The Puppy Chronicles, Part 2

Mia has been a part of our family for a week and a half now.  Everyone is settling in to a new routine.  Mia has adjusted to her new home and we have adjusted to frequent potty trips outside and frequent accidents inside.  Having a puppy is not unlike having a baby, though at least the baby has a diaper and doesn't pee or poop on the rug.  However, she's so cute, it's hard to get too mad at her when she has an accident.

A few quick stories about Mia this week:

• She has discovered one of her favorite places to rest: on the air vent in the family room and kitchen.  I guess that cool air feels good on her belly and her fur.  Here's a picture of her relaxing on one of the vents:

• On Friday morning, I let her out of her crate before going to work, so that she could have a little freedom before getting cooped up again until someone else in the family woke up.  She followed me around the kitchen as I made my lunch.  I then noticed her sniffing around where her food normally is in the kitchen. (It had been put up on the kitchen table to keep Yadi, our other dog, from eating it.)  I went over, grabbed her food, and put it down so that she could eat, only to turn around and see her peeing on the kitchen floor.  I picked her up and took her outside as part of our normal routine to train her to go potty outside.  When we came back in, I grabbed some paper towels to clean up the pee and some spray to neutralize the scent so that she wouldn't pee there again.  As I did so, I looked over my shoulder to see her peeing again, this time on the rug by the front door.  So, I grabbed her and took her back outside again.  Before I could clean up one accident, she had another and I kept running her back outside.  It was like a bad comedy routine and I'm sure that any of my neighbors who witnessed the outside portion got a good chuckle out of it.
• On Friday night, we went out for pizza.  Before leaving, I put Mia in her crate in the basement and she did her usual barking, crying and whimpering.  When we got back from dinner about an hour and a half later, we were surprised to be greeted at the door by both Yadi AND Mia.  Apparently, her crate door must not have fully latched and she managed to get out.  Somehow, she also managed to get all the way up the stairs and nudged open the door from the basement to the kitchen, which must not have been fully closed.  We couldn't believe it!  My wife put her on the middle of the stairs to see if she could go up them.  She could, but it took a ton of effort and about 20 seconds for her to get up just one step.  For her to have made it up the entire flight of stairs must have taken a long time and a lot of energy.  Needless to say, she was pooped and took a long nap after we got home.
• We noticed a hard spot on her belly and, after getting confirmation from the vet, it was determined that she has a hernia.  She'll be going in for surgery on that this week.  Less than 2 weeks with us and she's racking up the vet bills.  Cha ching!
• Yadi is still not too sure about Mia.  In general, he keeps his distance from her.  Mia often comes over to him and tries to get him to play.  Most of the time, he growls and snaps at her.  However, there have been a few times when he's decided to play with her and it's a treat to watch the two of them go at it.

I'm sure we'll have more adventures to recap in my next blog post.  Until then, thanks for reading!