Evil Beaver

I realize this is a beer commercial, but Shaun and I ran across it the other day when we were looking at SuperBowl commercials for one of my lessons for student teaching, and it reminded us of Lucy.   This particular commercial was one of the top three worst commercials...so, admittedly, it is pretty terrible, but here it is if you dare watch it:

Ugly, isn't it?  However, the part that reminded me of Lucy is the crazy song in the background-"Evil Beaver."  It made Shaun and I laugh so hard because Lucy is in the "evil beaver" stage.  She just wants to gnaw and bite all of the time.  I'm sure while she is alone in her kennel at night she dreams of blissfully sinking her little teeth into our wooden kitchen table and demolishing it into simple wood shavings.  But alas, she just has to settle for Kongs :)

Lucy Attack

This past week, Lucy has been doing a lot of sneaking up on toys.  Yesterday, I was in one room and Shaun was in the other and she was "sneaking" back and forth between us.  It was cute and hilarious since she thought she was being so inconspicuous.  Shaun decided to film her "sneaking" and by the time he had his phone out, she wasn't doing her crouch-down, move an inch at a time anymore, but there was a great surprise at the end.  So, while we didn't get a good sneaking video, we did get this one, which is almost just as good :)

Oh Puppies...

Puppies are so funny-they just get into everything!   Shaun and I were sitting on the couch, doing homework and lesson plans while Lucy was playing with a chew toy.  All of the sudden, we look down and she's investigating our water bottle that was on the floor.  She picks it up and starts happily running around with it.  Of course, this was super naughty, but oh so funny.  So, we recorded it for just a few seconds, then confiscated the illegal material :)

Learning to be Crated

Crate training is one of the most important things a puppy can learn.  If Lucy were left to roam when we could not supervise her, our apartment would be thrashed in less than five minutes.  This is especially true because she is going through her "piranha" stage and wanting to put her mouth and sharp little puppy-piranha teeth on everything!  So, here is Luce hanging out in her kennel:

Of course they all somehow learn the pouty-kennel face right from the very beginning :)

Gentle Leader

Because Lucy loves to go on walks (when it's not bitterly cold outside), we have decided to start introducing her to the Gentle Leader right away.  Right now, she actually walks pretty good on the leash. However, I don't expect it to continue as she becomes a little more independent, but we'll take the nice leash behavior while we can!

During lunch and most dinners, we do a little training session.  So, besides working on her name, sit, down, and kennel, we've also been having her put on her GL for part of the meal.  She's not horribly fond of wearing it, but with positive reinforcement and practice, she'll learn to ignore that weird thing on her nose.

This picture is kind of blurry, but I love her funny little face as Shaun is feeding her a piece of kibble!

First Snow

I can imagine that leaving sunny California to come to cold and (now) snowy Utah would be quite the adjustment.  Besides shivering a bit after taking evening toileting breaks, Lucy has seemed to adjust just fine.  She loves licking the snow up off the ground while going for walks.  Here is a video of her first experience with the "cold white stuff."

(P.S. Just a little side note...Shaun and I are very much amateur video-picture-blog-ographers.  So, we'll just rely on Lucy's cute, feisty personality and good looks to make up for our lack of expertise!)

Lana

When CCI first notified us that we were going to be able to raise one of Edna's puppies, we were so excited.  They said that there were two little females coming to the Southwest Region.  Lo and behold, the other "L" puppy was also coming to Utah!

At the airport, Lana seemed pretty relaxed and much less of a wiggly puppy than Lucy.  She was also more petite and had much lighter fur.  You can see in the video below that Lucy (with the red collar) has very dark extremities and then her body is fairly light compare to little Lana (with the green leash), who was lighter and more of one color like her mom.

Two cute California girls!

Don't you love those legs!

More Pictures from the Airport

Since Lucy was coming in the middle of January, Shaun and I were worried that she may not make it here because of weather (my second dog was delayed for a week-ish because of cold weather).  However, the day turned out to be bright and sunny and she was well in the air by the time we left work to go pick her up.  We were (of course) super excited to drive down to the airport from Logan and meet her for the first time.  We hopped in the car, turned the key, and....nothing.  All we heard was clicking.  Anyway, to make a long story short, after about 25 minutes, we jumped the battery in our car and were on our way but terribly behind schedule.  The hour and a half drive from Logan to Salt Lake was miserable.  The plane landed at about 1: 19 and we didn't make it to the cargo area until about 1:45.  Talk about stress.  Luckily, it takes the airline crew a while to unload and transport the pups from the airport to the cargo area and there had been some little hook-up, so we actually made it about ten minutes before Lucy and Lana got to the right place. Whew!  In retrospect, it was kind of ironic because we were worried about her not making it and then instead we almost didn't make it.  In the end, everything worked out though, so we were grateful for that!

Here are some more pictures of us as the airport meeting miss Lucy.

Welcome to Utah!

Coccidia

Just got an email from Oceanside...little Lucy tested positive for Coccidia.  Coccidia is a parasite that many puppies get and is highly contagious.  However, when treated, it is very non-threatening.  Lucy has been treated and should be just fine, but may have a little extra diarrhea (oh boy!).  We have been instructed to have her toilet away from other dogs and drink out of her own dish for a few days so that the parasite does not spread.  I think I've had at least one other CCI pup who had tested positive for it before she flew out, and I don't remember it being a big deal-but it's always good to have a heads up!

Working on Confidence Building

Confident dogs begin as confident puppies.  CCI breeder caretakers put a lot of work into the pups long before they fly out to the puppy raisers.  Here is Lucy working on building that confidence.

Litter Photos

Beautiful Edna and her pups

They all look so different!

Little Miss Lucy is the one with the light pink collar (I love this picture!)

Introducing Lucy!

Little Miss Lucy is on the left!