A day in the life.........
(or - our life with a puppy!!)

Okay, things are finally settling down enough that I should be able to work on this part of the site. I will try to go back and add things to the past weeks, but for now.....
September 4 
WOW we have been busy. Rembrandt is now 86 lbs! He was really sick and in the hospital for 3 days - lost about 10 lbs - so we are still gaining back the weight, but  I think he is back to where he started now.

I just put a few new pictures up. Look at that face! Isn't he cute :))

June 18th
He is 72.5 lbs!! (33 kg)
June 14th
Okay so it has been a while.....:))

So much going on. Mark and I finally got engaged mid May, so I have been spending a lot of time planning a wedding - decided to hire a coordinator - it was just going to take up too much time. So she will set up appointments and then we will meet with people. Also, we found out that our hottub installation was done horribly, so we are getting quotes on fixing THAT! I am so pissed at the contractors, nobody use them!!!! They really sucked - now I am afraid to talk to them about this, because they always bullied us....anyway...

So enough about us, what about the dogs you say.......Last time we checked (6/11) Rembrandt weighed 70 lbs!! We did not check this week because he is just too big to pick up and hold while we weigh ourselves. Guess we will have to start reporting monthly weights. He is huge - I dont think he will be less than 100 by the time he is full grown. 

He is also toothless at the moment - well not really, but there sure are a lot of holes in there! I think all the baby teeth are finally gone and the new ones are coming in. I only actually saw 2 of them come out! For one of them we were at the park and some guy says "your dog is bleeding - gums or teeth".....oh yeah I say, probably the teeth. So I took a look and sure enough there it was. I tried to get it before he swallowed it , but no luck......extra calcium I guess???? For the second, they were sitting in front of me yesterday. I was trying to get him to leave Sash alone for a few minutes. He lunged at her to play and something went flying - one of his canines. I grabbed it before he could get it, went to rinse it in the sink, and......dropped it down the drain. DAMN AND they are coming in totally crooked - our dog needs braces!! I asked the vet if it was okay. She said that his bite is fine - he will just "never be a show dog" - well glad we had not planned on it!!

This weekend we get a visitor puppy - Lucy (actually she is 3 yrs old, but acts like a puppy :)) Lucy needs to find a home for a while, so I am taking her for a couple of days to see how she is with my 2. She met them and seems okay. We will have to watch them though, because she has some aggression issues  - I no longer think that Rembrandt has issues - Lucy has issues. She needs a lot of work. It will be busy with 3 dogs around here this weekend! Then next weekend they get to go to Doggie Camp! We are going to Tahoe for a wedding and they get to go camping while we are gone. I'll tell you how it was after we get back. Hopefully this will be good for both of them.

We have 6 rolls of film here that Mark is scanning - I will TRY to get them all up... 

Weeks 9 and 10 - May 7 - May 20
It has been a busy couple of weeks for us, so I have not had much of a chance to write. 
Let's see......
Rembrandt was fixed on 5/4. You never would have known it - He was back up and playing like usual that night. We were supposed to try and keep him kind of quiet for the first wee - YEAH RIGHT!
Last Saturday we did a 5K walk. We left Rembrandt at home - we thought that was still too much for him - and took Sasha. So she got to have a nice morning out on her home. She was thrilled - having all that attention to herself. And as always, she had tons of strangers walk up to her and pet her. I had one woman tell me that she thinks that Sash would make a good Therapy dog because of her even temperament - so I think I will look into that. She would enjoy it. 

Last Sunday we went to check out a dog 'Camp' - a place to board them on our trips this summer. I really liked it. No cages - just a house, a yard, a few dogs (not 40 like Spots!), and 2 people. One of the owner's dogs is a Big White German Shepherd who is most definitely in charge. I think it will be good to have someone who is bigger than Rembrandt put him in his place :)) He really is too arrogant for his age! Unfortunately they are on vacation the first few days that we need to leave them, so we need to find somewhere else....not an easy task with Sasha's issues.....

Monday, I took them to the park. I was surprised by Rembrandt - He played a lot more than usual. He found a 7 month old Rott who was about his size and that he had meet before, and started playing. They were pretty evenly matched and the Rott (Cassis) was pretty mellow. Once he started he kept on playing - all other puppies. I was very happy. Also - he was much more friendly to other people (that may have been the treats that they had!) But he walked right up to some that he had not meet and kissed them :) He also figured out how to get onto the table - thanks Cassis!!

Lastly - we have been leaving him out of his crate more and more while we are not home. He stills stays in while we are at work, but when we go to the store or dinner, we let him stay out with Sasha. So the other afternoon we came home and found him standing in the front yard! The gate was not staying latched and they had gotten out. Sash was already in the yard sleeping, but he was standing by the garage.Although I was not happy that they had gotten out, it was a good test. Looks like we are pretty safe that he will not go too far when he gets out!
That's about it - we need to get more pix up. Things are about to get REALLY busy so I will try to keep updating!
Week 8 - April 30 - May 6
Lots for this week and it is only Tuesday!
We went to the Vet yesterday and Rembrandt got his 4th set of shots and his Rabies shot - so we are all up to date on those now.  The vet said that last time she could not tell how he was any different from a lab, but that now she could really see the difference! He also has 4 new teeth and 2 more coming in (2 in right in the middle top and two in the middle bottom. the other two are the next ones out on the bottom - the two on the outside are coming in Behind the baby teeth instead of pushing them out, so we need to watch that. The vet said it is not usually a problem with the larger breeds). We never saw them actually come out, probably somewhere in Sasha's fur :)) (just kidding, I looked and they are not :))

He has started to show an interest in playing with a ball. He has watched Sash and other's at the park, and will now sometimes pick one up and bring it to us. When we throw it, he kind of looks at it to see where it went, pauses, and then goes after it. If we throw it too far or something else distracts him he changes his mind! But when he does play, he will put it in our hand, something Sash has not yet figured out!
They are coming pretty inseparable - when I went to put him in the car and go to the Vet on Mon, he did not want to go, he is used to going with her, he was kind of confused! But they are also very jealous of each other - actually he is jealous of her and she teases him all the time. They do not like the regular nylabones, so I decided to try one of the flavored to see if they liked those. I gave it to him and he was not interested - same with her. So it sat. Then last night, after taking something away from him, I gave it to him again. After a moment he dropped it and walked away. SOOOO Sasha went over and took it, laid down and starting chewing! Of course now he wanted it.........It is the same with toys. Even when I give them 2 at the same time, they only want the one that the other has!!!

what else? oh yeah, I got 'marked' at the park on Sunday! A big male dog just walked up to me (we were sitting on the grass), lifted his leg, and started to pee!!!! I was so surprised that it took me a minute to react. Now I have seen a dog come up and get someone because they were trying to mark the bench that the person was sitting on - but this was blatant! And the owner was not even really apologetic and never corrected him at all - I would have been horrified if Rembrandt had done that (dog appeared to need just a bit of training!) After that and watching the other unneutered male dogs running around marking everything over and over again, it reinforced our belief that we want to have him neutered. So....he goes on Friday. Catch him before he even thinks about lifting his leg!
Week 7 - April 23 - April 29
Well I was gone for the first 4 days of this week, so Mark had his hands full with both dogs on his own. He did okay, but I think he is glad to have me home!! He took them to the park on his own on Sunday, and I took them Thurs. Rembrandt seemed to be getting better at playing with other dogs. He played more and did not spend all of his time sitting at my feet or following Sash around.
He is getting really tall! I think we need to start measuring his height instead of just his weight. He only gained 2 pounds this week, but definitely got taller. As he is getting bigger, Sasha is working to continue to prove her dominance. She lets him get away with a lot, but every now and then, she will make sure he knows who is in charge around here:)
I found a new place to put pictures of him on line - www.flockguard.org - there is a link to photo album and then a choice for Ca de Bestiar, so I added him :)
Also, got a few of the articles translated back and up on the site - finally getting more information up there! Hopefully this weekend I will be able to get the rest of it up as well as a bunch of pictures.
Week 6 - April 15 - April 22
Saturday we went to the beach in Santa Cruz for the first time. Sasha loves the beach and we wanted to see how Rembrandt would like it. It was interesting.......Kind of funny to see a 15 week old puppy who believes that he owns the beach! Looks like we need to really start working on his dominance issues. When we are somewhere with other dogs, he does not really like to play unless he knows the dog and has played with him/her before. Usually he will stand back and watch and then play with Sasha. Stays either close to us or her. When he does play, he wants it to be on his terms. So - there was a 10 month old male lab puppy who wanted to play. He kept play biting at Rembrandt to get him to play. The hair went up and he started growling and biting - big time! He was not happy at all! So we need to teach him that that is unacceptable - he needs to play nice :) I have been trying to get to the park 4 times a week. For now I tend to keep him away from any other dog that I know is very dominant - until we know we have better control and he will 'leave it' when we tell him. I have been working harder since then to show that we are in charge and not him - he is STUBBORN for sure. When he pulls on the leash really hard, I just stop and we will not move until he comes back to me and sits down. A battle of wills. Holding him in our lap until he stops struggling and settles down. Stuff like that. 
Anyway, what else - he has now passed Sasha in Weight as well as height. He is 45 pounds and she is 43. We went and looked at the portraits that Laura took last night. the shots of him are Great - what a face. The shots of them together came out good too. But poor Sash - she looks absolutely terrified in the pictures of her alone. Next time we will take the pictures on the ground or with us. She is not afraid when we do that. 
I need to scan a whole bunch of pictures and get them up - 4 rolls! I will do that soon. 
Week 5 - April 8 - April 14
A couple of big milestones this week.
Rembrandt has surpassed Sasha in height - and ALMOST in weight 39.5 pounds (18 kg) yesterday! Kind of a lot for one week, we will have to watch that....
Tuesday we had Puppy Kindergarten Graduation (we will have pix up when they are developed) and then he slept through the whole night!!!!! 8 hrs - we are so excited :))
This week he has also started to go to the door on his own and ask to go out. I don't think we can trust him out alone yet, but maybe for short times we can try.....
We started to work with him on being outside in the frontyard without being on a leash. Sasha is under full voice control and knows where her house is when she is out and we hope to get him there too. That way I do not worry as much about them getting out and getting lost (yes I am pretty paranoid!!).
April 7th/8th - 13 1/2 weeks
Today we had portraits taken of the two of them. We went to Laura Marshall, who is a lady we know from the park. We wanted to get some done while Rembrandt was still smaller than Sasha. It is pretty close. On Sunday I noticed that as of today he is definitely as tall as her...
She took some of them alone and together. Sasha panicked again for some reason - I really wish we knew what happened to make her so skittish sometimes.
Rembrandt has discovered a new game - I always thought it was a joke when people take about dogs chasing their tail.......nope! He really does it!! He will entertain himself going around and around in circles..
Week 3 - March 26 - April 1st
We are still splitting time and only leaving him alone for about 4 hours during the day. The trainer said that he can 'hold it' one hour for each month plus one - a little longer if sleeping. So still about 4 - 5 hours max.
3/26 - Third set of shots - no problem!
Tuesday and Thursday - I took both dogs to the park on my own. The front gate was closed, so we had to go around to the back entrance. It was definitely an adventure to have both of them on different leashes, they kept getting twisted around me. Time for one of those leash splitters!
Everyone at the park likes Rembrandt. Sasha has always done well there, and now he is too. They are all amazed at how calm and well behaved he is! (Why do they always behave better around other people?) It is a completely different story when they are together at home!! Ah well.....
Friday - bought one of the split leashes and tried it out. A bit easier to use, but still definitely an adventure. Rembrandt managed to wrap his half around me and I ended up flat on the ground!
I also brought home 2 new toys. A new record for tearing about a toy - 1 hour!
March 24/25
We took Rembrandt to the park for the first time today. He did really well. At class on Tuesday he seemed to be too aloof with the other puppies, so we decided that it was time to get him out meeting other dogs. He still tends to stand back and observe more than play with the other dogs, but it was good to get him around others. He also followed Sasha around quite a bit. It is the first time we have really seen them together outside of the house, and it looks like they are bonding. Sasha is taking it pretty well. He watched some of the other dogs playing catch and figured it out, so now he will bring the ball back to us - sometimes at least!

  

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Questions or additional info? email erin@nijmeijer.com