Welcome Home Knox!

Saturday morning we went to pick up our other baby from puppy school, and he is big!  Ok, maybe not huge but he had certainly grown over the past couple weeks.  I was afraid he wouldn't remember us, but I think he did.  At least once we got back to the house I'm pretty sure it was familiar to him.

Now he does great with the five basic commands- sit, stay, heel, come, and down.  I thought we would have to work with him a lot more to master these, but we really haven't had to.  We keep reinforcing them, but he gets it just about every time.  Its nice now because on our walks he walks on my left side, (instead of running everywhere all the time and getting both him and me tangled in his leash) goes when I go, and stops at my feet when I stop.

I would say he is house-trained now as well.  He did have one accident last night, but Chris thinks that was more our fault.  He got to the door we just didn't quite get that he was wanting to go outside so he had a little accident just inside the door.  He'll get it though.  One accident in five days (I'm counting on no accidents the rest of today...) is a new record.

And probably the biggest success so far...he doesn't bark or whine or cry when we put him in his crate!!  Seriously, this in and of itself was worth the money we paid.  Before he left, Knox would whine, cry, and bark in his crate ALL NIGHT LONG.  It was awful.  I felt so bad for the little guy.  He still doesn't like his crate and it takes some coaxing to get him in, BUT he doesn't make a peep.  Love it!

He still doesn't really bite or chew things at all, which we are thankful for.  My next several goals are to teach him "off" so he doesn't jump on people, "place" so he can go to his dog bed when I need him to, and teach him the difference between his and Phoebe's toys.

We used Man's Best Friend for his training and have been very pleased with the whole process from drop off, training, picking him up and "our training."  They say training the dog is easy; the hardest part is training the parents.  I believe it.

Knox was 11lbs when we got him and now he is 16.5lbs.
Look at how he's grown-

He used to be able to fin underneath her swing

Now his head is higher than her tray sitting down!

When Knox came home on Saturday he was a happy, healthy puppy.  He played and ran around and ate all his dinner.  Come Sunday morning though we had one sick puppy :(  He threw up a couple times Sunday morning and wouldn't eat or drink anything.  He was also pretty lethargic.  By Sunday evening he had drank a little bit, eaten a little white rice, and hadn't thrown up anymore.  Monday he drank a little bit more and was much more playful and puppy-like although he still wasn't eating much.  He had eaten different food at puppy school so I thought the transition in food upset his stomach and that he probably didn't like our food as much.  At puppy school he was eating Fromms puppy food which is about $20 for 4lbs.  Ridiculous!  I love Knox but my dog is not going to eat better than me.  I mean do you know what kind of raw meat scraps you could get for $5/lbs?!?!  So our mistake not sending his own food with him.

We went to the vet yesterday to get his third round of shots and to maybe get some recommendations on food and how to help his tummy and find out that Knox is one sick puppy!  He had a pretty high fever so the vet thinks he probably picked up some virus-type bug at puppy school.  Poor guy.   I guess that's a risk you take sending your puppy to be boarded or a risk you take sending your baby to daycare.  The vet actually said its less likely for a puppy to pick something up from "day-care" than it is for a baby to pick something up at daycare.  But anyways they gave him a shot to help bring down his fever, some medicine to take for the next few days, and some food that will be easy on his tummy (that he loves!)  He is doing much better today so hopefully we can knock this little but out in the next few days!