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 :)

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.