So I awoke after 8am on Saturday. I planned on waking up early to go to breakfast with Chris but for some reason my alarm clock didn’t work. Good thing it was not a work day. I hopped in the shower with some unexpected zeal and then went to work in my office/Mack’s den to finish prepping everything for him. My wife took a shower and met me downstairs and we were off to pick him up. My point for this whole paragraph is to show how wide-awake I was. I am usually not a morning person. I wonder why that happened?
I was excited:
10:00am on a Saturday, might as well be 5:00am, but I’m ready
We got to the Breeder’s house just before 10am and got a goodie bag for Mack and we signed some papers with the kids who watched over all the puppies for what has consisted of every waking moment. It was really cool to see the kids handling the paperwork and taking care of business. We left rather abruptly, not knowing if another family was on our heels and also not wanting to make the hand-off even more difficult for the kids that had grown to love our Mack and the others.
On his first day, Mack met our Grandson, Cayden, and our Daughter, Stephanie, as well as Son, Deryck, and his fiance, Kyra. It was a busy day, but he was very good and had only a few accidents. We ran him outside mid-stream and he would go #1 and #2, then come in to a big treat. I’m cautiously optimistic, but I think he’s really advancing quickly toward being house-trained. I know there will be some missteps along the way, but it’s going very well so far. We gave him a quick bath too to get the litter smell off of him. Partly just because I wanted to see if that would help Chris’ allergies a bit. It kind of did, but she mentioned he could use a bath again. Someone just didn’t grow up with animals like I did. 🙂
He can sit on command, most of the time. The clicker is getting his attention and he understands the “click means treat” concept. His first night was tough for him, but he would cry for a bit and I’d watch him from a cracked door and he’d calm down. At 2:00am, he woke up and cried, then calmed a bit and laid down and I went in the room and jumped on my work computer for a bit and he was just fine. He just went from eight fellow dogs sleeping with him, to no one. Tough to do, even with a blanket with their scent. He woke up at 6:00am and we laid around for a bit and then went downstairs. He pooped and peed right away outside and came in to a big treat again.
I like this picture because it looks like a majestic Boxer done in Oil-based paint.
Mack The Boxer 