Long time no blog...

Soo, I suck :(

I cannot believe how quickly time passes.  I just noticed that it has been since JULY since I've posted.  So much has happened and life is insanely busy.

I'll do a fast recap....

August - we went to CO and I boarded her at a local kennel.  She was in great hands and I had no reason to worry :)  we also did lots of hiking and riding on my aunt and uncles boat.

Sept/Oct - took obedience classes and she graduated!

 November- road trip to Wisconsin

Tight quarters in the car!

Aspen and her BIG cousin, Max

December - Christmas!

Photo credit: A Click of Life Photography

January - LOTS.OF.SNOW

March- Rory and I went to a dog friendly inn in NH.  It was a lovely place and we got some great hiking in!

Hiking in the snow

Fast asleep on the ride home!

Now, here we are today!  I'll make it a goal to be better about blogging.  I really want to have this 'diary' to keep as Aspen grows.  We have a lot of camping and hiking planned for this spring and summer so stay tuned!

(The alignment on some of these photos is funky for some reason, I'll figure it out as I go along, I guess!)

Busy

I've been pretty busy lately with work and school.  I still make sure Aspen gets two walks per day (minimum of one mile each) and a few rounds of fetch but I'm not getting her out and socialized as much as I'd like.  Only one more week of classes, one week of finals then I'm off for three weeks! Yayay! :)

As awesome as that is, it also means that my Colorado trip is right around the corner... and even though I need a vacation now more than ever, I'm having a LOT of anxiety about leaving Aspen at the kennel.  All of these "what ifs" are running around in my head.

We've been working on some obedience, now that she's learned her name :)
She has "sit" about 90% of the time and "come" is only at about 60% - She gets distracted VERY easily!

Her little puppy legs are everywhere!

But here she is, sitting and waiting for her treat!

I'm looking forward to starting obedience classes with her when we get back from CO and really getting her obedience down.  Especially "come".  She hates her crate so much so now she's very skeptical about coming to us because she doesn't want to go in.  I feel bad and I'm not sure how to remedy it.  I'm researching but everything tells me to ignore her and she'll get used to it.

And finally:

Snuggly pup

She sleeps in her crate at night but after her 5am potty break, she comes in my bed to snuggle :)

Catching up...

I've tried blogging twice before with no success but third time is a charm... right?

Anyway, let me get caught up here.

In June 2014, I made the crazy, spontaneous decision to adopt a puppy.  A friend of mine posted a picture of a puppy that she was adopting and said that she had 3 sisters in need of homes... these pups were being fostered in Louisiana after being pulled from a high kill shelter at only 6 weeks old!  They are lab mixes- not sure what the other half of the mix is.  I scanned through the photos of the available pups and fell in love with the one with little white toes.  :)

I sent my amazing boyfriend a text saying, 'this pup needs a home- she's cute, huh?'... The enabler that he is replied, 'yep, call the lady.'  OKAY!  I called, had 2 phone interviews and decided that Cricket was the pup for me.  I told my boyfriend (Rory) that we were now the proud owners of this adorable little girl.  He said that was great but the name needed to go.

That night, over dinner, we discussed names.  I pulled out my list:

Maggie? No.
Luna? No.
Lexi? No.
Laci? No.
Emma? No.

... I was giving him a lot of options....

Roxy? No.
Aspen? ........ Aspen?..... Yeah!

Great! Now we had about a month to get all of her supplies.  It was the longest month of my life!

Fast forward the tape...

On July 5, we picked Aspen up in CT and brought her home.  She was pretty tired from her trip and slept a lot the first day.  She seemed very unenthusiastic for the first few days.  We were told that she was the hyper one- that she CLIMBED out of the chain link kennel!  For the first 3-4 days that we had her, she didn't even wag her tail at us.  Poor girl was probably so confused.  Today, a week and a half later, she wags her tail, hops around and is SO excited when we come home.  She's a bouncy, happy pup!

We are in the joyous stage of housebreaking.  Can't wait for that to be over- although she is a fast learner.

This girl definitely needs to be kept busy so goals for her are as follows:

Basic Obedience- started
CGC certification
Agility training- not sure to what level yet

Rory and I love to hike and camp so we plan on taking her along on those adventures as well.  I also read about a program called "Tail Waggin Tutors" that I'm interested in doing with her.  You and your dog go to libraries and read with little kids- right up my alley as I love to read and I love my pup!

So, that's the short version of the last couple of weeks... I'll end with some photo's (sorry they're crappy cell phone pics):

Relaxing after a nice long walk

Look at that face!!!

Love her!

On the drive to her forever home from CT

First 'selfie'

Thanks for reading!