6 Months Old!

Photo credit- Nadia

Milo turned 6 months old yesterday! It was in the 60's so I walked him for a little over 4 miles. He's been in our family for 3.5 months, and his behavior has improved a lot over that time span. He's lost quite a few baby teeth. Ian has found five of them. Occasionally he still chews the wrong thing (ex. the kitchen chair or this morning he chewed our Fire stick remote), but in general the chewing problem is much, much less of an issue than it was in the beginning. One upside to having a puppy is that the main floor of the house has even less clutter than usual. The kids' toys that used to be on this floor of the house have been relocated to the basement or one of their bedrooms. The three things he gets in trouble the most for putting in his mouth are facial tissues , guinea pig bedding, and shoes. He honestly likes tissues more than dog treats! Yuck! As for the shoes, we had been keeping them higher on the shoe rack in the entryway, but he had learned how to stand on his back paws and shake the rack with his front paws to make some shoes fall off the rack. So we moved the shoe rack to the garage so Milo wouldn't eat the kids' shoes, but it turns out I actually like it better there aesthetically speaking. 

Thanks to his belly band, we haven't had to clean any accidents for a few weeks aside from the one time he had an accident in the crate when we were gone for 4 hours. He's having bloodwork done this Friday in preparation for being neutered next week. Hopefully this will curb his desire to mark the territory inside the house. We also don't have to take him outside nearly as often as we did at first. The schedule now includes only taking him out six times a day (twice per child although sometimes I take one or more of their turns when I take Milo for a long walk). He's basically going about 3 hour stretches without needing to go outside. It's been several weeks since he scratched at the door to let us know he wanted to go out so we've been taking him out based on the clock not his behavior. 

He still has a long way to go with being compliant when we're grooming him, but Nadia and I are improving our skills in caring for a dog in terms of bathing and shampooing him, trimming his fur, brushing or combing him, plucking ear hairs, cleaning his ears, trimming his nails, etc. He also tries to jump up to get on the counter when there is meat of some kind up there. I hope he can learn that is not permitted in this house. Thankfully he hasn't actually succeeded although he's gotten very close.

I am still his most favorite person. If I put on my shoes, he sticks to me as closely as possible as he's hoping against hope I will be taking him with me. He cries sometimes even when I just do something like go to the bathroom! Ian was also like that when he was young.  

He barks a lot more now than when we first got him. That's definitely not something I like about dogs.

He had been waking up at 6:45 until the time changed, and then for more than a week he got up at 7:30. He's now getting up at 7:00. He still sleeps in Ian's room. I asked Nadia if she wanted to move the guinea pigs downstairs as I *think* Milo won't hurt them as long as they are in their cage, but she said she likes having them in her room. Personally I'd never sleep in the same room as their cage. Even though we change their bedding once a week, it stinks! Milo goes absolutely nuts if he sees a guinea pig out of the cage so they pretty much are confined to Nadia's bedroom all the time. Because his behavior is much better, he doesn't spend much time in the crate aside from overnight and when we leave the house. He absolutely hates it when we leave him in the crate by himself. He cries very loudly which tugs on our heart strings. Usually he's only left home alone once per week - Sunday morning when we're all at church. The last two weeks we did leave him alone at home in his crate one additional time per week for about 4-5 hours each time, which is longer than we're gone on Sunday mornings. 

We feed him dry dog food, but we also give him little bits of our food. I don't have to rinse the dishes any more before putting them in the dishwasher as Milo loves to lick them clean. We never let him have any chocolate, and the only food he avoids like the plague is applesauce. He generally is good about not begging, but sometimes he reverts to begging. He weighed four pounds when we first got him. His rate of growth has slowed down over the last month as he weighs about 7 1/2 pounds now.

Yesterday we also celebrated Holi (one day late). We had two Indian dishes - chicken tikka masala and chapati bread. I can assure you I won't ever be making either of those again. I think Ian and Oliver will eat more of the chicken so at least I won't need to throw it out. The kids enjoyed throwing colored powder and squirting each other with colored water. Milo was NOT a fan of this activity. It took me awhile to make the colored powder and it was quite an ordeal to clean up afterward including baths or showers for the kids and Milo. All that to say hopefully a fun memory was made, but I don't plan on ever doing this again. We only have one holiday left to celebrate this school year - King's Day (Netherlands) on April 28. We also need to read about Shavuot, which is celebrated in May.