A New Puppy in My House

I have a new puppy in my house. My son and daughter-in-law decided that I should have a dog so they found this puppy for me. She’s adorable. I named her Penny because of her color. She looks like a lucky Penny.  Chris and I talked about her in our recent podcast episode.

Training a Puppy

The last time I had a puppy was when my son was young and my husband was around to help with puppy chores. He loved dogs so he did most of the basic house training and then I worked on things like sit, stay, come. Therefore, I’m feeling rather inept on dog training.

Penny is doing a good job of learning though I’m wondering who is actually getting house trained. Is it Penny? Or is it me learning to watch her for signals to go out? Probably a bit of both.

Because I didn’t want to just leave a new puppy alone for long, I cut back on my exercise routine, such as it was. Fortunately, after about a week, I was able to leave Penny in her crate long enough to go out for a run.

Chewing

I worry about her chewing on cords so I crated her when I was riding my indoor cycle too.

She chews on things so I need to keep a close eye on her. My running shoes apparently are a puppy’s dream chew toy.

So far, we’ve managed to go on some short walks. Today was a beautiful morning and Penny had slept all night so we went for a slightly longer walk than we’ve been doing. It will be great when she’s able to walk for some distance. I hope that one day she’ll be able to run with me but she needs to mature more before we can start that. Maybe next year she’ll become a runner.

Having a puppy during all of this social distancing is actually great. She’s company and it’s good to have someone who is happy to see me. I just have to remember that puppyhood is a short period of time really so the chewing and jumping and general puppy behavior won’t last forever. In the meantime, I am stocking up on toys and chewbones. I’m really enjoying having a new puppy in my house.