Emmy has been with us now for a month and she is doing GREAT!  She had her shots updated on April 8th and didn't even seem to notice.  She has one more set to go in another week or so.  She was at about 15 pounds on our last visit and everyone tells us that she is really starting to grow.  I still think she is going to be a bit on the smaller side.

The latest guess on Emmy's mix is golden/lab (from her mom) and we think that dad may have been a husky or husky mix.  Whatever the mix, it sure produced an adorable little dog!

Emmy is doing AWESOME at potty training.  She has the occasional "oops" but these are VERY rare now and looking back we usually see that she tried to tell us and we missed it.  She has been sleeping through the night for quite some time.  She is SUPER about the kennel...when we all go into the bedroom, she just walks right into her kennel and lays down.  Not a peep out of her until 6:30.  At 6:30, she whines to let us know it is time to go outside.  We let her out and say "outside" and right to the door she goes and immediately goes potty and comes straight back inside and (opening the doors herself) goes right back into the bedroom.  Sometimes she tries to see if I will let her go back to sleep on Sailor's dog bed (which we sometimes do if we are going to get up within the hour) or I just tell her not today and point to her kennel and she goes right back in and not a single peep out of her!  The whole thing goes so fast that neither of us practically open our eyes the whole time!  She usually wakes up one more time in another hour (time to do her "big job" as my grandma used to say!) and even then she will come right back in to snooze a bit more.  As long as we are still quiet and in bed, she is content to be lazy too.

She wakes up so happy though and is ready for lots of love and attention when you do get up.  She has learned how to be a true golden from Sailor.  She does what we call "the crappy flop"...starts by putting her head in your lap for pets and eventually does just about a head stand with her bottom in the air until she flops over into your lap.  The ending is a puppy on her back with her back leg twitching as you find a "good spot" to scratch!

Emmy is a great little eater.  She sits very nicely on the rug while we get the food ready and are starting to teach her to sit and be released to get her food.  She is starting to understand the new rule.  And oh, how she LOVES to eat!  This is very helpful for training because she is very food motivated!

As soon as she is done eating, she goes to the back door for a quick outing and then is good to go for an hour of play with Sailor.  Emmy LOVES other dogs...big, small, puppies, adults...it really doesn't matter.  Sailor wasn't so sure about puppies for the first week Emmy was here but they play like pals now!  One of Emmy's favorite games is tug-of-war with Sailor's tail!  Okay, so it's not exactly a favorite of Sailor's but it does get him to play!  He usually responds by grabbing a REAL toy and shoving that in her face, as if to say "FINE, if you want to play tug, tug on THIS!"  Emmy is also very good at playing by herself.  She loves squeaker toys and will run around squeaking.  Then she'll throw the toy and pounce on it and start over.  It is very amusing to watch!  Emmy has healthy puppy energy, but I would not call her hyper or even a high energy dog.  She gets about a good half hour to hour of play at least three times each day and then, kennel or not, she's ready to take a little snooze!

Emmy has met a lot of children too.  They have been from about 3 to 12 years old and she loves to follow them around too!  She still is working on remembering that she can't jump but overall has been very good with them!  We are working on not jumping on us...pets only for sitting puppies and she is figuring it out quite well.  Still more work but its a good start.  We've never played any mouth games with Emmy so she knows that people hands are NOT chew toys.  I haven't gotten a single scratch from those sharp puppy teeth.  Actually, she is doing great with chewing in general.  We have LOTS of toys and (knock on wood) they have all been more interesting than the furniture or rugs or even shoes.

Well, there is really no good reason why Emmy is still with us.  She is plenty welcome being the good puppy that she is, but we would love to see her go to a great forever home soon.  She is definitely ready...she's happy and healthy and ready to bond with her new family.  Seems as though her only trouble is that she is not a "golden" golden and no one really seems willing to meet her.  Emmy is a great puppy and full of cute personality.  She is a little more independent than some other goldens we've had.  She wants to always be in the same room as you are, but she doesn't need to be touching all the time.  She just wants to be where she can see you.  She loves pets and will come over and lay by you to get them but prefers all four feet on the ground (she is squirmy and grunts to get down after about 30 seconds of holding...unless the vacuum cleaner is on...then you can hold her as long as you want!).  But really, she isn't going to stay a lap dog size forever so I'm not so sure that is all bad!  She does have plenty of Velcro dog moments though...she has taken to laying practically under my feet while I do the dishes or lays behind the toilet while I wash up for bed at night.  If Emmy sounds like a dog that might fit well into your home, please let placement know!

EMMY - Emmy arrived at her new foster home in St. Paul on Saturday afternoon. She rode in the car wonderfully--just slept pretty much the whole way. She had a bit of a chaotic hello to my golden and to Shawnee (04-100) and a quick good bye to her brother Eddie (04-097). With all the action, Emmy forgot to be sad that her brother was gone and hit it off with Shawnee right away! We got things settled down a bit after the initial hellos and played in the yard for a long time. Everyone was wiped out by the time we went in the house. "The girls" had their lunch and they all hunkered down for a long nap in their favorite safe spots. Emmy likes to lay under the dining room chairs. It's good for napping and perfect place to pounce out onto Shawnee too!

Emmy is now 10 weeks old and just a ball of black fluff! She is adorable! Even though she is a week older than Shawnee, she is quite a bit smaller. I don't think she will grow up to be a very big girl. She is a bit more outgoing than Shawnee too but is still an excellent cuddler! She can be in the middle of playing and, if you pick her up and start petting her, she just melts into you!

She is adapting very well to her new temporary household and will adapt well to just about any household that had enough time for a puppy. She is able to go about 5 hours of rest with no accidents, but needs to be brought out more frequently when playing. But we made it through the whole weekend with no accidents. She is very good and goes potty the second you get outside.

Emmy got a bath on Sunday before going on a home visit. It wasn't her favorite thing in the whole world and I definitely had to keep one hand on her at all times, but we both made it through without any emotional or physical scars. She LOVED being wrapped up in a towel and dried off in my lap...it made the whole bath worth while for her! She was very good about being brushed too.

We'll let you know more about this cute little girl in the next few days!

Our visit to the vet went very smoothly--once the techs saw the pups, they insisted on carrying them from the car, weighing them and holding them during their check-up, shots and de-worming. The vet said they are healthy and daddy is probably in the retriever family; the curly, fluffy hair on two of the pups could mean Flat-Coated or Chesapeake Bay Retrievers.

One thing that has made my job much easier is these pups already are night-trained--no alarm clock needed as they "call me" after 8 hours behind the baby gate and it is a mad race to get outside. During the daytime, it's a little more difficult as I cannot tether three pups at once--since their bladders are very small and to prevent too many accidents, we all go outside right after they wake up from one of their numerous naps. They love to wander around outside, but stay together and usually follow one of the resident dogs around so are easy to corral when it is time to come in. These three are so much fun to watch--they play hide-and-seek and keep-away and basically amuse themselves.

If you are waiting for a cuddly little fur kid to be a part of your life, give placementragom [dot] org" rel="nofollow">RAGOM a call. One of these little darlings might be right for you.