Paz Comes Home!

Wow!  

What a wonderfully crazy day!

I had completely forgotten what it was like to have a puppy in the house!

Today, we, along with 12 other families met with Diana Thomas and Scott Thomas from the TSA puppy program for an orientation session.  After learning a lot more information on the goals for TSA foster families, all of the services TSA provides to foster families and their puppies, health care guidelines and some great tips for raising an "athlete in training" we met our puppy!

Paz is a darling, 9 week old, female yellow lab!  She was having a ball running around in a large, shaded pen with her 7 litter mates and 5 puppies from a second litter.  We had no problems putting on her collar and leash and she seemed quite happy to trot off with Kate when it was time to leave.  It took a little while to load the puppy crate, food and supplies provided by TSA into our truck, but when we were done, we all set off for home and a new adventure!

Now to the part about having a new puppy in the house again...

We haven't had a puppy in 10 years.  Our 2 current dogs are getting old: Jed is now 14 and Ding just turned 10.  They are healthy, calm adult dogs who enjoy hanging out in our yard and nice long naps! We have been blissfully ignorant of all of the challenges a puppy (even a really cute one) bring with it!  Time for us to WAKE UP!!!!

Jed and Ding are still trying to figure out what Paz is and when she will be leaving.  At this point, Jed tolerates her and Ding is just terrified of her!  Safe to say their world has been turned upside down by our little bundle of energy! I'm hoping they will make the transition sooner, rather than later, to a 3 dog family

We've made lots of trips outside today hoping to help her learn to be housebroken.  She had many accidents, mostly because we weren't paying attention to her signs; but overall she made a little progress in "taking a break" outside.  Besides learning to "take a break" and acting as dog referees, the next big challenge for us will be crate training Paz.

Overall, it's been a great day.  We spent lots of time laughing at Paz's antics and oohing and aahing over her.  She also had her first visitors; family and friends dropped by to meet and greet!  We're all exhausted now!  Make sure to check in tomorrow to find out how the first night of crated training went!