Coming Soon

A real blog post- I promise!

At the beginning of June, we'll be camping in New Hampshire near the White Mountains.  I expect to have a lot to tell you and a lot of photo's.

Next weekend, we'll be hiking somewhere.  Location: TBD.

Stay tuned! :)

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 :)

Stellar weekend!

After work on Friday, Rory and I decided to take Aspen to the beach.  I'm very fortunate to live less than 30 minutes from several beaches and I LOVE the ocean!  Most of the beaches allow dogs during off season but we found one that allows dogs year round so off we went.  I forgot two very important things: 1) my horse's longe line so she could run around (without me needing to run haha) 2) my camera.  Damn. So here is a crappy cell phone picture of us:

Aspen LOVED the beach

I'm looking forward to when beach season ends (and her recall is better) and I can let her run around sans leash :)

We spent a good 2 hours romping around the beach and decided to grab a bite to eat.  Of course we chose a location that allowed dogs so Aspen could come along.  She was SO good!  No one could believe that she's only 13 weeks old because she was so calm.  The staff loved her and she just soaked up all of the attention.  When she wasn't being doted upon, she was just laying down munching on her bully stick.

Proof

Due to crazy, hectic schedules between work and school, Rory and I don't get many date nights so we hung around after dinner and had a few drinks.  It was such a nice night sitting by the water. :)  We stayed until about 9:30... it was starting to get chilly and someone was sleepy...

<3

We headed home and Aspen was quite happy to be put to bed! :) 

This was a really good outing for her because she's a fairly timid dog in new environments.  I take her everywhere I possibly can to socialize her.  I try to choose stores/ restaurants/activities that allow dogs.  I also try to hang out with friends that have well behaved dogs.  Aspen is usually quite happy to not be alpha dog- she just wants to play :)

On Saturday, we met with my best friend, Lo, and the lab mix that she adopted about 5 months ago.  Aspen and Oshie became fast friends!  I couldn't get a single photo because they were zooming around so fast!

Overall, it was a great weekend of walks, friends and playtime!

Vacation

In a few weeks, I'm going to Colorado to visit Rory's brother.  I have been devastated at the fact that I'll have to leave Aspen behind.  When we booked the trip, a new pup wasn't in our line of sight.  I thought about having someone watch her either at their home or mine, but she's a puppy and a lot of work.  I can't really put that on my friends or family.  So I started looking at kennels...

I was really trying to stay away from kennels because:

1) A local kennel recently LOST a cat!
2) I'm worried that it will mess up her housebreaking
3) I'm really really worried that she'll think we gave her up :-(  she's been through so much in her short little life

So, I had some kennels in mind that I would not even go talk to... I asked friends and family which ones they've used...

Last night I visited the winner!  It's called Pettery Paradise in RI and it is fabulous!  So clean. State of the art fire detection. Aspen will be able to run and socialize with other dogs.  The owner lives on site.  Heated floors in the winter. The owner will stuff a Kong with peanut butter for her... give treats... hugs and kisses... etc.  The really telling aspect for me was when we went outside to look at the runs and all of the dogs ran over to the fence and wagged their tails at her.  I could tell that she plays with them and they love her.  That made me feel SO much better.  I'm still so sad to leave her but, at least, I feel comfortable that she'll be taken care of.

...and I told Rory- no more pup-less vacations.  If Aspen can't come, I'm not going.  Lucky for me, he agreed.

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!