Advice for Future Puppy Owners

This obviously applies to a small audience, but I'm sharing nonetheless.

I really adore my new puppy. Granted, he's kind of a pain in the butt sometimes, and it's been work dealing with his puppiness, but all in all he's a good guy. Very good natured, eager to please, playful with the kids, and darn cute. So far we've taught him to sit, lay down, pee on command, get off the couch when asked, drop whatever's in his mouth, and to not jump up on people. He no longer tries to bite everyone or jump on everyone, which is great. Olivier antagonizes him, so he does still nip and jump with him, but we're working on that. And Liv deserves it. I have a book of tricks that I'll soon start working on with him.

By far the biggest hurdle has been house training, and even though this advice is readily available via google, I thought I'd share what I've learned, and how we handled it, and what worked.

1. Get a crate. We initially tried to gate him in our laundry room, which is very small, but he found places to pee and poop. It wasn't small enough, and he could jump the gate. We hadn't wanted to spend the money on a crate, knowing he'd outgrow it, but we did a couple of days after we got him, and it was SO WORTH IT! You have to get one that's only big enough for the puppy to stand up and turn around in. Anything bigger and he'll find a corner to pee and poop in. The idea is that he instinctively doesn't want to make a mess where he's going to sleep. It really works. He had a couple of accidents in the crate, but very few. He actually still fits in it and we do use it if he's going to be alone for long.

2. Make up a chart to track his habits. Have a column for what time he eats, poops, and pees. You will soon see that he does have a schedule, and this will really help you to be prepared when he needs to go. We used a highlighter to mark each time he had an accident in the house, and we were quickly able to see the number of those incidents decrease, which was gratifying. We charted for about 6 weeks before we felt like we really knew what to expect. He was doing great by the time we stopped.

3. Always take him out before and after you feed him, even if you think you don't need to. We're growing out of this need now because he's learned to tell us when he needs to go, but this was the source of many an accident.

4. When you take him out to pee, use a word (we say "potty") when he goes, and praise him lavishly when he does it outside. Contrary to some advice that I found online, I'd say DON'T stay out there endlessly with him until he goes for the first time. Take him out, say potty, and if he goes, praise him and let him have a little free time inside, supervised. If he doesn't go, crate him and take him out an hour later (or sooner if you think he really needs to go). Keep this up until he goes. He'll quickly learn your command and know what you expect when you take him out, and the time he needs to spend in his crate will decrease.

5. Take away his water bowl a couple of hours before you go to bed. We made the mistake of trusting him one night, and sure enough, he got up and peed in the night. I think by now we could probably trust him, but I still take it away by 9 p.m.

I might think of other tips to add, and feel free to comment with questions. I'm no expert...this is the first time I've ever house trained a puppy. But it feels so good to finally be there. I shouldn't even say this because I'm afraid I'll jinx it, but I think he's pretty much got it. It's been awhile since his last accident. I still watch him carefully and don't trust him too much, but he's been able to go longer and longer at home without us and without being in his crate, which is awesome.

If only I knew now what I knew then...

I swear that I was wiser as a young child than I have been as an adult. When I was a kid, I refused to mark off days on the calendar in anticipation of some big upcoming date. Each day mattered, I thought, and I wasn't going to just cross them out as if they were only marking time.

But today, of course, it's all about tomorrow. When does my vacation start? When will I get back home again? When will school start again? When will I graduate? When will I have a baby? When will my baby start school? When will I make more money than I make now? When will I feel accomplished? When when when?

And if that's my attitude, the only question that really matters is when will I die? Because really...if I'm constantly looking toward the next milestone, then I'm never leaving this state of transition, and that's no way to live. No wonder I don't enjoy life. No wonder I lie around moping all day. No wonder I don't feel productive. Productiveness is for the future. Today, I wait.

It's 1 a.m. and I feel, of course, that tomorrow I will wake up and enjoy tomorrow and do all that I can to make tomorrow a worthwhile day to be alive. But I tend to fall short of my goals, so I will probably just sit around on my bum all day, waiting for the house to clean itself, waiting for the kids to stop nagging, waiting for my stories to write themselves...you get the picture.

Are you noticing a theme with my posts? I am, and it's that I suck!

San Francisco

It's been awhile since I've checked in. The past couple of weeks have been somewhat chaotic, between house guests and a trip across the country. I just returned yesterday from five days in San Francisco, where I met up with my friend Lindsay. Her wonderful friend Cristina was kind enough to put us up and show us around while we were there. I thought I'd share pictures and stories here, and I hope to resume more regular blogging now that the craziest part of my summer has passed (and it's not even summer!).

I flew out last Thursday and met Lindsay at the SF airport, where she'd just flown in from New York. We trained it to Cristina's apartment, dropped off our bags, and set out to explore and find a place to eat. Cristina lives in the Mission, which is a cool neighborhood, and the Castro is adjacent -- that was our first destination. The Castro is always the center of San Francisco's gay community, but I'm sure it helped that June is Gay Pride Month. As two straight women, we were definitely in the minority as we walked down the street.

We lunched in the Castro, then made our way to the Haight, where we saw the Grateful Dead house:

We walked around that neighborhood for a bit, popping into a souvenir shop and nosing around Amoeba Music before heading homeward.

That evening we had Mexican in the Mission. Lindsay enjoyed a gargantuan burrito, and I went the boring route with a (very spicy) taco and a scrumptious quesadilla.

On Friday, we took the train to the Ferry Building, which houses an indoor market and several restaurants. We ate lunch at the Market Bar, which was quite tasty, and sat outside to enjoy the beautiful day.

We walked up the Embarcadero and saw an assload of wild sea lions sunning on the docks:

We went to the Aquarium of the Bay, which is small but pretty cool. The sea creatures that swim above the glass tunnels that you walk through come in and out freely from the Bay -- they're not captive. We saw jellyfish...

...anchovies...

...oddly contorted starfish...

...and sharks, among other beautiful creatures:

That evening we returned to the Embarcadero and boarded a ferry for Alcatraz.

We took an audio tour of Alcatraz, which I must say was pretty interesting. It's an eerie place, and the tour is well done. Worth doing.

The cellhouse was cold and frightening, as would be expected, but there were surprisingly beautiful parts of the island, like this view walking down to the dock from the cellhouse. Wildflowers still abound on the island. They were planted by prisoners and the families of the guards, who lived on the island. Imagine being a little child and living on Alcatraz in the shadows of the prison. Chilling!




After Alcatraz, we had dinner at the Stinking Rose in North Beach, a restaurant that's obsessed with garlic.

Then we hit up City Lights, bookstore of the beat movement and the home of Ginsberg's "Howl":

The following day, we set out for Napa Valley. The weather was glorious and the drive was breathtaking. We crossed the Golden Gate, though it was cloaked in fog until we came out the other side:

We stopped at In'N'Out Burger, where I witnessed probably the most chaotic fast food restaurant I've ever seen. The burgers were quite delicious, though.

We visited various wineries and indulged in the fruits of their labor:

Then we headed back to San Francisco, where we had some delicious Japanese food.

On Sunday, we picnicked in Nob Hill with a friend of Lindsay's and her darling baby. We drove to the beach, which was rather frigid, not surprisingly, but nice just the same:

Lindsay braved the chilly waters, but I preferred to remain on dry sand:

And that's the end of my photos. We went to a contemporary dance show that evening, which was entertaining, and Monday was spent in airports and planes, biting nails over delays and driven nearly to insanity by boredom. If only I had taken my laptop with me, I could have spent the day writing this blog.