First Boot

Theo threw up for the first time yesterday. Nothing to be alarmed about. Apparently his breakfast was extra yummy yesterday because he wolfed it down so fast that it promptly came back up! This is the first time Theo has thrown up with me. He's never gotten sick in the car, or anywhere else, thankfully. I gently rubbed his side after I let him out of his crate (remember I've mentioned before that I feed him in his crate), and felt a big rumble in his tummy. Two seconds later he walked onto his bed and upchucked his breakfast. Yuck! He had a look on his face like "what just happened!?" that was so freaking cute I wanted to die. Then he sniffed it, wondering if it was something he could eat, and then he seemed to be over it and walked away. I'm fairly certain he just ate too fast because he's been fine otherwise since then. Also, it didn't hurt his appetite. As soon as he had emptied his stomach, he was ready to fill it again. He never begs for food after he's eaten, but after he threw up he was giving me the same "I'm dying of hunger" look he gives me right before I've fed him. I figure since his appetite was intact, he was definitely ok. Hehe. Poor little thing.

Ear Gunk

I can't believe it, but I forgot to mention Theo had his second vet visit (with me) last week. His ears had a lot of waxy buildup (his ears smelled dirty, it was gross), so the first thing I asked when I met with the vet was "what's wrong with his ears?" Apparently they weren't infected (phew!), but they were dirty enough to require a professional cleaning (when you're charge $30, it gets the name "professional"). At least they smelled like roses for awhile afterwards. Hehe. He also prescribed some ear drops that were meant to break up the rest of the wax in his ear canal.

Man, trying to put 4 drops in each ear of a dog is hard! Theo struggled with me like his life depended on it, and cried like I was killing him slowly. Poor little guy. Toward the end he got better, but it's not something I ever want to go through again. Ick! At least he's now very accustomed to me handling his ears!

Going Well

Wow, it's been a week since my last Theo update? Well haven't I been a busy bee.

Theo made a lot of progress the last week. When I think about it, the only real issues we're having with him are the mouthing, and of course the house training is 100% yet. Everything else he's picking up. sometimes slowly, but always surely.

Let's start with the good. Theo hasn't had an accent in his crate since my last rant about it. Yay! He's had a few accidents in the house (pee only), but only because he had to go and there wasn't a pee pad available, so I can't fault him too much. Although one of those times I was in the process of unlocking the back door to let him outside...doh!

The crate training is going much better. Theo used to hate his crate. He would never go in it, even if I tempted him with the yummiest treat because he knew it meant being locked in his prison. I made sure to never punish him in it, but he still never took to it. Last week I started feeding him in his crate. I hold his food bowl while standing next to the crate and say "Theo, crate". Now that he knows that's where he's fed, he happily jumps in and doesn't even notice when I close the door. When he's done eating his cries a little to let me know he's ready to come out. So easy! And now he sleeps in it all the time. He still prefers his dog bed over the crate, but he sleeps in his crate when it's between it and the floor, which is better than before! Now when I put him to bed at night I get two treats, put one in his kong and keep one in my hand. I tell him "crate", and when he jumps in I give him the kong. Then I close the door while praising him profusely. When he's settled down (which is 99% of the time immediate), I give him the second treat. I praise him some more, but he usually ignores me since he's busy trying to get at the treat in his kong. Hehe. Then I get up and go get ready for bed. Sometimes he'll cry a little while I'm getting ready, but once I crawl into bed, he's usually ready to stretch out and go to sleep himself. Now if only I could get him to sleep in on the weekends!

His walks have been going very well also. He'll still stop at certain points, but the number of stops is much fewer, and it's much easier to get him to move again. I can walk him all the way around the neighborhood now, which is great because there's a great grassy lookout that's a nice place to stop and rest. He knows "heel" and 75% of the time walks like a dream. Sometimes when he's stopped at a particularly shady patch of grass when I say "heel", he'll walk forward about 2 steps and then just collapse back down. It's so cute!

Theo's learned "sit", "down", and "stand" from his puppy class very well. They comprise the "puppy push-ups", as my trainers calls them. "Down" took him a while, but after a few days of holding his butt, but had the idea. Now he'll pat his head and rub his tummy for the right treat...figuratively speaking, of course. He's also learned that he doesn't go through a door before me. Now when I go to the door to let him outside, he always backs up to leave room for me to go out first. What a good boy!

Speaking of puppy class, that went much better than last week too. Last week there were lots of retriever-type pups that were 3 times Theo's size. As soon as I set him down they all swarmed him and he was terrified. He was so scared that he either hugged the walls of the area or hid under people's ankles (hey, at least he's not afraid of people!). He was so scared that he wouldn't do any of the on-leash work because it involved moving towards the other dogs. It was awful and I felt like I wasn't able to show what progress we had really made. This week's class was much better. He walked great on the leash, did his push-ups like a pro, and even played a bit with the other puppies.

The only bad, like I said, is really the mouthing. He's always been a bit overzealous with the biting, but now that his jaw is stronger, he draws blood on a regular basis. My hand is his favorite chew toy. I've tried distracting him with a toy, he ignores it. I've tried shoving the toy in his mouth when he goes for my hand, he spits it out and goes for my hand again. I've tried saying "ouch!" and ignoring him for 10 seconds, it only seems to make him more excited to go after my hand. One time he even bit my arm while I was doing the ignore thing. I've tried holding his mouth closed (gently!) and telling him to "relax", he goes after my hand as soon as I let go. I've tried teaching him "gentle" and praising him when he mouths softly, and it only seems to encourage him to mouth harder. I'm told he'll grow out of it, but is there something I'm not trying here? I know I need to teach him to have a soft mouth, but it's just not working. I know if I could get this under control, he'd be such a dream!

Update: The trusty mycorgi.com forums have saved me again. Someone over there really spelled out the mouthing thing in such a way that I just get it now. Imagine Theo is playing with a puppy and Theo nips. If the puppy yelps and then keeps playing, it's like saying "Ouch, that hurt a little, but I'm ok. Let's keep playing!" If the puppy yelps and then walks away, it's like saying "That hurt. You play too rough. I don't want to play with you anymore." I want to communicate the latter for sure! If I just keep up with the saying ouch and then walking away for a minute or so, hopefully that'll set him straight and he'll understand what I want. I'll keep you posted!

So Very Tired

A warning to all prospective puppy owners:

When I thought about getting a puppy everyone warned me about the sleepless nights I would have when my small-bladdered puppy needed to go out in the middle of the night. I thought, "hey that's going to suck, but it'll be ok".

Well I lucked out and ended up with a puppy that was a pro at holding his bladder all night (most of the time, but even when he wet his bed, he still didn't wake me up). On weekdays he usually sleeps until he hears my alarm clock go off, or sometimes a few minutes before. No big deal. The one thing I wasn't prepared for that no one told me: you will never get to sleep in on the weekend again.

Theo let me "sleep in" until 7:30am both days this weekend. Before Theo I would usually sleep in until noon at least. It's when I would "catch up" on my sleep. Now I get no catchup. It's Monday morning and I'm barely functioning because I'm so darn tired.

My warning to prospective puppy owners is make sure you're prepared to never get to sleep in late again (or at least until puppy is house trained). My advice is to take lots of afternoon naps when you can squeeze them in.

Video Of The Week 16: Theo Vs. The Bottle

Videos of the week are back! The plan is to have videos of my own adorable little Theo in here when I can. So far I only have one video though! I'll have to get better at capturing his adorable moments. This video is Theo vs. the water bottle. What you're not seeing is the first few minutes of when I first gave it to him. He kept barking experimentally at it, and then jumping away. It was so funny! I hope you think so too.



I love the part where he lays down with another toy but still manages to throw a disapproving bark the bottle's way. Evil bottle!

Progress

Theo has made leaps and bounds of progress this week. It's really been amazing. I haven't talked much about his leash training, but I've been taking him on 1-2 walks a day around the neighborhood. At first it was very trying because Theo wouldn't walk. He would walk to the end of the street (pulling a lot and stopping at every front yard), then he would stop and refuse to move. I tried to get him to move through various means, but I never managed to get him more than 5 feet before he would sit down again. He still does it to some extent, but only when he's tired and needs a rest, which is fine of course. He's learned to "heel" like a pro! He still pulls a little sometimes, but I can now walk a good portion of the walk with lots of slack on the leash and he walks right beside me. What a good boy!

The house training is also going great. He still has accidents in his pen, but he's getting better, and he's great when we're home. I think when his bladder gets bigger and we don't have to rely on puppy pads it'll get better.

The walks have also made him much more handleable. He was starting to get very nippy to the point where I couldn't even play with him because my hands got so torn up. Well I've learned there's two things that make me able to have a nice cuddle time with Theo: first is, as I said, a nice long walk (or two medium walks) to let him get out some of his energy. Toward the end I usually run with him because he really seems to enjoy it. Second is letting him have a rough playtime. I tried getting him to play calmly and it was so frustrating because all he wanted to do was bite my hands...hard. I noticed that if I rough-house with him a little (not letting him bite my hand, but letting him try), a few minutes later he's mellow and ready for cuddling. It's been so great.

Today he's been such a good puppy that I can't think of anything but running home and playing with him some more! If this keeps up he's going to turn into such a dream dog. I know there'll still be setbacks, but it's such a morale booster to know that we're making good progress.

So far he hasn't been very des

Day One

Yesterday was day one. Theo didn't have a single accident in the house, including his crate that morning and evening! It was day one of the six week, no accident time frame that means your dog is house trained. Do I really expect to go six weeks, or even another day without an accident? Not really, but it was still a great accomplishment for Theo. Good boy! If you'll remember, last Sunday he also had a day with no accidents, but I was holding out on celebrating until it happened on a day when I wasn't home with him all day. Yesterday was that day. Hooray!

He was good so far this morning too, for the most part. He did poop inside the house rather than doing it when I had taken him out 15 minutes before, but he did it on his puppy pad while I was out of the room, so I think that still counts as a non-accident.

But of course, in the spirit of Theo's step forward then back habits, when I came home yesterday I saw that he had peed only twice and both times on the puppy pad, which he hadn't moved or chewed up. Good boy! I also noticed that he somehow managed to get the puppy pad outside his pen that we keep by the back door inside his pen, and that pad was completely shredded to pieces. Eh, I'll take that over a hot mess any day!

A Hot Mess

The following little story should serve as a cautionary tale for anyone looking to get a puppy. I'm talking the kind of cautionary tales my mom used to tell me and my sister: real dangers that could happen if you didn't heed her word, such as the time she told us if you put your head underwater in a hot tub your hair could get caught in a jet and you could drown, or when she said that if I got my belly button pierced and it got infected, it could spread to my lower intestines and I could die. This might even be right up there with "if you don't wear your seatbelt the car door could come flying open, causing you to fall out and get gravel under your eyelids, like what happened to you aunt when she was six". It's one of those.

Usually when I leave for work in the morning, I've sufficiently tired out Theo that he just sleeps the whole morning and doesn't wake up until I come home at lunchtime. That was not the case today. Today I came home to see, from across the room, that Theo had pooped and peed on his puppy pad. Good boy! I prefer it when he holds his poops for when I take him outside, but a puppy pad is definitely acceptable.

Upon closer inspection I saw that there was also a piece of poop on the floor. Well that sucks, but at least he had the right idea. Upon even closer inspection I saw smears of poop all over the floor. By this time I was right next to the pen and Theo, in his enthusiasm to get out of the pen stepped in the poop...great...and then proceeded to walk all over his pen (and toys), tracking (more) poo smudges everywhere. It was disgusting. I grabbed a wipe and cleaned off Theo's paws as best I could. I got out an arsenal of paper towels and started spraying 409 everywhere to wipe up the poo smudges.

Somehow I kept noticing new smudges. That's when I noticed it (and realized where all the previous smudges had come from). The little piece of poop that was hanging out of his butt. I don't know if it was him freaking out over the poop or just regular excitement to see me, but as soon as I had mostly cleaned the floor, there were all of a sudden half a dozen more poo smudges! Ack! Ew! I wiped off the poop, which was attached to a strand of my hair that was still...*ahem*...in there. Oh my goodness, I don't know how I didn't vomit right on top of his head. Oh by the way, it smelled like all kinds of nastiness while this was going on.

After I cleaned the floor again, I decided I'd clean off Theo's paws a little better since my initial attempt didn't seem to...get everything. I picked him up and turned him on his back. Theo doesn't generally like this, so he kicked his paws out, trying to get leverage off of my body and face. "Oh god, don't touch me!" was all I could say. I managed to get him on his back and clean off his paws with no visible signs of poo transfer. Phew! His paws were clean, the pen was relatively clean, so back in the pen he went. I needed to start washing his poop covered toys and I didn't want that hot little mess running all over the kitchen. I got the laundry started and headed back to the pen and guess what I saw?

He had peed.

Then he stepped in it.

Then he ran all over the pen.

Seriously.

I wiped off Theo's paws...again, and let him out of the pen. This time I went for heavy duty (or should I say dooty?) cleaning and got the swiffer-mop-thing. I went over the area...and over...and over again. Phew! Finally! It was clean!

And that's the story (at least until I head home tonight and see if Theo went ahead with an encore). Sure, I can laugh about it (I already did while writing this post). Sure, it might sound gross, but not so bad. But really, it was that bad. It was nasty! Please, Theo, don't ever make me clean up (over and over and over again) that kind of mess again! Is it any wonder I never ended up eating lunch? Yeglck!

I'm sure other people with puppies have similar stories, so all you squeamish people out there who won't be able to cover the bathroom duties (doodies?)...at least make sure you've got a husband, or boyfriend, or someone that will come over and clean up the mess for you, 'cause it's just gotta be done.

I'm Baffled

I need help. I was hoping it was just a temporary thing last week, but this morning it was back again. Theo has taken to peeing in his crate. That's right. The whole point of crate training is to teach your dog to hold it because dogs instinctively tend to not want to curl up in their own filth...except my dog that is. Is it just a bladder control issue? Well the first two weeks we had Theo he didn't "wet his bed" once, so I know he at least at one point had the ability to hold it all night. Also, I don't think he had any accidents this past weekend. He doesn't whine or cry that he needs to be let out to go potty. As far as I can tell, he just goes.

In the morning, on a good day, my alarm wakes both Theo and I up and he cries to be let out. I quickly throw on some clothes and take him outside to pee. One the not as good days, Theo wakes up before my alarm (*sigh*), cries to be let out, and I jump out of bed to let him out. Maybe he cries to be let out because he's peed? I don't know, but he's definitely doing it at some point.

My question to you all is...WHAT DO I DO!?? I don't want my dog sleeping in his own pee, I don't want to wash his bedding every morning, and I don't want to hinder his house training! I want to nip this habit in the bud right now, but I have no idea how. It's always after the fact since he does it while I'm sleeping. Any ideas would be appreciated.

Update: You know, I've been trying to crate train (and house train) him by keeping him in his crate outside our bedroom door during the night. I wonder if it would be better to just leave him in his pen with his crate and a puppy pad. I didn't really want to do this because it's not teaching him to hold it through the night, and it's not really crate training him at all. But I don't think he would wet his bed if he could get out to his puppy pad. I thought it'd be better to keep him by us during the night, since he doesn't cry when he can see us. But I wonder if it would be better to keep him in the kitchen with the same setup we use when we're gone at work for the day. Any thoughts?

5 Weeks, 6 Days To Go

Can I get a round of applause? Yesterday was the very first day that Theodore went the whole day without a single accident in the house. YAY!!!

He went on his puppy pad once when we left him in his pen for an hour or so. Every other time he went outside like a pro. The key? Getting up every 20 minutes to let him out! Seriously. Actually the credit is all to Theo. He would go sit by the door (and sometimes whine) when he needed to go out. He did this about every 20 minutes. Sometimes he just wanted to play out there, sometimes he actually needed to go. Either way I made sure to let him out and take some time to let him go or not, and then I took him back in. I hear that it should be every 2 hours that they have to go, but Theo plays hard and then sleeps hard, so while he was awake he would go out every 20 minutes or so (he probably actually peed about ever 40 minutes), and then he would sleep for a few hours and not go at all. It just ended up that way between waking up from naps, eating meals, and playing around.

House training is not a task for the lazy, that's for sure. It was so tempting to just ignore is cries to go out and tell him "no, you just went 20 minutes ago, I don't think you need to go again". But I held strong and was several times surprised that he actually did need to go. I know that since I'm back at work for the next 5 days, he'll probably have more accidents, but if he has no accidents while I'm home, then it's just a matter of time until he gets it when he's alone too.

The Magic Of Puppy Class

First off, I've just updated my flickr pictures. Theodore at week 10 and week 11 are now there. Who knew you could only have 3 sets unless you "upgrade", which means pay?? That's so lame! So I've tagged all the pictures with how old he is if you want to filter it that way.

This weekend we made leaps and bounds of progress with Theo. He had his first puppy kindergarten class Saturday morning and it was magical! He loved it, we loved it. It was just great. The training facility is right by the vet I'm going to. The main trainer is very familiar with Corgis (I think she has a Cardigan), which was so helpful during class. For example, when I had trouble getting Theo to do "down" (I still can't get him to do it), she explained that Corgis can't really do down like other dogs do. She calls it the "Corgi fold". Hehe. He learned "leave it" like a pro, and it's already come in handy walking him around the neighborhood. Apparently my disgustingly rude neighbors like to leave their cigarette butts all over the ground. Theo likes to try and eat them, so him learning "leave it" was perfect. We also learned "go to your place". He learned that the towel is his place, but he didn't quite pick up the command yet. Most of the other commands he already knows. He sits like a pro, he comes but still not consistently. He gets distracted, which is understandable, I think. He also already knows "watch me", though we use "look at me". We also did some leash work, but all we learned was how to correct a wandering puppy. We didn't learn anything for puppies who won't walk, so we've got some work to do there. Hehe.

We also learned some good habits. Several times a day I now let Theo put my finger in his mouth. When he bites down a little hard (like any pressure at all), and I say "Ouch!" and pull my finger away. I do this several times in one session. I've tried this before when he hurts, but not in this "exercise" fashion. This way it's reinforcement over and over again, rather than once in a while. He's picking it up much more quickly now. Also, several times in the day I pick him up and lay him on his back. At first Theo hated this. He still hates it, actually, but I can actually get him to do it now. He'll squirm a little bit and then settle down quite nicely. This has really helped him get used to being handled by us. He's also a lot closer to me now because of it. I noticed that now when he plays with his toys, he'll put his paws on my leg, or crawl in my lap.

He made friends with Katie, a Springer Spaniel puppy with the softest fur I've ever felt! But when the bigger puppies started pouring in, he got very scared and detached himself from the group a bit. What a loner! There was one dog that just really wanted to play with Theo and Theo was just scared to death of her (see picture to the right). It was too funny. He also kept getting whacked in the face by a big lab's tail. But even with being scared, it was so obviously a great experience for him. He, in just that short amount of time, learned so much about interacting with other puppies. It was an invaluable experience, and I'm really looking forward to five more weeks!

That hour and a half training session, working with Theo and having him play with other dogs, was such a great experience. He was so much better behaved the whole rest of the day. He was so mellow and so obedient. It was just great, and this was only a puppy kindergarten class! I can't recommend puppy classes for your puppies more. We made more progress with Theo in 2 hours than we did in 2 weeks.

One Step Forward, Three Steps Back

Just to catch you up on the last few days, Theo has been developing some good and some bad habits. Tuesday when I came home in the evening he was not as good as when I came home at lunch, but he wasn't too bad. He had peed quite a bit, and kind of all over the place, but at least his puppy pad was still intact. Unfortunately, he also had another accident in the evening when he failed to tell me he needed to go outside. Overall Tuesday was better than Monday, and I was proud of him.

Wednesday was full of even more mixed results. The morning started off typically with Theo whining to get out of his crate after my alarm woke us both up. It turns out in the time to get up, pee, and throw on some clothes, Theo peed in his crate. Noooo! His record for peeing in his crate was spotless, and now he had peed all over his spotless record! I washed his bedding, and hoped that it was an isolated incident. When I came home at lunch he was the very model of a dream puppy. Not only did he not make a mess, but he didn't even go! His pen was spotless and I took him outside to go potty right away. What progress!

Of course, then I had some issues with walking him. He was being a total brat! He just wouldn't walk! He seems excited to be out, and trotted along for about a block, but after that he just plopped down on the ground and wouldn't move for the world. He wouldn't come when I called him, not even for a treat! I thought maybe it was too hot outside for him, but I tried walking him again in the evening and he did the same thing. I think he just doesn't like being so...tethered. Hopefully he'll get over it because it's great exercise for him. Another problem might have been his harness. Previously I've walked him using just his buckle collar, but yesterday I used his harness because Husband said he thought Theo was pulling too hard. Today I think I'll go back to the collar and see if he walks better. I don't think I'm a big fan of the hardness for Theo. He dislikes it just as much as his collar, but he can actually get his mouth around the harness to chew it up.

So by the end of lunchtime yesterday Theo was pretty even: he had soiled his bed and refused to walk, but he had also made such progress in his house training. Well when I got home in the evening, it was like hurricane Bladder had blown through the kitchen. There was pee everywhere. His puppy pad was shot (but, again, still intact at least!), there were puddles everywhere, his toys were soaked. Some of it must have been water because I've never seen so much pee come out of him in such a short timespan. It was so disgusting. I don't know why he felt the need to make a hot mess out of his pen and then just sit in it, but he did. Ick! And to top it off, he also peed in the kitchen rather than telling me he needed to go out...again. But on a plus side, he did play very nicely throughout the evening and went into his crate without too much trouble.

I was hoping that, overall, yesterday would have provided some progress for him, but this morning he had again peed in his crate. I feel like for every step forward, he takes three steps back. I'm just at a loss. I don't know why he's doing it. I don't know how to make him stop doing it. I don't know how to teach him to tell me when he needs to go outside. I'm hoping that he continues to learn to be more independent, and not stress out while I'm gone.

It's kind of a surprise, but his house training has just become such an important issue for me (and it's stressing me out!). I feel like anywhere else where he's lacking, we have plenty of time to train him, but the house training I just want done right now. It's not just that I don't like him peeing all over the house. It's more like I feel this is such an important milestone, and really shows how well we are training him. And since he's not at all house trained, I feel like we're not at all training him well. Arg! Am I being too hard on myself? I mean, he's only 11 weeks old, not even 3 months yet. Maybe I should wait another month until I start being hard on myself.

Week 11, Home Alone

So Theo is 11 weeks old already! The time is just flying by and he is already growing up so fast! My two weeks of telecommuting for work ended and this week I'm back at work. Yesterday was my first day back and the longest that I left Theo home alone. It was terrible! Aside from missing him like crazy, he had some separation anxiety issues (or maybe just loneliness) that were not so fun to deal with.

For the next few months (however long it takes until we trust Theo to have run of the house, or at least the kitchen/family room) I'll be going home on my lunch hour (or more like two, but that's okay) to feed Theo and get him some play and exercise. Yesterday when I went home in the middle of the day I found Theo had pooped on the kitchen floor, nowhere near his puppy pad. Normally I would think this was normal. He never really took to pooping anywhere but outside, which is great, right? Except he had already pooped twice yesterday morning. Three times in 4 hours?! Yikes. The third time I attribute to the stress from separation anxiety. So I cleaned up the poop, fed him lunch, took him for a nice long walk, played with him a few minutes, and then put him back in his pen, hoping he would cock out for the rest of the afternoon. Ah, not so. When I got home in the evening I found that his entire 1.5 ft x 1.5ft puppy pad had been shredded to pieces the size of a penny...and then peed on. There were bits of the pad all over the pen, and somehow they had gotten all over the rest of the kitchen too. It was awful, and, again, something I attribute to him being stressed. Later in the evening he even ended up peeing on his dog bed, which he has never peed on before. I think he was just a hot ball of nerves yesterday.

Well today I headed home at lunch expecting to find another poopy mess. I parked on the street and snuck around back to see what he was doing. I wanted to know if he cries when I'm not there, or if he's developing chronic barking, or any of those bad habits. I needn't have worried, apparently. He was being a quiet little dream, taking a nap in his crate. When I walked in I saw that while Theo had peed and pooped, he had done both on his puppy pad! What a good boy! I'll be heading home soon and hope to find an equally happy site. I'm hoping that yesterday was just Theo getting used to being alone, and in the future he'll have a better time of it. I'll keep you posted!

Still Learning New Things

I know it's been two weeks and I haven't been posting hardly at all, let alone with the regularity I want to. Work has been crazy, Theo has been crazy. It's a busy time and I'll hopefully be able to post more about it this week. For now I'll just talk about one interesting piece of information I learned yesterday.

I consider myself to have done a fair amount of research on dogs. I've read endless articles online as well as a few books on how to raise puppies and dogs in general. And still, after all that, there's basic information I'm still missing out on. While talking to my mom yesterday I mentioned that Theo doesn't like being wet, so he never wants to be outside when it's rainy and wet and he didn't like his bath. She said that dogs have a higher body temperature than humans, so they feel cold more than we do. She also said that when we give Theo baths, we should make the water warm so that he doesn't get cold. How about that? No wonder he hated his bath. I was thinking he was a baby, and like human babies, if we made the water too warm, it would feel hot to him. It was obvious that he felt cold because he was shivering, so we decided to make it warmer the next time, but now I know why he was so cold.

I just can't believe that after all the information I've read on "bringing your puppy home" and "raising your puppy", no one bothered to mention such a basic thing! Unless someone tells me otherwise, I tend to think of things from a human perspective. I have no idea what the body temperature of a dog is. But now that I'm armed with this information, I think I can be a better puppy owner because of it. Thanks mom!