This time done in a stream of consciousness style, and keep in mind it’s one of the busiest weeks of the year for me work-wise. It went something like this:

Puppy puppy puppy puppy! Puppy puppy! Drool! Yay! Puppy puppy puppy piddle! D’oh! Webct webct webct puppy puppy webct epitaph webct puppy puppy puppy piddle! D’oh! Piddle Piddle puppy puppy puppy! Webct. email overload. sleep?

Repeat for the past 6-7 days, and you have my life in a nutshell. Not much sleep, a lot of work, a bright-eyed little puppy looking for all the attention I can muster, and again a very frazzled me. On the positive, Soolin continues to improve in terms of piddling outside – we made it through the entire weekend without any accidents and she totally gets that the bell on the door means she can go out, and she pretty much gets that if she needs to go, she should use the bell.

On the negative side, she is not sleeping through the night anymore, now she wakes up repeatedly and barks up a storm. Last night we went to bed at 10, it took her a half hour to settle, then she was up at 2AM, 4AM, and then finally at 5AM I carried her kennel out of the bedroom into the living room and shut my door, I couldn’t take it. I’ve done everything the books say I should do, rewarding her for going in her kennel, ignoring her when she cries (aside from carrying her kennel out and telling her to shut up at 5AM, I have completely ignored her antics) and trying to make sure she gets plenty of physical activity (Saturday we went to Saratoga Performing Arts Center, Sunday we hiked a mile down the road and then I had her bustling through snow that was over her head for like 3/4 of a mile), but instead of improving things seem to be getting worse sleep wise. Tonight I’m going to try a combination of an even longer hike (about 2 miles) partly through snow and not letting her catch any cat naps after supper. The books advise me to let her take them, but I’m going to try one night without to see if she sleeps better.

So…a long winded puppy update. I’ll get week two pics posted shortly. I don’t know when I’ll get back to posting regularly. The work stuff will start to settle down by the end of this week at least.