living with a puppy | The Contented Crafter

It’s been a busy week. We had one of our favourite visitors who needed to be loved to bits especially because she always leaves a little treat 🙂 There were many walks to be taken. We went to the dog park and the beach. We made new friends and met up with some old ones too. We did training. And despite all this busyness and exercise, Siddy keeps right on growing. He now weighs over 4 kg. He is becoming a ‘big boy’. We’ve been concentrating on trying to convince puppy that jumping, biting, licking and whining at every one who enters the house is not a good idea. Cries of “No, stop, cease, desist!” just weren’t working so we were forced to listen to the training experts and do the whole tuck hands away and ignore procedure. It worked remarkably well and Siddy has learnt to wait mostly patiently for whatever attention or activity is about to be offered. Life is slowly gaining some order I thought to myself smugly. Then Siddy surprised himself – and me most of all – when he discovered he could jump onto the lounge chairs. Once he was on a chair, things that once were safe became decidedly at risk

Orlando is cool with it all though. He has his trusty right hook and knows how to use it! Wap, wap wap!! We have head butts and nose touches and even a little leaning in for a nuzzle first thing in the morning. Puppy has lowered his energy and is calm and quiet [mostly] around the cat.

In the evenings I have been busy learning how to make knitted bunnies for a project I am working on. [Teaser: The project is a very long overdue secret gift for two blogger friends!] As this particular creative process wasn’t anywhere on my radar until it was suggested, my crocheted mandala is still on the back-burner – well off the stove altogether if I am honest – as Siddy found the beginning rounds I had made and disappeared with them under the sofa, where I eventually discovered them chewed to a felted, matted mess.

The suggestion and pattern link was sent to me by my new friend Gallivanta at Silkannthreades I got the germ of a good idea and another great blog to follow 🙂 Heaven! First I made this bunny as per the recipe

So cute huh? You just knit a square, run a few stitches and voila a bunny 🙂 But way too big for what I have in mind. I wondered if a crochet bunny would do it – so I made this one

Sorry about the very poor shot – Suffice to say it didn’t work. The crochet left too many gaps and the bunny was still too big – and anyway this is what happened to him

Next I made two much smaller bunnies and finally arrived where I wanted to be – Meet the little Hug Bunnies

I haven’t made pom-poms for many years, but it’s a bit like riding a bike and a happy hour was spent making bunny tails.

And finally, the second successful set – even smaller:

I’m quite pleased with them, they look really cute and are completely unsuitable for anything else except looking cute!

So that is step one of the project completed, the next bits should be quite straight forward. Stay tuned.

Thanks for coming by today, I love that you did! 🙂

As his twelve week birthday approached, young Siddy seemed to suddenly get the hang of several things. Most importantly, potty training got finally sorted when he understood that weeing in general didn’t earn a treat, but weeing in a particular place did. That bit of penny dropping quickly extended to pooping – I am escorted proudly to the spot by an excited puppy who trots around in ever decreasing circles waiting for the reward that is rightfully his. We are all most pleased with this new found clarity 🙂

We visited his friends at the vet’s where Siddy got his next lot of shots and a check up and weighed in at double the weight he was on his previous visit a month earlier. At this rate he will grow up to be a proper sized dog!

In this land-mark twelfth week we also learned how to be mostly nicely behaved in the creative room. This allowed much progress to be made – here are three teaser shots

In his thirteenth week Siddy finally understood that sitting as quietly as possible when Orlando came by earned him a nose to nose meeting. Unfortunately for Siddy, Orlando doesn’t always choose to acknowledge the seated and barely controlled little pup waiting hopefully for his morning kiss. But we all live in hope that Orlando will climb down from his high horse of indignation at some stage and gracefully capitulate and allow the little fellow to shower him with love.

At around 8 every evening a little ritual takes place that I hope to be able to capture on film when the light is better. Pup gathers, one by one, his favourite toys. They get a vigorous shaking and are placed in carefully chosen spots at the base of which ever piece of furniture Orlando is seated atop. This is accompanied by much growling and excited whimpers and dashings to and fro. Orlando leans forward in an interested, but dignified manner, keeping an alert eye on the minutiae of the operation. When enough toys are arranged and pup is pleased with his work, he gives them all a final dust-up, an encouraging growl and then abruptly sits down and looks up at the cat. At which point Orlando pretends to be not at all interested and Siddy lies down to wait for his gift to be accepted. Generally nothing much happens for the next five to ten minutes, then Siddy gathers up all his toys and returns them to bed and basket, or scatters them about my feet. I am appreciative and he soon perks up.

But you can see from this, that Orlando has still not relented his stand – however, we are undeterred and Siddy and I live in hope.

In the time Siddy has been here our daily walks have extended from half blocks to full blocks, two blocks, three blocks. Then we started measuring in terms of how long we were out for. First walks of five minutes extended to fifteen minutes, twenty minutes, thirty minutes. We explored our immediate neighbourhood thoroughly and began to go further afield. Walks of forty-five minutes took us quite far and finally an hour saw us venturing past the local shopping centre and up the hill.

As he got stronger, he got faster. Our slow perambulations became brisk walks. Siddy knew his routes, he was in charge, I was hanging onto the lead and being towed along behind. I heard myself considering getting a pair of roller blades so he could tow me. My wee fella was ready for a new adventure.

With YD and her posh new camera in tow, two days ago on a warm almost summery morning, we set off for the beach.

Siddy discovered seaweed

And met his first other dog, a noble and gentle role model

and another, bouncier friend came to say ‘Helloooo!’ and beam for the camera

We walked through ‘the sticks’ all that is left of an old pier. I was heading one way

but Siddy went the other

The outing was a huge success!

It was so grand that we went back today, in quite different weather conditions and walked mostly off leash for an hour and twenty minutes! Pooped puppy, pooped Mumma!

Thanks for coming by today, I’m so happy that you did! 🙂