Phoebe Files

Our furry troublemaker is five months old tomorrow, and still as rambunctious as ever.  She's good at getting into mischief, like stealing socks from the hamper, tissues from the bathroom trash every time the door is left open, and sneaking into Gavin's room to hide under his bed with legos in her mouth as soon as she discovers his door hasn't been closed.  Boy, is she fun?!?  

We found out in September that Phoebe has a form of mange that we have been treating.  We'll go back next week for another skin scrape to see if the medicine she's been on for the last 30 days have taken care of the mites, and hopefully her fur starts to fill in again.  Poor girl has lots of small patches on her face and legs where the fur is thinning or bald.  Of course, she now has a large scrape on the top of her head that she did to herself yesterday during a game of fetch when she decided to try to jump through the swing set.  That one may or may not fill back in....we may end up with a dog that has a bald spot on the top of her head for the rest of her life.  Typical Phoebe, I suppose!  Crazy girl.

I try to take her with me as many places as I can through the day, but she doesn't exactly make car rides enjoyable.  She's still such a puppy and likes to try to chew on seat belts, the rubber mats, or whatever else she can figure out how to get her mouth around.  I can't wait for the teething/mouthing phase to pass.  She's lost five teeth over the last week, so I know we're making progress, but geesh!  All the kids clothes seems to have tiny holes in them and I'm over it....

Unfortunately, Phoebe is a digger.  Thankfully, the yard can be easily repaired!  I guess it's the lesser of two evils.  I'd much rather her be digging the yard than chewing baseboards and furniture.  But still...ugh!  I hate that she's a digger, but she is a dog!  She's also become food aggressive and now eats only in her crate.  I'm hoping she grows out of that, but I know it could be a long time before that happens.   

I am determined to get her trained to be a well behaved dog, and I'm so glad we enrolled in Puppy School that our vet's office was offering.  We took a chance because it was the first time this class was ever offered, but Jarrod and I have both learned so much and I totally adore the instructor.  She's brilliant and so knowledgeable about dogs.  I love how she's been extremely available and excited to work with us on Phoebe.  She sees every Sunday how she tests us and has offered us so many suggestions.  We're working hard on getting Phoebe to walk with the gentle lead, and this week we actually started tethering.  If she's not in her crate, she's usually tied to me so that she can't be getting into trouble.  I'm committed to trying this for a week or two and seeing the progress we make.  I'll update soon!

Her name is Phoebe McFlufferpants

It's been a long time coming.  When we lost our sweet Shirley in April 2014, Jarrod said we wouldn't be getting another dog.  His tune had changed - he had once said that I would need to take Shirley when her time came to be put down and come home with a new puppy that day, but losing Shirley took a toll on all of us, especially him.  He wasn't ready for a new dog.  

Riley, however, talked about Shirley every single day for over a year.  Many of those days included tears, and she so wanted Shirley to come back, or a new dog in our family.  Around Christmas time, the conversation started and I had to explain that Santa doesn't bring puppies as gifts, and that Mommy doesn't do puppies in the middle of winter.  There was no way I was going to be outside every couple of hours for potty breaks in the snow and freezing temps.  The next thing we knew, it was about May and Jarrod was finally ready to add a new furry friend to our home.  But the timing wasn't right in my opinion.  We were leaving for vacation near the end of June and I didn't want to bring a new dog into our home just to turn around and have to board her for a week and confuse her.  It was HARD for him to be patient, but I finally convinced him.  He's so stubborn!

Alabama came and went, and we filled out the lengthy application to adopt through a lab rescue in Tulsa.  We were excited to be approved and were contacted by the foster mom of the first pup that we fell in love with, Dibbs.  Of course, we thought she'd be in our home shortly.  However, Dibbs' foster mom was very adamant that she wasn't ready for a home with kids.  We were a bit confused, and felt like the things she was saying was just typical puppy behavior, but she insisted and said she'd never told anyone that a dog she was fostering was suitable for kids, but that she really felt strongly about it.  So, we moved on.  Dog #2 'wasn't ready for adoption for 10-14 days' but was posted with a 'congratulations on your new home' photo about four days later.  Hmmm.  Dog #3 was my secret favorite.  I was SO excited to meet her....and apparently she was a good dog because she never even made it for adoption...the foster family decided to keep her.  By this time, weeks had gone by and I could tell Jarrod was getting more and more impatient.  He started looking up breeders and I kept my fingers crossed for a 1-2 year old lab to come along.  Next up, came Madison, and she was a lab mix but really sweet.  We were excited to meet her, but as our luck would have it, the foster family didn't contact us until Sunday afternoon, and being 2.5 hours away and with Jarrod's work schedule, their work schedule, and Riley's birthday party the next weekend, it would be at least 7 days until we could even meet her, and there was no telling if another family would get there before us and be approved.  That was kind of the end for Jarrod.  An ad for chocolate lab puppies was in the paper that day and he called and was told there were 7 females available, which he took as a sign....  He convinced me to 'go look,' but I knew what that meant.  I knew we were coming home with a puppy that night.  

And hours later, we were in the car with this little lady...

Picking her up was nothing like when we got Shirley.  There, we had played with all the puppies, met the mom and dad, knew their weights, etc.  This time around, it was such a whirlwind.  It was so super hot, the old man that had bred the puppies was dripping in sweat, they were bringing the puppies out to the front just a few at a time...it was kind of chaotic.  We saw the mom and dad from a distance, but between the heat and trying to keep the kids calm (and Riley not so scared about the jumping puppies) we never even asked how much they weighed.  Duh.  This little one seemed pretty calm there, and we of course fell in love with her little face.  And despite trying to convince Jarrod to come back to pick her up on Tuesday (because I had such a busy Monday) that didn't work either and we were in the car on the way home with a pup on my lap.

Phoebe was the name I'd had picked out for years and years.  But, the kids wanted a part of the naming, too...so we welcomed Phoebe McFlufferpants into our home on July 19, 2015.

Can you tell how loved this girl is already?  Jarrod was one happy guy that night!

The first few days were rough.  Like, really rough.  Riley was way more scared of Phoebe than I even anticipated.  She spent the first three days standing on our couch the entire day, screaming if the puppy got near her, and needing to be carried from one room to the other.  The jumping and puppy biting completely freaked her out and I was way overwhelmed.

This little guy, though....he was in love from day one, and while he had to get used to the jumping and puppy biting, too, he's been so helpful, even taking that one bite to his thumb that drew blood like a champ (after the bandaid was applied, that is...).  He's suffered the most holes in his clothes from her jumping on him, but he's been 100% committed to her.

It's been a month (tomorrow) and Riley is much better!  The house training is going really well, and we're working on manners.  She's signed up to start puppy school through our wonderful vet's office next month, which I hope will be helpful, because we need to get the behavior down asap.  I know it will just make everything better around here.

Phoebe's great in her crate and sleeps through the night now (yay!).  She isn't awful on a leash, but has some improvements to make.  Unfortunately, she's a digger...something we never dealt with with Shirley.  My attempts to stop the digging didn't help at all...so for now we're just trying to walk her more and hoping we get the digging under control soon. She loves to chew on the most random things - like the brick of our fireplace, rocks from the yard, or she'll attempt to put the refrigerator in her mouth - crazy dog.  

She went from 15.5lbs at her very first vet appointment to 22 lbs last week.  We go back next month for her next set of shots.  If the bathroom door is left open, she goes for the trash.  If the closet door is left open, she goes for the socks in the laundry basket.  She's a licker...and loves to lick the lotion off of Jarrod's legs if she can sneak her way into the bathroom while he's getting ready for work.  

Phoebe's favorite way to sleep is on her back.  She loves to be outside in the backyard (digging, of course) and is in heaven when she gets a new squeaky toy.  Trying to work those puppy teeth, we started giving her all the empty plastic bottles/jugs from the fridge and she LOVED them - 2liters, milk jugs, juice bottles...doesn't matter!  She's already eaten her first foreign object and thankfully, passed it quickly so we didn't have to worry too long about stomach issues.

I know Phoebe is going to be a great addition to our family, and we're so excited to introduce her to our Ohio fam in November!

Love you, Phoebe McFlufferpants.