dane at 8 weeks will be around 25 lbs!
We also gave him our dog's Kong toy to play with... it was hilarious as he could barely lift it or even put his mouth around it. He did love it for the short time that he had it, though. I should have taken pictures...
Anyway, this is a long post so it's time to end it. Can you tell that I want to talk about the dog with anyone, even if it's to a "web page"? lol
