Many of you have recently commented on how big Luke is getting, and he sure is growing up fast. He turned 7 months old last week. We don’t know his exact weight until our next vet visit (tomorrow) because he’s gotten over 50 pounds and too big to pick up to weigh at home anymore! I told you that he recently graduated from Basic Obedience class, and we’re so proud of him! Our friend Jenna at Love is Being Owned by a Husky sent Luke this great card:
Luke was the youngest in his class, which surprised us, but he still did very well. Not the best or anything, but very well. We need to work more with him at home, but he has the commands sit and lay down perfected. He is making great progress with stand, come, stay, and leave it. My hubby and I were supposed to walk with him together so he could show me how to work with him on heel and the other walking commands. Now that school is over we need to just set a time to do that. I work with him daily on the basics when we are just doing our normal routines, but we need to spend a little more structured time. Luke did better at school where things were structured, but he gets a little more distracted at home.
My hubby plans to take him to Obedience Level 2, though we’re not signed up yet. After that, we are hoping to try some agility. He loves the tunnel we got him, and he just loves to jump over and onto things (he often jumps right over his sister Sheba’s back, when she’s standing). We hope to take him swimming soon too, and maybe see if there could be any interest in dock diving down the road. Our Lab mix Maggie would have been great at that, and I wish we had tried it with Sheba.
We feel pretty confident now (knock wood) that Luke is 100% housebroken and today for the first time we let him have the run of the house with his sisters, instead of being confined to the large mud room. He’s had some very short times where we allowed it but this was the first time when I was at work for 6 hours. Do you think that was wise, considering the following things?
The above was some of his handiwork in the mud room. But we’re hoping he was just bored being alone and that he won’t do this to other furniture in the house (these are old pieces of furniture that we knew he might chew on when we left them in the room). But there was this too, which is the dog’s couch in the office where they hang out the most:
He did that when I was home, upstairs taking a shower! He doesn’t confine his mischief to the indoors though, here’s some of his outdoor projects:
Does anyone else have a dog who strips bark off of trees? Again, these trees are kind of half dead anyway, so we’re not overly upset about this.
This is what he did to the screens on our sliding doors to the deck. I apologize that the photos aren’t better, it was really hard to capture with all the reflections out there. Now, in Luke’s defense, these screens already had some holes in them, or were coming out in places. He just “improved upon” the damage that was already there. He probably actually did us a favor, because now my hubby is forced to finally fix them! Now, please don’t think that we leave the dogs outside for hours on end unsupervised. He does these kinds of things in mere minutes!
He tends to get obsessed with certain things….like the pool plug I told you about recently….or the toilet paper…..but once you take them away from him he seems to forget. We finally outsmarted him on the pool plug and he seems to have forgotten about it.
He really does seem very smart. We have several exits to our house, and the dog yard wraps around it. No matter where we go out, he knows what part of the yard we’re going to show up in next, or where we’ve gone in the house and what room to find us in. He quickly learned from his sister Cricket how to go in and out of the screened porch on his own. He knows, if we don’t show up right away to let him in the slider, that he can go down the deck and around the house and come in through the porch.
So by now, you probably think we’re crazy letting him have the run of the house. But Day 1 went quite well! He didn’t get into anything (at least not that I found). I am not foolish enough to think that it couldn’t still happen, so we won’t take down the gate or put the mud room back to it’s pre-puppy arrangement just yet. At least we feel optimistic that he is growing up. As much as I love puppies….who doesn’t….I think older dogs are just the best. Luke is looking like he is going to grow up to be a great one!
Thank you to our blog hop hosts: Alfie’s Blog, Snoopy’s Dog Blog, and My Brown Newfies! Please visit them and the other participants through the links below
Hey Luke
Congrats on doing well at class buddy and also on being allowed to wander around your house! 🙂 I find I get more privileges when I agree not to do any mischief when the humans aren’t around, so I save mine for when I’ve got an audience and I’m a very good boy when they’re not, I sure don’t ever want to go back into that crate thing again! 🙂
Good luck buddy,
Your pal Snoopy 🙂
Thanks, Snoopy! I think that is a very good plan, thanks for sharing! I like having my freedom so I’m going to do my best to save my mischief for when the pawrents are home!
Your pal, Luke
he’s cute as anything!! Glad to hear he’s doing so well.
I’ll never forget the day I came home to find that puppy Sampson had chewed the end of the footrest on the breakfast bar. I was terrified to tell hubby, but he just laughed and said he didn’t like it anyway. 🙂
My hubby used to get SO upset with things like that when Sheba or Moses destroyed something. Finally, with Luke, I’ve gotten through to him that they’re just “things” and always replaceable. Heck, even the cats have done some serious damage to woodwork in this house!
Luke, you’re a hoot! I have heard dogs bark before but but have never seen debarking like that!
Apparently he got his “barks” confused…LOL.
I have a chewer and given a chance the chewing would continue. Remember he recently ripped up his bed/pad at a hunt test? Some dogs just don’t give it up too easily. 🙂
Oh, I know how much you deal with it too! I always feel better when I hear those stories about Freighter! Moses never outgrew it either, even at 8 years old we had to keep the bathroom doors closed when we weren’t home so he wouldn’t get into things. I still have hope that Luke will outgrow it though!
OK…chewing on furniture I get but taking the bark off the tree outside?!? And so far up? That’s a bit much. I sure hope Luke outgrows his chewing craze or you may not have anything left!
Oz
No kidding, right? I do think he’s slowing down on it though. I haven’t actually seen him out at the tree for a few days at least now.
I have a dog couch that is very similar in appearance!
We LOVE our leather couches!! We don’t have to worry about whether they are dirty or wet or anything.
BOL! Dude, Luke how on earth did you manage to de-bark that tree?!
BOL….he started at the bottom and just tore up from there!
You and I seem to be on the same wave length at times. Ok Gambler is 3 now and I finally left him in the house running loose with the other two while I was out side mowing. He did grab some buns off the counter and shredded the plastic and ate all the buns so back to jail with him. Gman has also wrecked screens. I would leave Luke run free too to give it a try. I love his markings.
Thanks, though you weren’t very encouraging with the story about Gambler at 3 years old….LOL. I’m glad you think we are doing the right thing giving it a try anyway! We try to be careful about what is left out when we leave the house too.
7 months is still pretty young. Hopefully Luke won’t let you down with his new privileges.
Since she was a puppy, we’ve fed Honey all her meals in a food toy of some sort. She always has to work for her meals. One nice side effect is that she’s always ready for a nap shortly after breakfast. Perhaps you want to try a really stimulating food toy with Luke? 🙂
Thank you, we will keep that in mind. It’s just a little difficult because of the other dogs. Cricket is kind of a food bully, pushing her way into everyone else’s dish if she finishes first (but they aren’t allowed in hers of course). So we’d have to separate him, which of course is not impossible but not ideal either.
We let Bentley stay out at about the same age while we ran to the convenience store. When we came home about 15 minutes later, he had pulled out carpet up in the living room. There was at least a five foot square that he explored. Tucker (our Golden) sat by looking innocent and shaking his head at the crazy pup. Ekk! I’d still be a bit nervous leaving him out but I’m puppy paranoid. Haha
I can see why you’re paranoid! It’s amazing how much destruction than can do in so little time, isn’t it? I’ll be giving an update on how Luke is doing the end of the week. We had done a few short spells before this, and he did OK then.
this brings back memories of when Dakota was younger and chewing on everything in sight!
Yes, we also flashed back to Sheba and Moses as puppies. Cricket wasn’t a chewer though, so at least we had one!
Wow, Luke has caused some mischief, hasn’t he??
Oh yes, he certainly has!
Thanks for posting the card we made for Luke!!! We are so proud of him, and happy to hear day one went so well! We actually have recently been testing the waters of Koda being able to have free roam of the house. He turned one year about a month ago, and he has always been kept in a crate while we would go somewhere. BUT even after properly crate training him, and doing everything we were suppose to, he had extreme anxiety in his crate. He would always poop in it, find ways to escape, etc….so I didn’t want to keep doing this to him over and over again, we tried our luck at leaving him out, and he has done great! No accidents, nothing torn apart, we have left him out 4 or 5 times now, and I know he is much happier this way!
ღ husky hugz ღ frum our pack at Love is being owned by a husky!
Oh, that’s great news for Koda too! Sometimes you do all the things they say you should, and it still doesn’t go right. So you have to try something different.
I always just feel bad for Luke stuck downstairs alone while the girls lounge around upstairs. He did fine, but I still felt bad.
Usually I’m home on Tuesdays but today I had errands and appointments, and Luke did fine for Day 2! Fingers crossed!
Hope things worked out well on his first day alone.
So far, so good….two days in a row now!
Bailie is growing up way too fast too! She is home without being locked up now and it is going well. Katie and I are so mellow, she kind of follows our lead. 5 hours is the max we have done thus far. Mom tries to make sure she is tired out before she is left alone and that helps.
I’m glad Bailie earned her freedom and is keeping it! That’s a good idea, to tire them out, so we’ll try to do that the best we can, though we leave pretty early for work.
Hopefully our girls will also encourage Luke to be mellow.
Oh dear, the newer couch too, looks like my house when Susie was younger, and she still has her days. Like I say, it’s a good thing they are so darn cute and loving.
Good luck!
I don’t see an option for “liking” here, K, but that’s what I would do if I could!
We won’t be buying any new furniture for a while, that’s for sure! 🙂
Oh, and yes, I always say there’s a reason God made puppies so cute!
He’s so darn cute!!!! This was fun to read. Can’t wait to spend more time with him…he’s only met me once. lol.
Thanks! He definitely needs to see more of his Auntie Sheryl, so he can get to know her!