Tales from the Crate - Shiny Floors are Scary! by Karilyn Bentley #crazydog #dogproblems

The Kraken

The Kraken wants you to know that shiny floors are scary.

Scary shiny floors

Tales from the Crate - Puppy Playtime by Karilyn Bentley #puppy #crazydog

Our cute puppy!

My puppy is growing! Which means, we now have a nickname for him, two actually. I call him Sir Poops A lot (for obvious reasons) and The Hubster calls him Little Monster (again, for obvious reasons). He's really cute, as you can see from his picture (and he's also pretty hard to keep still, as you might be able to tell from said picture). This time around the puppy playground, we have some help from our resident nanny, aka The Kraken.

Tales from the Crate - The Kraken gets a puppy! by Karilyn Bentley #crazydog #puppies #amwriting

I'm happy to announce the arrival of the newest addition to our family: The New Puppy!

Our new puppy!

Isn't he adorable? We thought The Kraken needed a playmate since we moved and she no longer goes to doggie daycare or agility. And what did she think of our gift to her?

She was rather ambivalent the first day. She did not appreciate us touching the puppy or the puppy trying to touch her. Nope, not at all. 

But the second day she decided to play nice. More like play fight. Then all was right with the world as long as Puppy avoided touching her when she wanted to sleep. 

Now they play A LOT!

Tales from the Crate - Moving Adventures with #Crazydog by Karilyn Bentley

Hello wonderful Readers! It's been awhile since I've posted on here and longer since I've written about The Kraken, aka Crazydog. Here's why: we moved to a different state. Yep, we no longer live in Texas, we are now official residents of cool, colorful Colorado.

mountains seen on hike

And how's The Kraken liking her new digs? Well.... now that is the real adventure.

Tales from the Crate: #CrazyDog kills dog agility by Karilyn Bentley

The cutest puppy in the world

Have you been wondering what happened to our adorable puppy, aka The Kraken? It dawned on me the other day I hadn't written about her in a year. (Want to read about my puppy adventures? Try Here, Here and Here)  She's grown now, all 45 pounds of her. Still likes to eat the garden (currently asparagus, okra and tomatoes are her faves, but the poor kale plant is moving up on her list), snuggle with The Hubster, and catch bugs, toads, geckos, and the occasional baby bird. <shivers to think of that one> But her new skill is dog agility.

Tales from the Crate - Games Puppies Play #crazy dog by Karilyn Bentley

Crazy Puppy with new ball-ball and rope bone

As you probably know, we are the proud owners of a crazy puppy we lovingly refer to as The Kraken. Despite owning several dogs over the course of our marriage, we have never adopted one that liked to play with anything except pizzle sticks and beef bones. So image our surprise when Crazy Puppy played fetch without being taught. We were ecstatic. For all of a day. She is obsessed with ball-ball. Or frisbee. Or any object she can fetch, return to you and ram into your leg. While still chewing. With that in mind, here is a list of some toys/games one can play with a puppy.

Tales from the Crate: How to Write with a Puppy by Karilyn Bentley #crazydog

As some of you may remember, we got a puppy in June that we were told was seven months old. In July we found out she was really three months old when we got her. Yikes. I never thought to have that young of a puppy. Karma is getting me back for looking at others and thinking I could do a better job of raising a puppy than they were. Somewhere Karma is laughing its butt off.

So how do I write with a puppy? Well, this is what used to happen on my day off. I'd sleep in until The Hubster would wake me with a kiss as he was walking out the door. Then I'd determine whether the old gimpy dog, aka Hell Hound, was able to go for a walk. If so, walk him. If not, do Tai Chi and meditate. Feed dog. Have coffee and breakfast while reading paper. Take shower. Get in a couple of hours writing/promo before meeting Hubster for lunch. Come home, write some more. Greet Hubster with kiss and spend evening with him.

What happens now.

Move Over Marley, You've Got Nothin' On Me #crazydog #plottingprincesses by Karilyn Bentley

I'm sure you've all heard of Marley, the lab that ate his way through his owner's home. I often wondered what the owner did to cause their dog to go so crazy. So, for my audacity, the universe blessed me with a couple of crazy pooches. At the end of this tale, you can tell me what we did wrong.<g>

Hop in your time machine and journey back with me several years ago when we had first moved into our brand new house and Clara, aka Jaws, still walked among us. Warning: never buy a new house if you own a crazy dog (or a puppy for that matter). Just saying.

Okay, back to the story. Let me set the scene. Clara (the usual eater of the home) had to have surgery (no, it had nothing to do with eating the house, she'd calmed down by this point and only snacked on mail or any other paper item lying around, which BTW worked better than any other shredder). Hell Hound had torn a gash on his leg and was forced to wear the cone of shame so he wouldn't lick the boo-boo. Outdoor maintenance men were coming over, and since HH had a nasty habit of jumping on the doors and windows while barking, snarling and drooling, hence scaring the crap out of the guys, we had to lock him in the bedroom (why not the crate, you ask? B/c he ate through a solid steel crate to get to the windows and the UPS guy. Crate had a broken door and was therefore a no-go.).

When we got home we were met at the door by Hell Hound. A very excited, Hell Hound.