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 - 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.

Tales from the Crate - How to Train Your Puppy in Three (not so) Easy Steps #puppyproblems - by Karilyn Bentley

I'm happy to announce we got a new puppy! Isn't she cute??

Our little cutie

Favorite sleeping place

She's seven months old, we were told a Lab/Border Collie mix (but she's not supposed to get bigger than 30 pounds), and came with the name Angel. Yeah, right, a misnomer for any puppy. We changed it to Arya, one of our favorite characters from GoT. The character carries a sword named Needle. Our puppy comes with teeth and baby claws that function the same purpose. The Hubster named her. The Hubster also picked her out.

We weren't looking for a puppy. Our jobs keep us away from home during the day and puppies are a lot of work. Not to mention the whole housebreaking thing (still working on that one. Maybe I can get new carpets???). A couple of Saturdays ago we were looking at a group of rescue dogs, I turn around and the next thing I know Hubster has Arya on his shoulder. She climbed over the other puppies in the pen and jumped up, reaching for him. We were like: but she's a puppy. Don't want a puppy. But she clicked with us so a couple of hours later (after a bit of discussion) we went back and got ourselves a puppy.

Yikes.