Growing Up Suki - Adventures of Raising a NAID (2024)

13/05/2021

Suki had here first adventure into a real cave today! She seemed to enjoy it, and wanted to go back through. This may be the only cave she gets to explore, so I'm glad she liked it! 😆

12/05/2021

Suki loves using her nose! She still enjoys burying her treats, and makes due with hiding them in shoes and under blankets.

She also works hard sniffing out treats hidden in her snuffle mat.

12/05/2021

This girl had a fun afternoon! We took a hike in our woods, she played with her furry brother, and then was still up for some fetch. No wonder she took a nap right when she got inside (before I could even remove her harness)! She slept right next to the bathtub for over an hour, while each of my kids got a bath. 😆

We are still working on the same commands we have been, and she's been doing great! There were a few weeks there that she just wasn't interested, but she's become food-motivated now that we're using bits of chicken breast again. Tonight she was excellent even with some big distractions.

She's still been wonderful in her crate at night, and the few times it's been needed during the day.

One of my favorite parts of the day is in the morning when I go to let her out of the crate. She always rolls into her side and waits for a belly rub. She LOVES it, and is absolutely adorable. She doesn't want them much during the day, so I try to get in all I can in the morning!

11/05/2021

Suki wants to play with our cats so bad, but they just aren't having it...

11/05/2021

Suki still loves her cousin-bestie, and gets so excited for their weekly playdates! These are from April 11th (4 months old), and May 9th (5 months old)...

11/05/2021

They love their puddles! (April 26th, 2021)

11/05/2021

Some more April fun I'm catching up on posting. Suki's sure growing up fast!

10/05/2021

One of her favorite activities... (April 12th, 2021)

09/05/2021

April was such a busy month of local adventures and vacation that I neglected posting. Over the next few days I'll be catching up on posting some fun from April, so get ready for a little picture overload! 😜

Suki still loves digging! Here are some pictures from a beautiful day in early April. She was about four months old in these.

17/04/2021

Suki had a great week playing in the yard and going for a hike to a "cave". I'm 100% sure she now wants a cave den at our house. She just loves being around all of the kids on our Wednesday hikes. She also got to watch several bikers ride by, and did great!

We left her crated for longer (5-6 hours) a few times these past few weeks with no issues. We don't want to crate her that long regularly, but it's nice to know she can be when needed. She's so sweet when she sees us after a few hours, and loves giving puppy kisses and cuddles. She's also starting to bite a little less each day, which is great! Our biggest challenges when we got her were crate training and biting, so it's great we're almost past those both. Potty training isn't compete yet, but she's doing better with that as time goes on.

She's still a fluffy little teddy bear, and is so nice to cuddle. We're hoping she keeps the fluff, but only time will tell. She's starting to lose her winter coat in little beige cotton balls. We're collecting them in a jar. 😆

08/04/2021

Suki had so much fun with "her kids" at co-op today! We took a hike to a creek, and she had fun digging a hole to rest in.

She was so upset (started going crazy fighting her harness) that I wouldn't let her in the water, but she wants to drink it, and we can't risk more giardia. We missed the previous two weeks, so they were surprised how big she's gotten.

06/04/2021

Suki was cracking me up the other day...

06/04/2021

This sweet girl had another round of puppy shots tonight, and was microchipped. She did great, and is growing so big. She weighs 30 pound now!

Here are a few pictures from the past week...

25/03/2021

It was such a beautiful day here! We spend most of it outside hiking, and wore this girl out!

Suki's gone three days in a row with only one accident inside each day, so that's promising! 🤞 We have been outside more, so less time to go potty inside, but it's still nice.

She's also doing pretty well with her commands outside and with some extra distractions. Our big goal right now is to keep at deterring the play biting. She gets in super-feisty moods throughout the day and goes crazy with those needle-teeth! I've been hitting up the Zak George YouTube tutorials again to refresh, which are definitely informative and inspiring. Overall, I think she's doing really well for 13 weeks old!

25/03/2021

A friend recommended we get a teaser toy, so we bought one the other day. It has been fantastic to exercise and stimulate the dogs with minimal work from us, and will be great if the weather's not ideal for a walk or outdoor play. Not only does Suki enjoy it, but so does our senior lab. He actually goes crazier for it than Suki!

Here's the exact one we bought if you'd like to check it out...

https://www.chewy.com/outward-hound-tail-teaser-refill-dog/dp/113717

23/03/2021

We had a big few days of fun with Suki. She got to meet our friends' young Great Pyrenees and chickens, play with her furry "cousin", go for a hike, play with some new toys, and get her first bath since we've had her. The only thing she wasn't a fan of was the bath. Lucky for her we don't bathe our dogs often!

19/03/2021

It was a pretty normal week. We worked on a lot of the same commands, and added a few new ones, like bow and high-five. She's really grasping fetch a lot better, too. Suki got to socialize quite a bit, as usual, and continues to love the attention. I think our days out with the homeschool co-op kids are her favorite.

W***y is also playing with her more, and they actually started playing tug and wrestling! W***y definitely doesn't want to play as long as Suki, but it's great that they get a little time in each day.

We're still working on potty training. I thought she'd be further along after working on it for nearly a month, but she's still having quite a few accidents, even though we watch her like a hawk, usually in a small area, and take her out often. She does go to the door, and sometimes even rings the bells, but only about a third of the time on a good day. Hopefully it will fully "click" soon! Luckily, she doesn't go in her crate (only twice since we've had her), so that's helpful.

Unfortunately, her buddy Max had to have stitches this week, so she can't see him until he's healed in a few weeks. He might like the break from Suki Velcroing herself to him. 😆

I'm hoping to give her a bath for the first time since we've had her, and introduce her to the dremel this weekend.

13/03/2021

Today didn't start out great, but ended up being a beautiful day!

When I put Suki to bed in her crate, the lights are usually off in our bedroom, so it's pretty dark. Her crate has two doors, and I usually use the one on the side. Unfortunately, last night I didn't realize the door on the end (that I don't pass at all at bedtime) was open, but I didn't think to check it and it was too dark to notice. My husband woke up at 3:30am because he could smell p**p. 🤦‍♀️😬 She at least had tried to go to the door to be let out, since she peed by it. I'll definitely make sure to check both crate doors from now on!

We took a walk in our woods with Suki for the first time today, and she had fun exploring. Of course, so tried to Velcro herself to Max. She also enjoyed a nap outside afterwards.

The funniest part was putting one of our cats in a cat harness I recently found that had been stored away for years. She really enjoyed getting a little time outside! Suki thought she was out there to play, and was sorely disappointed.

12/03/2021

Some cute pictures from the past few days. Suki has been showing us a bigger personality, and reminding us she's an independent girl. I'd say she's gotten sassy, if that's even possible for a dog. She's also getting noticably bigger! She's lost the round fluffball look, and it getting longer and taller.

Her name tag came today with a little misprint...for the second time, so now I guess we have to call her Suki Suki. 😆

I got a few pictures of Suki clinging to Max like Velcro. She's getting too tall to go under him, though, and I never got a picture of that. Sorry! He doesn't seem to mind too much, but definitely isn't interested in playing. W***y finally started to play with her today, so she's excited about that. She loves being with them, but currently she is kept separately a good part of the day so we can work on her training (commands, potty, save crate) and their training separately ("leave it" and resource guarding), and get her on a solid routine.

We are working even more on redirecting her puppy biting, since that's a literal pain in the (insert body part). She's got a boatload of toys, and they definitely help for redirecting. I'm trying to use "leave it" and starting to teach "drop it/release" with treat rewards, and she really seems to get it. It's just harder when the treats aren't handy and she'd really prefer flesh to toys. She's catching on to playing fetch and seems to enjoy it, so that buys us some time away from her needle mouth.

One exciting thing is that she's been napping in her crate without us in the room for several hours a day. That happened sooner than expected out of necessity, and it's going well. She also slept for a six hour stretch last night, which is the longest yet!

I mentioned she loves being outside, which includes taking naps on our gated deck. Last night she came in after a long nap, so I was petting her all over checking for ticks. I was surprised to find a very large beetle hiding in her fur! A few minutes later, she moved off of our huge puff we use as a couch, and there was a live caterpillar that must have also been hiding on her! I can't lie, I was a little grossed out.

09/03/2021

The last two days were great! Suki got to meet more of her extended fur family, and had a blast playing with them.

She also did wonderfully today with her first crate nap. She slept for almost two hours! That's not abnormal for her, but I wasn't expecting her to even fall asleep the first time. (Even I was able to get a little nap. 💚)

The dogs were really excited when they saw it was BarkBox day! I think the favorite toy in this box has been the rabbit in the hat.

Suki also went to the vet today to get more shots. This is the first visit she's had since we brought her home, and they said she's looking good. Hopefully she'll continue to grow strong and healthy!

08/03/2021

She's got it! I didn't think she was getting "shake" at all, but she surprised me tonight...

07/03/2021

It was a pretty good day! Suki enjoyed a pup cup from Starbucks, and got to meet a few of her furry "cousins" today.

We also added a few new lessons to her training since they are things we are doing throughout the day anyway - "tug" for tug-of-war, "go get it" and "bring it back" for fetch, and "ring the bells" for the bells at the door to signal needing to go outside. When we teach new commands like these, we just wait until she is already or about to do the action, and then say that action's name while giving her a reward. We've added in distractions while we do some of our daily training sessions, which have been mostly Alice jumping around and having fun. Suki did better than I expected with the distractions today.

She's still going into her crate throughout the day, which I'm very happy about, but we haven't had her in it except when we're in the room. We're going to start making sure she takes at least one nap a day in it, and hopefully get to being able to leave the room for 20+ minutes this week. Our goal in the next few weeks is to be able to leave her home in the crate while we are out for a few hours so she can get use to it. Since there's almost always someone at home with her, she's had the luxury of being able to do slow transitions with crate training, but it also means we have to make sure to schedule time to leave her alone so she can be prepared for the occasional times it will be needed.

I think the most exciting thing, though, is that she has been consistent with doing well in her crate at night. It's so nice to be at the point where we don't get anxious every night over how bedtime will go. Speaking of bedtime...💤💤💤

05/03/2021

Good morning! I needed to share two funny crate-related things that happened....

The first is that Suki has a special spot she prefers to nap in (we call it her den), and she had been sleeping there the few hours before crate time last night. I woke her up to go outside before I went to bed, and when we came in she walked into her crate (Win! That was the first unprompted walk-in at bedtime). I closed the side door and got into bed. About that time, my husband woke up to use the bathroom. As he walked back to bed, and passed Suki's crate, he asked, "Do you want me to close her door"? Her crate has two doors, and in the dark I hadn't realized the front door was open. 🤦‍♀️ That would have been an interesting night!

The second was this morning. After a phenomenal night, I woke up when I heard Suki moving around in her crate (she prefers the cold tray vs. a warm blanket or pad, so it gets a little noisy when she is moving around or has a toy). I went over to let her out for the day, and saw her looking so lonely on a barren side of her crate, and her blanket, toys, and chews were all pushed under the divider out of her reach. Poor thing! She really didn't seem to mind, though.

I described last night as phenomenal for Suki, and I mean it. I don't put her in her crate for the night until I go to bed, and last night was really late compared to the previous nights so far. As I wrote earlier, she walked right into her crate after coming inside. Amazing! She also only let out two little half-whines, which is awesome! When I woke up this morning, I realized she went all night (5 1/2 hours) without needing to go out. Woohoo!!! 🎉🎉🎉 Hopefully this is a trend. I brought her up to our bed for the first time this morning (she won't be sleeping in it), hoping to have some morning cuddles, but I didn't realized until it was too late that I had brought up her evil twin, Needle-Tooth, and she proceeded to puppy-attack my husband's bearded face and my hand. I'm looking forward to get getting past this stage, for sure! She may look sweet in the picture, but she's attacking my arm!

05/03/2021

Suki has been progressing well with her training. We've been working on strengthening all of the commands she's already learned, and focusing on getting her to love her crate. She goes into it a few times throughout the day to chew on a treat, like a bully stick, but still doesn't like when she's actually closed in for any amount of time even with me right there...unless we're doing her training and I'm giving her treats through it. She didn't do as well in it last night as the night before, but it was still decent for a how young she is.

Suki had a lot of fun playing in the sunshine with the big dogs today, and the kids took her for a good walk in the yard.

She was put on a ten day probiotic and a liquid for giardia this week, so hopefully that will help her belly. She's had loose stool since we got her, and we first attributed it to a change in diet and stress from the life change. Monday I noticed a little blood, too, so we took a stool sample to the vet. She should be fine in a week. 🤞

04/03/2021

🎉 Last night went so well for Suki in the larger crate. She did wake up a few times to be let outside, as expected, but only wimpered a few times when she realized she couldn't come right back out. I'm so hopeful that it will only get better from here.

Today was beautiful! Suki got to go with us on a little hike with the our co-op. She loves being around all of the kids, and meeting new people, and they all like having the little fluff around. The kids in co-op liked taking turns waking her and seeing who's stick she prefered to chew on, so Suki was in heaven. The kids stopped for a few hours to play in a creek, so Suki got to get in a good nap. We went to get ice cream after, and Suki absolutely devoured it.

I was really happy to see my son finally getting into really playing with Suki in her element (needle-teeth and all)! He was a carnivore trying to eat her with his hands "mouth", and she was having a blast!

03/03/2021

She's grasping "stay". Woohoo!

03/03/2021

We decided to upsize Suki's crate. We added the divider for now, so she doesn't have access to the entire thing yet, but we're hoping this may help a little. I worked a lot today on getting her comfortable in the new crate, and she did go into it quite a few times to rest and chew on the goodies that were in it. I'm sure it won't fix her crate anxiety totally, but we're hoping it will help decrease it some.

Today Suki seemed to grasp "stand", which is awesome, since that's been the hardest for her. She also has gotten better at "stay". That, "come", and "leave it" are probably the most important to us in the long run. While I've been working with her, I've also taken time each day to teach the two big boys "leave it". It's mostly for our chocolate lab who is horrid around food. We didn't take the time to train him very well when he was young (10 years ago), and now he's nuts, which is one reason we're working so hard with Suki. We won't make that mistake again!

We still need to train Suki with no distractions, but I made the mistake of sharing some of the training treats with one of our cats last week and now she's right with us half of the time. Suki can't concentrate with the cat around. 😸

We've been noticing the past few days that Suki's floppy ears are starting to perk up. We knew they'd eventually stand straight, but I didn't realize it would be so soon! She's only 10 1/2 weeks old.

Well, wish us luck with the crate tonight!

02/03/2021

Sweetie 💘

02/03/2021

Yesterday was more of a video kind of day. 😁 We started the day off with a little scare... Suki's morning poo had a little blood and mucus in it. 🤢 The vet had us bring in a stool sample and she's on a ten-day round of probiotics, but didn't need to see Suki at this point since she was acting normal. We're guessing it's just from the changes in diet since we brought her home. She's on a different dog food and has been trying some new training treats, on top of all of the other new, exciting, and scary things she's discovering.

Speaking of discoveries! Yesterday, she discovered a geode and sled the kids had out. I think she liked them both.

Unfortunately, the big boys don't play with her (probably because they are so old). My husband suggested getting another puppy so they could play together. 😆😆😆 No thank you.

She's doing great with her training, so we added "stay" yesterday. Baby steps, but she caught on to it quickly. So far she's been learning sit, down, up, stand, look at me, leave it, stay, come, roll, and shake. She's got a great grasp of at least half, and is decent at all but stand and shake. She's still working on potty training, and will go to the door maybe a third of the time.

She has been progressively getting worse about being in her crate, so we spent a good amount of time yesterday looking more into what we can do to help her be comfortable in it. She hasn't even had to be in it while we're gone, since we take her everywhere with us, so her crate anxiety is this bad with us in the same. We decided step one was to get a larger crate so she can be a little more comfortable (she's only had one accident in her current crate in the week and a half she's used it, which wasn't even at night, so we are hoping the larger crate won't change that🤞), and we'll start from scratch with getting her comfortable and possibly even enjoy being in it.

01/03/2021

She's loving the chicken as training treats!

01/03/2021

I forgot to post this on Wednesday. Suki decided to "bury" her treat at the park...

01/03/2021

Last night was rough! We found out that Suki does not like to be out in the rain, which it was doing ALL night, so she refused to stay out to do her business. She also really didn't want to be in her crate. Needless to say, we didn't get much sleep.

Today, though, was great! Suki was ready to rock, and was extra playful throughout the day. She has such a chill and independent personality, so I love when she is raring to play with us. She was super excited when I pulled out a few new toys, and is good at keeping herself occupied with them. Chewy for the win!

We took a short hike to my favorite part of the property. It's our own little "waterfall", and it was especially beautiful because of all of the rain we've had. Suki didn't seem interested in going into the water, but she loved being with us and running around.

We finally tried her training using chicken breast, and she absolutely loved it! We also used a little leftover scrambled egg. She didn't want to stop. I'll post some videos shortly.

Here's to hoping for a better night!

28/02/2021

It's nights like this that it's a good think Suki's so darn cute!

28/02/2021

It was a pretty uneventful day here. Suki got to spend a lot of extra time with her human dad, which is nice since I'm the one she usually spend all day with, while I cuddled with a sick kiddo (he's doing a lot better now).

We did add "up" and "stand" to training today. She took to "up" quickly, but "stand" will be a little more challenging. She is hesitant to go for the training treats I use to lure her, and stays seated starting at me as if waiting for me to say "take it", which I can't do unless she stands. It's a Catch 22. 🤦‍♀️😆 Oh, and we tried "roll over" several times just because she's so lazy and wanted to be lying down so much. That went pretty well for a first day.

We've noticed her going to the door a lot more often the past few days to be let out, so I think she's starting to grasp potty training. 🤞🤞

She was also awake in longer stretches today, and has been taking longer naps. I'm ok with that. 😁

Suki got a few surprises in the mail today, one of which is a snuffle mat. You hid food under the flaps and ruffles, and the pet has to sniff them out. She enjoyed it, but it took her about twenty second to just pull the whole thing up and make the food all fall out. 😆 Too smart, I tell you!

The past few nights she was having a hard time sleeping in her crate, and whining to be let out a lot more than the first five or six nights she's been here. It seems like she just really wants to sleep outside, because once we let her outside she'd just curl up in a corner of our deck and go to sleep. (She REALLY loves being outside.) We put a blanket over the top and sides of her crate a few days ago because we noticed she likes to "den", but I thought today maybe it makes her crate too warm, so I removed it. We also put a bag of ice in there to cool down the bedding before we put her in for the night, and gave her a frozen dog toy. Hopefully tonight will go a little better than the past few, but it's not sounding hopeful so far.

27/02/2021

Yesterday we learned that Suki would much rather sleep outside. Many times when she asks to be let outside she just goes to a corner of the deck and goes to sleep. We'll bring her in, and she'll ask to go out again just to sleep. It's nice during the day, since it makes me just relax outside for awhile, but at night it's definitely not ideal. She started to nap in longer increments, too. That was a nice bonus, and allowed me to get some reading done!

Suki got to "play" with the big boys a lot longer. I say "play" because our big boys are almost 11 and 13 years old, and haven't shown any interest in returning her requests to play. W***y still isn't sure about her, and spends most of his time sniffing her and looking for reassurance. Max has already taken up his role of big brother, and seems to really like having her around. She can tell, too! She likes to stand right under him, which is really cute. Currently, she is seperate from them unless we are actively watching. We are trying to reconfigure the indoor setup so they can spend more time together, because she definitely wants to be with them more.

She's getting more adventurous every day! We usually have her on a lead, but occasionally let her run free. She's loving it, and mostly stays right by us or the big boys (who stay within the invisible fence boundary). She did get a little too adventurous and rolled down a little hill, but she didn't seem to mind.

We ended the night at the season opening of our local ice cream shop. Suki loved it! (Yes, ice cream two days in a row. Don't judge! 😆)

26/02/2021

It was a fun day for the dogs! Their first BarkBox came and they loved it! It was a "best of" box. BarkBox was recommended by a friend and we're hoping the new, exciting toys will help keep our chocolate lab, W***y, occupied and less anxious. We're also hoping they'll keep Suki entertained and not chewing things she shouldn't.

It was a beautiful day, so we also took Suki to a nearby village for lunch and ice cream. She did well with all of the different noises, and was excited to get her first puppy cup of ice cream. Yum!

She'll probably be disappointed when we do nothing special tomorrow. 😆

25/02/2021

So...I greatly underestimated how quickly Suki is catching on. Yesterday I thought Suki wasn't taking the treats because she was too full. Today I figured out it's because I wasn't saying "take it"! I was only saying this if we were working on "leave it/take it", but it looks like she associates that with taking any treat now. I still am cutting back on her food a little since she hasn't been finishing it the past few meals.

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