Picking up the Puppymobile

Up at 7am this morning, so Ruby had let us have a bit of a lie in. When I got up, she was laid in her crate but had done a poop all over her blanket. Cue some cleaning up of bedding, crate and doggy. She seems to have settled down after the diarrhoea saga and I'm at the point where I am having to decide whether to use the divider in the crate to make it smaller. It might help with the training by deterring Ruby from going to the toilet in the crate. Then again, most mornings, if she has done anything it will usually be on the puppy pad inside the litter tray. A darn site easier to clean up than doing it on her bed. I might give it another few weeks until she is that bit bigger. 

Today was the day that I picked up the new car. The VW Passat estate that will be Ruby's mode of transport to nice places once she can start to go out. It has plenty of room for a travel crate and is a real nice car to drive. I have to say that I was sorry to see my Volvo S40 2.0D go as it has served me well. But it was starting to get a bit old (8 years old) and it was likely that some serious money would have needed to be spent on it. Still, I liked that car a lot. Hey-ho, life goes on. At least if I need to transport a wardrobe or grandfather clock I won't need to hire a van.

Ruby has flipped between lively and sleepy all day. Sarah is starting to get irritated that Ruby can jump/nip at her a lot and whatever she does it seems to have little effect. I appreciate that puppies are going to do it but I can often quickly calm her and stop her doing it to me; whereas Ruby doesn't seem to react to the same strategy with Sarah. I think I need to do some more reading on tips to establish the pack hierarchy.

Although Ruby has not been too bad at chewing things she shouldn't, when she gets excited she can have a right go at her dog bed.

DON'T JUDGE ME!

Here she is after being told to stop chewing the cushion in the bed. She had pulled it out from the bed and was ragging it around (having a great time). I distracted her with something more interesting but she soon went back to the bed. She likes the woolly pile on one side of the cushion and will tug at it, then start digging at it until she can push her nose underneath. She then gets a grip and pulls it out from the bed.

As you can see, she is good at effecting a "What?...surely you're not blaming me.." pose.