The Life Of Hugo

[Dju]

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!

[Parkeyre]

What an excellent story!!

You look utterly impressed with your new addition.

Congratulations! (and goodluck with any crying overnight)

[tdierikx]

Welcome to the wonderful world of puppy ownership... poos and all... lol!

He's gorgeous!!

T.

[Naomi]

Woohoo! Great story. I loved reading it because I'm totally gonna be the same when I get my first puppy.

Hugo is adorable. How was the first night together? I'm guessing you didn't get to sleep in. :D

[Dju]

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.

[tlc]

WHat a cute puppy, love the story so far. with regards to his food, can you still feed him what the breeder was feeding him? HE might need to be gradually changed over or he could get a tummy upset if his food is different. I kept my guys on the same food as the breeder for a while then changed them over gradually.

[Niques]

He's an adorable little fluffball!! I love the stories - am looking forward to watching him grow! Maybe try him with chicken wings instead of necks? Much more chewing time.

Don't give up on the Kong just yet. It took James many weeks to show prolonged interest in his.

Edited November 3, 2010 by Niques

[keroppiyo]

Sounds like everything's going well Dju

Don't worry about Hugo not liking kibble much. When Buffy was younger she went through a period where she'd turn her nose up at her kibble too, and would sometimes end up missing brekky and just having dinner. If he's really hungry, he will eat it (unless the food's making him sick).

ETA Make sure he doesn't chew off the rope and ingest it. When Buffy was younger she used to chew those kinda bits off her toys and swallow them. Ended up throwing them back up. Yuck! So now she's never given anything with rope or fabric to play with unsupervised.

Edited November 3, 2010 by keroppiyo

[Guest belgian.blue]

Such a sweet story and it brought back two awesome memories of going to the airport to collect Ivy and Badger

All the best with Hugo and enjoy the puppy stage, it goes soooo swiftly! I wish I could get another puppy but two large dogs is enough for me and then my partners two large dogs!

[Dju]

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!

Edited November 3, 2010 by Dju

[tlc]

Sounds like he is getting on fabulously!

I feed my lot Nutro they love it.

Look forward to more pics.

[Esky the husky]

Hahaha cute

Looks like he's settling in well

[Dju]

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!

[tdierikx]

The best puppy toys are really cheap... empty toilet rolls or paper towel rolls are a big fave with all of my fosters! Then there are plastic soft drink bottles - they LOVE those! You can get a small Coke bottle, put a little bit of uncooked rice in the bottom, tighten the lid, and roll it on the floor for hours of fun... lol!

T.

[Liath]

My puppy loves the toilet rolls, more so if there is a bit of paper still attached. I made a few toys out of scraps of material, tied a double knot in the middle (makes it easier to throw). The puppy loves dragging one around the yard at full speed.

Its like kids toys, you spend alot of money on the present and they have more fun with the wrapping or box!

[Naomi]

I'll have to keep toilet rolls in mind for my future pup.

Love the new photos! Nice to see him awake. I've never heard of the breed before now.

If I was going to ever get a smaller dog, I'd definitely consider a Hugo. Haha.

[ravenau1]

Hugo is lovely! What a little character

[MavericksMission]

Hugo is gorgeous!

Looking forward to further updates!

[CrazyCresties]

Hugo is adorable Love the journal, do keep us updated with his progress

[Dju]

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.