Dju

Mum was much better today, I read to her some paragraphs out of the book that Cassie gave me (the one by Leonie Darling, 'Swedish Vallhund') about puppy training and she's been doing good things. We've been using the Ferber Method on Hugo (basically, letting him whinge and cry and carry on while ignoring him, meanwhile making sure that he's pottied out). Hopefully this will mean minimal barking when he's older! Today I had a friend coming over, originally we were supposed to be going out somewhere but I didn't have the heart to leave Hugo alone all by himself again! So we had playtime at home. Hugo was very good this morning, after a 5am start and potty, we went peacefully back to bed and slept through to 9am. He played with his breakfast a bit, didn't really eat it at all, so as per the book's instructions and many helpful people on DOL, I removed the bowl after 15 minutes. So he had to go hungry until lunch. Craig (friend) had come over by 11am and we had this massive playing session with Hugo in the backyard. We introduced Hugo to our lemon tree and Hugo was doing this cute 'sniffing a lemon on the ground, and then throwing himself away from it like it was a bomb' routine, which he seemed absolutely delighted with. The slippery little eel also crawled between our steps and rolled around in the mud under them. Fantastic! He would definitely need a bath later on. Again he was introduced to the chickens through the chicken-wire fence, and he seemed absolutely delighted by them! I don't think they returned the sentiment. It was the first time I had seen our chookie Spot puff herself up to her full potential and make growling noises. Hugo was laying in front of the fence sticking his nose through the wire and she actually reached forwards and gave him a sharp peck on the forehead! I think Hugo was more scared than she was! No blood drawn and it was only a little peck, so we didn't worry much--hopefully it'll teach him to respect the chickens? I'm not sure what it would do exactly, I just hope it won't make him aggressive towards them. I really do want them all to get along one day, and maybe for him to protect them from that bloody bush turkey hanging around (memo to self, borrow dad's bow and arrow set and shoot that bastard). The horrible animal went into the chicken's area today and grabbed one of our girls (Princess) by the leg and ever since she's been really badly limping, and we're so worried about her! We have no idea why he keeps coming in to bother them. That turkey has to go. Maybe Hugo will learn to love our chickens and then deal with that for us? Wishful thinking, I know. Hugo was fully tired out today after all the playing, but instead of letting him sleep, we decided to give the muddy little tyrant a bath. Hugo was extremely unimpressed. I don't like the smell of dogs, our whole house smells like dog, but DOL's profile about Swedish Vallhunds lied to us when they said Valls don't possess a doggy odor--you come in my house and tell me that you don't smell dog in every cubic inch of the air in this place! Well, the bath made it worse. I cannot fathom what sort of moron thought that weedy-smelling "floral" fragrances in a doggy shampoo would nicely mix with the natural doggy smell. Hugo hated the bath, absolutely despised it. He kept clawing his way out of the tub and staring up at us with a "WHY YOU DO THIS TO ME??" expression. He was squirming too much to do anything properly so we probably only half-finished the job. (Can you see the expression?) It was terribly hard to dry him as well, he thought we were trying to play so he'd be biting the towel and dragging it around, which meant he had to mostly dry naturally. What a fun day!

Aha! He started doing it again so I took a better picture: The limbs, they flail everywhere. :p

So, today was the first day that we had to leave Hugo alone for an extended period of time! The day started off earlier than the night before, at 4:30am, when Hugo started to do his little peepee dance in his crate. I got up and let him potty. Come back, put him back in his crate and he will not settle down. He just refused to settle down. My mother came in, told me that he probably needed to poop as well, so back outside we went with Hugo, watching the sun rise as he sniffed around and ten minutes later finally discover the optimum spot for pooping. Massive praise all-round because that meant that he could not possibly have a reason to whine in his crate anymore and I could go back to sleep. I seem to have forgotten that dogs don't actually need reasons to whine. Silly me! So he nicely carried on for about twenty minutes straight of howling and barking and screaming and crying (he seriously did not want to be in his crate), and I was curled up in the fetal position in my bed, already thinking of excuses to tell my breeder how Hugo had been mysteriously strangled during the night (just kidding about this!). With enough persistent ignoring though, he settled down and we both slept in until 9am. We were supposed to go to the vets today at 11am for his checkup but it was raining absolute buckets outside and seeing since my original plan was to WALK to the vets, that option was out and I had to cancel. That was okay, me and Hugo wanted to spend all our time together, before I had to go to work, playing to our hearts' content. This was when I gave him his breakfast. Hugo has become a somewhat fussy eater. This is pretty bad, as my mother, as soft-hearted as the woman is, will do things to make this fussiness habit worse. Hugo, being as smart as he is, has figured out that he will be coddled over when he is not eating and actually nicely sits there ignoring his food until mother starts to hand feed him. He may look like he's eating the food in the photo but that's him actually sniffing it. He left most of his breakfast untouched, and most of his lunch as well. Just to make things interesting for him, I cracked an egg over his food, and he did quite like that a lot and lapped it all up. It was so amusing to watch, the white of the raw egg has a gooey consistency of some sort, a bit thicker than water but runnier than jelly, and he had this mass of goop hanging from his jaw and was actually having a bit of difficulty maneuvering it INTO his mouth! I would have taken a photo but he wanted to eat the camera. Funny how we don't have him trying to eat his FOOD. Argh! It was play time after breakfast, with me trying to get him as worn out as possible before 1pm when I had to leave. That meant a lot of playing with the pink blanket of doom, a lot of fussing over, a lot of bouncing around his pen, and lots of smiles all around. He's getting a bit mouthier though, and not the gentle kind anymore either. He likes fussing over my foot and biting my toes, which doesn't feel very pleasant haha! I had to leave pretty soon so I left his half-filled breakfast bowl in the room with him and ushered him into the crate so he could nap for a bit while I was gone. I had to do it craftily though, as he'd be alone for about four hours, I couldn't possibly leave him shut in the crate, so what I basically did was close the door of his crate without locking it, and wait until he fell asleep and faced away from the door. From then, I had to quietly sneak into his pen, hide myself for a bit when he woke up for a second from hearing my footsteps, and then... finally I gently swung the door open! Success, asleep in an open crate. At work, I was whinging to everyone about how I had left him alone. I was so worried about my baby, all alone in his pen and nobody there to play with him! I would think of any excuse to bring him up to workmates, even customers! "Hey, I see you have dog food in your trolley, I have a dog too, he's actually a puppy, we just got him a few days ago from a breeder in NSW, he's a Swedish Vallhund, it's a Swedish breed, have you ever heard of that breed?, it looks like a dog with a bit of a corgi body and a German Shepherd's head, yeah I know it sounds weird, here I have photos, do you want to see him?, of course you do, here you are!" I only got back from work at around 9pm, and it turns out that I had reason to worry over him! Mother had fed him half a can of salmon mixed in with his kibble, and he wolfed that down in two seconds flat. She brought him outside because he was making a huge fuss, screaming and whining for no reason, and he pooped there. ...Soon followed by throwing up all the fish (oddly enough not the kibble, apparently??). He wasn't having a good day at all, very whiny and frazzled, having accidents all over the place, and starting to yank at the ankles of her pants, which I guess is the heeling instinct put into play. I do hope he's okay now, he doesn't look visibly sick, though the throwing up worried me a bit. We guessed it could be a combination of never having eaten fish before (? possibly, we don't know if Cassie ever fed him fish) and wolfing it down like it was his last meal on earth. When I got home, he had yet another accident in his pen. Peeing and pooping, a combo. It was my fault, I wasn't paying attention to him very closely, I took him out to give him a cuddle and a bit of a play, and instead had been distracted by talking to my mother for like four seconds. Look down, there was him, splashing in his pee. YAY! He's sleeping now, nice and soundly. As a note, I think those people rabbiting on about how dogs don't have imaginations/soul/etcetc are clearly and unmistakably wrong, I managed to snap up a photo of Hugo in his crate and although it might not show, he was flapping and waving his legs in the air and playfully talking to something with his eyes still closed before he calmed down again with a growl. I think he was dreaming about chasing one of my chickens. Then he must have caught it and all was well again! That's my guess anyways.

OMG one of my pet hates is people saying "english staffy". And I don't even have a Stafford... LOL There's a petstore near where I work selling.. get this.. 6 week old English Staffies.

I will try updating the journal at least once a day until he's been here for one week at which point I'll update weekly, maybe twice a week if something exciting happens. Thanks for your compliments everyone, we're so proud of our noisy little Hugo!

The Orbee rope is holding up pretty well, but like with all toys, we make sure that he's well-supervised when he's going to town on them! Our new family member is having the time of his life with us right now, and we're having lots of fun too! His breeder was feeding him Nutro Large Breed Puppy food and we're just feeding him ordinary Nutro food. He doesn't seem to be having a stomach upset yet which is good--I assume that the ingredients would be very similar then. But we're running out of the small sample bag of it we got, so hopefully we'll be able to pick some Large Breed Puppy pretty soon! With the chicken necks, the breeder has recommended us not to feed him wings, and we saw why after he gulped down an entire piece and gave me the fright of his life! Surprisingly no choking noises but surely swallowing such huge pieces can't be very good for him?? His favorite food at the moment other than chicken is cheese. He loves the cheese. I used the tiniest bit of cheese to try and do some training with him today and he picked up on "sit" pretty quick. He's a whore for cheese, will take more pictures when I remember to bring the camera for training. We took him out to the yard today to do some more zoomies. He loves his zoomies! We brought his Kong out prior (well, mum chucked it out, really), and it had melted a bit in the sun and the cheese had turned stinky so he was very eager to get to work on it! He has the longest tongue I've ever seen on a puppy. And then.. it was time.. for zoomies! This made him very tuckered out though. Taking this opportunity to do things with him while he was tuckered out, we went to the local Capalaba Produce where we buy food for our chickens, and we found his food there! I of course stood outside and waited for mummy with Hugo in my arms so he doesn't catch anything by walking on the ground. He was a good boy on the way there, I think he quite likes riding in the car! No accidents, which was great, because we let him pee before we left. But he got very thirsty standing out there with me while people cooed over him and asked me what breed he was. There was a chick at the produce store who actually knew what a Swedish Vallhund was though! Her first guesses were either a German Shepherd or a Husky. But of course he's infinitely more cuter than either of those breeds in my opinion tee hee. All in all he was a very good boy at the produce store, but I think he was a bit shy. Needs more socialization, maybe? We also picked up some chicken necks for him there and he had one for lunch as soon as he got home. After taking that big well-deserved drink of water though! He also had some boiled brown rice and put some teethmarks into a raw carrot. We will be feeding him his proper kibble tonight and see if the Large Breed Puppy variety makes any difference. Hugo had a big day today and is all tuckered out--he barely complained when we put him in his crate!

Haha the first night together was pretty good actually! Hugo slept through the night like a real champion. Until five o'clock in the morning that is. The soft whining indicated that it was time I got up and let him go to potty. And I did, and he did. When we returned to put him back in his crate though he was not so impressed. Crying, screaming, squealing, I'd say he wasn't going to let me go back to sleep any time soon. My mother, who hears everything in this house, immediately got up and despite my instructions not to coddle and comfort him while he was doing that, guess what she did? She keeps calling me cruel, I keep telling her to read a book about puppy training but she thinks she knows best. And of course with her teaching method I grew up the paradigm of society, and was totally not a brat for the majority of my teenage years..... not. So she coddled him and he was happy to be getting some attention, and when we put him back into the crate, he was still squealing. My bed was getting colder, my mother was getting more distressed, and so we decided that maybe a good feed would make him settle down. I must say he's not enjoying his kibble at all. I don't know what it is about that kibble but he downright does not want to eat it. We still need to buy him some proper puppy kibble, maybe he's just used to his old style of food and doesn't like this style? He adores chicken though, my mother was horrified to watch him wolf down an entire chickie neck! I was a bit startled too I can say, he stood there quite happily grinning up at me and the only thing I could think of was "Crap how would do you do a Heimlich maneuver on a puppy??". I'm not sure if eating like that is safe for him or not. He settled down a bit afterwards though, which was good! Me and Hugo slept through from 6am to 8am, and it was quite good to get the rest of that sleep, considering that I went to bed at midnight! We do have one catastrophic problem however, and that is the fact that Hugo does not like Kongs. My dreams of being able to have a quiet puppy sitting down and chewing on his Kong for hours has been shattered. He might enjoy it more if we stuffed a piece of chicken in there but the fact of the matter is that the poor boy can't live off chicken! His favorite toy at the moment is the rope attached to the Orbee (yes, he likes the rope more than the nice chewy ball itself), and we leave it in his crate in case he wants to chew on it quietly for a bit But his absolute favorite toy, and much to my dismay, the cheapest one as well, is... His toilet roll.

I woke up to a call at about 8am in the morning. Having not slept all night from pre-puppy excitement, it took more effort than I expected to pick up the phone and gurgle a hello into the receiver. It was my breeder Cassie, she told me that she'd dropped Hugo off at the airport and he might be catching an earlier flight and to wait for confirmation from JetPets before I arrived there earlier though. That was pretty cool, though it didn't help me sleep any better after that at all. Turns out I couldn't go back to sleep so I was wandering around the house for a few hours, totally natural of course. As I am a naturally impatient person who cannot wait for anything ever ever ever, I called JetPets at around midday to ask whether Hugo had indeed been put on an earlier flight. Turns out he had, ho hum! Lucky that I called them then, who knows how much longer my poor baby would have had to endure his crate! My friend Jonathan was driving me to the airport and as soon as he arrived a few minutes later I had to get ready and pack everything up for Hugo. Baby wipes, a towel, a (giant) puppy pee pad, and some water too. Turns out the only thing I needed was a towel. I had immediately appointed Jonathan my lead cameraman and he was having fun taking photos of me running around the house preparing things for our trip. We had a short drive to the airport, about 20 minutes or so, and Jonathan was being quite the gentleman and didn't tell me to shut up while I was bouncing around squealing in the passenger seat. If Hugo picks me as a rolemodel for excitedness, he's toast! When we got to JetPets, we barely had to wait ten minutes before they brought in his crate. The first thing that went through my head was "OH MY GOD THERE'S A RACCOON IN THERE!" Shortly followed by "AWWW!". The guy who brought him in asked us what breed (s)he was (lol!) and we told him that HE was a Swedish Vallhund. Apparently they had never seen such an unusual doggy and they all very much loved him and gave him lots of attention. Though back onto the story--receiving Hugo? It was the most incredible experience I've felt. I will always remember how happy I was this day to see Hugo and how when they put his crate down and opened the door, he immediately came crawling over to say hello to me. Love at first sight! I picked him up in my arms and he was so squishy and soft and fluffy that I just wanted to CRUSH HIM IN THIS MASSIVE BEAR HUG but not wanting to frighten the poor thing and remembering the instructions from my mentor to coo like a crazy lady at him, I made sure to do that instead, which I must say he looked like he quite enjoyed. Off home we went, and luckily for us, the very nice guy at Jetpets gave us Hugo's water trough that can be snapped onto the door of the crate, it was very useful for the rest of the day, but I must say I did not find the half-filled container very useful when my P-Plater friend switched into the wrong gear on the way home and the car jolted like it got a kick up the bum. Shoes are all wet. Puppy is dry. He slept like an angel on the way home, he was so quiet! Woke up a bit to sniff around my lap and watch the world go by through the window but other than that, he was very tuckered out. As soon as he arrived home, he needed to pee, and being totally unready as I was, he peed on the floor HAHA! Must make a memo to stop him from doing that, it's very counterproductive for his toilet training. He ate his first chicken neck, and by God, I was so scared he'd swallow the thing whole that I was holding onto it and letting him rip it apart as I held it up for him. It was gross. Really gross. But he seemed to enjoy it so that was okay. Didn't like his kibble, we had to opt for normal Nutro Puppy food as we had a sample sachet of that, and I'm not sure if that's the reason he didn't like it but then I soon realized that I also forgot to soak the kibble in water prior to giving it to him like my breeder instructed me! It went down much easier after I soaked it in water for a bit, but you should have seen the look on my mother's face when I tipped the excess water into our beautiful kitchen sink! He went to bed right after and slept like a baby--In a highly bipolar way. Hugo was good for the first two naps he had but afterwards when I took him out to pee he just wanted to do zoomies around the back yard! Boy can that pup run! Also worried that I might step on him one day as he has this thing where he tries to squish himself as close as he can to my feet as I'm walking. We also took the opportunity to introduce him to our chickens. They didn't like him one bit, I'm afraid. He was pretty disinterested in them from what I could tell, he was just laying in the grass looking at them and they were squawking like they expected to be attacked any minute by this ferocious beast who was actually shorter than a chicken. I guess they must have seen his teeth, he has these SHARP little baby teeth--he nipped me a few times and boy did that hurt! We'll try re-introducing him tomorrow or something, maybe they'll eventually warm up to him. We had a toilet training mishap later when I misread his signs and he started pooping on the floor. Dragged him to the nearby puppy pee pad because mate, when you gotta go, you gotta go! I can safely say it was the most disgusting thing I have experienced so far, his poos reek to high heaven and I was charged with the lovely duty of getting nice and close and picking them up with the inside of a bag. I puked a little in my mouth several times but the job had to be done. I think Hugo knew how terrible it was for me, he was sitting next to his "business" and grinning up at me with the biggest smile you've ever seen like "MUMMY LOOK AT ME I MADE A PRESENT FOR YOU!" I put him in his crate so I could throw away the bag and boy did he howl the house down. I had never heard such a tiny ball of fluff bark so loudly!!! Wasn't sure what to do, so I rang my breeder who assured me that it was for the best if I ignored him when he was being sooky. So we did that and five minutes later, he mercifully went to sleep. We did have a little success later in the evening as I correctly read his signs and rushed him out as quickly as possible where he peed almost instantly as soon as his feet touched the ground. It ended in massive praisings for all. He has not woken up since, nor made a peep, and it is two hours after his last potty break. Wish me luck for our first night together!

Meee toooo :D ;) Unfortunately he's asleep and that would be mean of me.

Oh my doG.. he's everything I ever wished for. :D He was super quiet on the ride home, very inquisitive though, kept looking around and panting happily like a little champion.. the first time I heard him bark was when he saw his reflection in the mirror, but other than that he's so calm and quiet and adorable! No accidents on the quick ride home, but he peed on the pee pad we got him when my back was turned, so that's kind of a bad start to toilet training He's sleeping in his crate right now.

She's the best Haha. That's funny because as soon as you mentioned the name Hugo, it reminded me of my brother's dog who is named Bruno. Everyone says that the two names remind them of each other, I wonder why?? I like the name Hugo from Victor Hugo and I like the name Bruno from Bruce Willis' character in one of his movies, lol! ;)

Ohhhh I am excited like you don't know how!! OMG! The puppy pen takes up like.. 2/5 of my entire room as well, I gotta post pictures when I get Hugo, his living area is going to be about 2x2, which is bigger than it looks! And thank you Naomi, I always wanted a dog named Hugo, but we were contemplating on "Bruno" for a while before settling on Hugo for sure. Hi five for first dog owners! (Let's hope we get it right in one go, eh? ) Yeah Minxy, I'd love that! Unfortunately, Hugo is "not to be let outside until 10 weeks and then not to be in places that dogs frequent until until 10 days after his second vaccination", which is going to make socializing a pain in the rectum, but you know, we'll manage But when he gets a wee bit older, I'm definitely on for the Kyojin/Hugo playtime! Just so long as you don't let Kyojin eat Hugo when they meet, okay? Okay. (Reportedly, he's going to be quite a small puppy and your boy is larger than a Vallhund ADULT, lol!! Maybe two Vallhund adults stacked on top of the other?!) BLARRGHHH TWO MORE SLEEPS AND HE'S MIIIIINE

Two days two days two days two days :)

I haven't even gotten my dog yet but I've been showing pictures of its breed to coworkers who wouldn't have a clue about the breed if I told them what it was called (so I show them instead) and I got the stupidest comment--"Oh, they're Miniature Alsatians!" What?? WHAAAAAT?

These tags are really cheap, I've found. Unfortunately, I bought exactly the same ones for $8 weeks ago, which was stupid of me, but anyways.I might purchase more extravagant tags for later on but for now, these are plain, simple, and do what they're meant to.

Hey that's weird Chi4me, they've been calling the one to go to my home "Charlie" as well He's a chihuahua, I assume?

Me too! I can start up the blog now that I know which one is mine

Hi everyone!! Our pup has been picked for us, and he's the lightest boy out of the litter! We're so happy and excited, he was the one we first had our eyes on and he's the one going home to us! It's amazing!! Attached is a photo of him when he was still a little baby, we'll save the photos of when he was older for when we pick him up next Tuesday

The owner said on his own videos that the dog is an American Staffy, not a Pitbull, I believe? That video has been posted like four times in General Discussion this week too, hard to miss

Can't you get heavily fined for not registering your pet?

Those sneaky, sneaky laundromats.Sorry, couldn't help it.

http://www.dogtainers.com.au/index.php?id=26

Not sure if this is useful or not. If you can't get it out though, I'm sure we'd all love to see pictures though

Also sounds like a great way to hurt your dog and do some lasting damage.. Taken directly from the page linked. I'm afraid I'm with Bisart Dobes on this one; if you have to literally hang the dog until it passes out (just to prove to the dog what a clever, big person you are ) in my opinion, you probably shouldn't have pets. Well you've taken that bit totally out of context. Did you read the "Extremely Handler Aggressive Dogs" title above it? I'd rather train an extremely aggro dog using "harsh methods" than euthanizing it.Besides that, it doesn't always have to be used in that way. As the comments say, it's used a lot for showing and even I have a collar that looks a little bit like that (or at least works in the same way) for showing my puppy. All because the collar can be used to strangle a dog, it doesn't mean it will necessarily be used that way.

It says on the video that he's an American Staffy?