Pupdate

Best Buds...sorta :)

The pups are sleeping so I finally have time for a quick update! Man oh man did I forget how much work a brand new puppy is. Chika is super adorable, and her and Bowser are getting along better everyday. We got crappy sleep all week due to her unwillingness to adapt to her crate and/or hold it throughout the night, but it's getting better, and all part of normal puppyhood.

She is very sweet and loving, which was a stark contrast to Bowser who didn't let us touch him for months after we got him. But she is very vocal, barks a lot and absolutely abhors her crate. So much so, that she resorts to shiba screaming for hours while we're gone. We had to apologize/warn our neighbors, as we live in a townhouse and have shared walls. One day, it was so bad, that it incited Bowser's attack instinct and I had to prevent him from trying to kill her on Tuesday during my lunch break. Yeah that was a bad day.

Our wonderful trainer came the next day and told us that the pack instinct is to take out the weakest pack member, usually the dying, ailing or injured. If a dog even thinks it's dying it will wail, and can still incite this pack trigger. So Chika pretty much made Bowser want to kill her with her incessant wailing. We have a citronella bark collar shipping from Amazon so she hopefully pipes down while we're not home. The incident scared the bejesus out of me, but now that we have that settled, they get along well for the most part. I just have to be careful that their play doesn't get too mouthy, as she loves to bite his ankles. We certainly didn't get a submissive puppy - we landed another feisty Shiba!

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but cute Shiba puppies are lots of work (and lots of fun)!