Beautiful Weather

We have had some AMAZING weather this week. Today the high was 73! Emmy has been loving this week because she's been able to go for longer walks and play outside on her tie-out in the afternoons with Bill. She has been exploring a lot as well, especially since she has never really seen much grass until this stage in her life...so she insists on smelling and exploring every inch of the lawn.

Tonight, Bill's brother Bob came over to play video games, and Emmy definitely enjoyed watching them play (see the videos!). She has been doing so good lately. She is in the midst of another growth spurt in which we're noticing her getting taller. In fact, just earlier today we caught her sticking her nose on the coffee table to see if she could snatch something off the table now that it's the same level as her head. When we caught her she looked like the cat who ate the canary!

Emmy is also just getting over her first cold! For about the past week, Emmy has had a running nose (especially in the morning and after lying down), sneezing, bloodshot eyes, and has been more sleepy than usual (hard to imagine!). We checked with the PAWS vet, and they didn't think it was anything more than just a common cold or even seasonal allergies (much like people!). We felt lucky though because just this week we found out that kennel cough is going around the area, and had hit a few of the PAWS dogs even...including some foster puppies. Luckily Emmy was not one of them. Thankfully, she's feeling much better now (I think the warm weather and sun had a lot to do with that!).

Happy 6 months E puppies!

Today the E puppies are 6 months old! YAY!! Happy (1/2) Birthday to you! We celebrated today by upgrading some of Emmy's toys. Because of her age and weight (we went the vet just the other day...and she's just shy of 50 lbs!) some of her "puppy" stage toys are no longer appropriate for her to have...and many of them she's beginning to destroy. So, for her birthday we got Emmy a regular sized Kong (and she LOVES it because there is much more peanut butter in it!), a Galileo bone from Nylabone (Duke had one that she loved, so we got one just for her), and we tried out "Greenies" which are edible bone-like things (shaped like bright green toothbrushes) to help clean her teeth and give her fresh doggie breath (or at least as fresh as doggie breath can get!).

Puppy Class & Reunions

Puppy Class @ Paws

Emmy & Emma (it's hard to get two puppies to sit still long enough for a photo!)

Emma (left in background) and Emmy (foreground) waiting for the beginning of class

The resemblance is uncanny! Emmy (left) and Emma (right)

Emmy & Bill train together during class

Today we went to puppy class which is always exciting, but today was especially exciting. First of all, Bill is done with church activities on Wednesday nights (at least for the summer), so now the three of us can go to puppy class instead of just Emmy and myself. Second, we were able to see several of Emmy's siblings- Emu, Elwood, and Emma! Emmy and Emma haven't seen each other in a while and they enjoyed being able to "catch up"! We can't get over how much the two of them look alike, especially since most of the rest of "E" puppies look different than each other. We were also early to class so we were able to take Emmy out to the fenced in play yard to let her run around. Boy does she like that!

Emmy is doing very well in classes. We have been working a lot on heeling and staying recently and Emmy is really picking up on it. We did have to laugh though. At one point we were asked to get the dogs excited by rubbing them, talking to them, etc to give them some physical love as an affirmation. Most of the dogs got really excited and jumpy...but Emmy...well, Emmy just loved the rubbing and actually just put her head down on Bill's knee and looked like she would fall asleep! Silly pup!

Emmy's Still Growing!

Let sleeping pups lie!

Bill: "La,la,la..." Emmy: "woof,woof,woof...."

Yeah, um...I'm tired again.

Hi everyone! Sorry it's been a while since we've written. Honestly, we have been forgetting to bring our camera with us on adventures and such and then we forget to make posts to keep you all updated. Well...the biggest news...Emmy's still growing! Recently we have been looking back at our old pictures and realizing just how much Emmy has grown! You all probably notice it more being you don't see her everyday! Emmy has had a good time going for lots of walks (yay for nicer weather!) with Bill, visiting me at work, and just doing normal daily activities with us...oh yeah...and lots of sleeping! Here's some of the latest things we've caught her doing this month!

Duke visits for the weekend

Emmy's new Zogoflex bone from West Paw Design!

Two tired pups!

Training time x 2!

Let's get him!

This past weekend Duke came to visit us, as his parents went away this time. Duke and Emmy certainly had a lot of fun together and were VERY active! Luckily we had some great weather so we were able to take them both for walks, play outside, etc. While both dogs are definitely very familiar with each other by now, they still were both fighting "only child syndrome". They were constantly playing give and take with each other's toys and both got a little fiesty with each other when they were tired and wanted some quiet time.


Duke has caught on, being the "older, wiser one", that Emmy just wants to do what ever he is doing or play with whatever he is playing with. Therefore, Duke learned that if he wanted the toy Emmy was playing with, he could bring her another toy, drop it in front of her so that she would start playing with that, and then he could grab the toy he wanted from her. It was like clockwork! But don't worry, Emmy was pretty smart too. She has learned that Duke LOVES playing fetch (we're pretty sure he would do it all day if he was allowed to) and would hardly ever allow her the chance to catch the ball (her legs are still just a little to short to out run him!). Therefore, Emmy started her own game of crowtching down (I think she thought he couldn't see her...) by us, waiting for Duke to run back with the ball, and then POUNCE! Because of this we nicknamed them both Simba (Emmy) and Mufasa (Duke) from The Lion King, because that's what they looked like!


Training time was also fun, because we had two dogs to work with. We caught some great pictures of them doing their commands together, which is great that Emmy was focused enough to do her commands with Duke right next to her (although it probably helped that Duke was doing them too!). This certainly made meal and bed times easier knowing that they would each still listen to commands so that we could do things in an orderly fashion!


Duke went home yesterday afternoon and I think both dogs are exhausted from the weekend's adventures. While they enjoy playing, I'm sure that they are both happy to have their parents to themselves and their own homes to play in. (Emmy had to search our entire apartment for Duke before she was satifsied that he was gone). Emmy did get a new toy though...a new bone that Barb and Carl brought back from their trip. It is from the company West Paw Design . Their toys are virtually indistructable and made from all recycled materials. Emmy has a Zogoflex bone which floats and bounces too. She just loves it and has been carrying it all over the place. Check out their website by clicking on their company name above! Barb also referred us to another company that makes great dog toys and I think they have a little mint in them that dogs find irrististable. They are Planet Dog .

Happy 5 months "E" Puppies!

Just hangin' out!

The girls!

Look mom! I'm CUTE!

Snuggling with dad!

Happy 5 months to all the "E" Puppies! We've really enjoyed being able to see some of Emmy's siblings on CheetoBreeders' blog too! Boy are the puppies getting big. Emmy is doing very well and is growing like a weed! We have definitely entered the fun phase with her of being able to take her to many places and to have her know a lot of her commands. We've added some updated pictures and movies of what she's like- boy is she a snuggler! She loves to play with Bill and loves to snuggle with me! How fun!

Update

Emmy making herself comfortable in our laundry

Training with Bill

Play time!

Emmy's new cape!

We realized the other day that it is the beginning of March and we haven't given everyone an update on Emmy recently! Emmy is doing great! All three of us have really slipped into a good rhythm together as a family and bringing Emmy to the various places we go is becoming more of second nature (and less of a fiasco!). Emmy is getting pretty big too! We're estimating that she's close to 40 lbs now...hardly the 12 lb puppy that came home in November. She's very active and is getting her commands down pretty well now. Because of the cold weather, Emmy has been playing more in the building than outside (plus we don't have a fenced in yard, so that makes outside play hard). Luckily our building has a LONG main hallway right outside our door, so Emmy loves to run up and down it playing fetch. We caught some videos tonight of her playing. I thought you'd all like to see what she can do...so there are a couple clips of that too (she got distracted in the first one when some people came out of an apartment...we had to "cut" filming and regroup).

This weekend, Hope College held their annual Dance Marathon. We went Friday night to check it out, and of course brought Miss Emmy. She was a hit from the moment she walked in the door. Within five minutes of being there we ran into one of the "Miracle Children" (Dance Marathon raises money for the Helen DeVos Children's Hospital in Grand Rapids and different Hope organizations dance/raise money for specific children who are patients at the hospital) who just got a PAWS dog, Buttons. Buttons is 5 1/2 years old and has been moved to this little girl after her first client passed away. They just received Buttons close to Valentine's Day and are now working to get certified with her. It was such an amazing time for us to meet a family first hand who has been touched by one of these dogs. We definitely are thankful for that reminder as we continue to get close to Emmy and love her with all of hearts- that we will one day be sad when she leaves us to go on for training and work...but she is going to help someone like that...and that is an amazing gift we can give!

Training for us is at a stand still as we are in a two week break between puppy class sessions. We've been making sure to spend a lot of time on training at home and using the extra free time to get more social outings in - including Best Buy, more Meijer runs, downtown Holland, Dance Marathon, a spaghetti supper fundraiser, and even some church events. At our last puppy class Emmy did get a new cape as her original one that she came home with was getting pretty snug. Now we have a nice new one that is quite roomy! Yay!

Another piece of big news on the Emmy front is that she is losing teeth...LIKE CRAZY! You all saw the posts when she started losing her front teeth, which have all fallen out and her adult teeth are in. But now she's losing everything from her canines back- on top and bottom. In the course of one week she's lost about 6 or 7 teeth! But, as fast as she is losing them, the new ones are coming in. We are definitely watching her food when she eats and trying to slow her down a little in eating everything so that we can make sure she is actually chewing her food. She seems to be doing well so far, and I think most of the puppy teeth are out now. She certainly has been a huge fan of ice cubes and frozen peanut butter kongs this week as you can imagine! Unlike her front teeth, we've either found or been able to dig out of her mouth most of these back teeth, so we have a nice little collection now. I guess the puppy tooth fairy needs to come soon!

Thank you all for your continued encouragement and support as we continue this adventure with Emmy. We are certainly loving every step of this journey (especially now that Emmy's house-broken and spring is around the corner!).