Introducing…Our Puppy!!!!!

Introducing…our puppy!

Snowball has arrived and stolen our hearts!  She is now exactly 4 months old.

Back in April I wrote a post titled “What I’ve Feared All My Life.”  The secret is out – I’m deathly afraid of dogs!  But I’m hopeful this puppy will help me face my fears.

This is my first pet (yep, never even had a goldfish friends) and google has been so helpful! So do you want to see how this adventure is going for us?  How the housebreaking (gross),  groomers (there’s blood involved) and vet (hello – cats!)  have been going?

Lexi and I made a video for you with the whole story!  Watch it below.

(if you reading this in a feedreader or email – click here to view the video)

And here’s some photos of our past few weeks.

Snowball 6 weeks old.

snowball at 6 weeks visiting

Snowballs visit in May.

snowball sleeping

Snowballs first day home 3 1/2 weeks ago.

snowball's first day home

One of Snowball’s favorite places to sleep while I work on my computer – right at my feet!

snowball sleeping

{If you follow me on Instagram – you may have already seen some of these photos.  If you aren’t follow me there yet – and you want a “behind the scenes” window into my life – follow me at Instagram.com/WomenLivingWell where I post daily.}

**Chime In: We are now to the — training our dog to sit, stay, stop barking at every jogger who runs by, please don’t bury your toys in my couch, please don’t poop under my dining room table, please don’t dig in my mulch – puppy stage.  How long does this last???  If you have any solutions  or advice, leave them in the comment section – we are all ears. 🙂

Walk with the King,

Courtney

25 Comments

  1. Snowball is gorgeous! I very much appreciated your video clip with details of your experiences. My husband and I will be collecting our Bichon on 10th August. We are so looking forward to Archie becoming part of our family. 🙂
    Kay, England.

    1. Congratulations Kay – you will love your Bichon! She is the sweetest thing ever. If you’ve never had a puppy – it’s definitely a TON of work – don’t expect to get much done that first week. We were on high alert trying to housebreak her and I got very little sleep. But now she’s settling in and so much fun!

      Enjoy your puppy!:)
      Courtney

  2. Hi!! When we got our puppy (6 1/2 weeks old) we started immediately potty training her to ring bells to go outside! I hung a string with 6 medium sized “jingle bells” from the back door and each and every time we let her out, we would ring the bells. She associated the bells with going out to potty and within a few weeks was ringing them with her nose to go outside!!

  3. Aww, congrats on your puppy! She’s so cute! Consistency is key, just like with your kids. I can’t stress it enough, especially with that breed. She’s a pleaser, but you’ll (or if you’re line me, your kids) be tempted to let her get away with things. She needs to go out within 5 minutes of eating and stay out there until she goes. Also feeding at the same time will help out A LOT! We have puppies a couple times a year and they are usually about 95% house trained by the time they go to their new homes. Anything you teach her, just be consistent.

    Oh yeah, with the car sickness, it may help to make sure she doesn’t eat before a trip… But it may just be something that will always bother her.

    1. Our dog Lizzie had carsickness when she was a puppy. We took her on short car rides at first to help her get used to it. We are not sure if extending the length of the rides gradually helped her or if she just outgrew it, but thankfully she doesn’t have that problem anymore. Maybe Snowball will just outgrow it as well.

  4. If she is still going potty in her crate, it could be that the crate is too big. We got a mal-shi puppy last summer. He was 6 weeks old when we brought him home. It did take several months for him to understand not to potty in the house but he has not once gone potty in his crate. But it is a very small wire one. They do not like to soil their bed, so if she sleeps in the crate at night and it’s just small enough for her to sleep in this should help with that. Also keep her in the crate at all times unless she is outside or someone is watching her closely as she plays in the house. Give treats for when she goes potty outside. Hope this helps!

  5. So glad you are going to have the time of your life. We have a 12 years old male bichon named Rocky. He was given that name because early on he was rowdy. You would still not know that he is old. He was easy to train, just take her out often till she gets the idea. Quite a love bug.

  6. My husband and I bought a black lab from a breeder in Romania! Since we live in Germany it wasn’t to far, but we asked them to meet us half way in Vienna. I was in prayer the whole time that this dog was healthy (Eastern European dogs are know for diseases). Everything went great! He is a wonderful dog, but he is picky with people, he barks at everyone!!! I thought labs were supposed to be one of the friendlier breeds. ): Oh well, he loves our new baby and she is doing well with him.

    A tip (or 2)

    We used “clicker” training and it worked SO well! We re-learned the clicker at our trainer but I originally learned it from Petsmart, the thing was at petsmart is that they have you switch from treats to “loving” your animal when you click the clicker with our trainer said YOU SHOULDN’T DO! So we now feed our dog his food as treats and he doesn’t know the difference. (:
    Also, adding water to her food helps aid digestion, and it gives you a piece of mind that she is getting enough food in the hot summer days! (Think of it as humans as eating dry crackers for breakfast and dinner, it gets very hard in your tummy!!!)

    P.S She is adorable!!! (:

  7. Hi Courtney

    May I suggest that you use one word every time Snowball goes outside (we used ‘Duty’) Very quickly when you open the door and say ‘Go do Duty!’, she will go potty which is an extremely useful command when you need her to go when you want. We travelled a lot and this was really helpful when you have a limited amount of time to stop on the road!
    Also speak with your vet re herbal nausea tablets. Our rottweiler/labrador cross had horrendous travel sickness and our vet (UK) suggested purchasing herbal nausea tablets that pregnant women buy. He weighed our dog and worked out dosage from that. Not sure if USA vets will be open to that, but worth asking! We never had another episode of car sickness since we tried the tablets!

  8. I loved this video!!! I am so glad you shared it!! I’m scared of dogs, too, and my daughters talk about getting a dog every day!!!!!!! They seem like such hard work, too!! Lol!!! Please keep sharing your experiences!! Very helpful!!!

    His
    Shari

  9. So cute! Funny because we have a dog and I’m not scared of her but I’m scared of other dogs! Glad I’m not the only one. 🙂

  10. Snowball is so cute! When I was a little girl I had a dog named Tina that I loved like crazy. Funny story – I wanted Tina to be a Christian dog and go to heaven, so I asked Jesus into her heart!!! 🙂

  11. Kuddos to you, Courtney. Snowball is adorable, but I would still be terrified. Would love if you could share how you’ve overcome your fear. I would never be able to hold her all wiggly like that. And, how do you manage to go to the vet and the groomers without being sick with fear yourself? I realize my fear is SO irrational, but it is a real and PARALYZING fear, nonetheless.

  12. She’s so adorable! My daughter loves all dogs in the world and begged from the time she could talk for us to get her a dog. I’m a cat person, but like dogs ok. So we got a Jack Russel-something mix. The vet suspects Corgi. Her name is LadyBug. She’s the sweetest thing. Housebreaking was hard. But now she knows and will tell us when she needs to go. The code word we used for it is “Potty.” I ask if she needs to go potty and she will touch her nose to mine for yes or look away if it’s a no. She does get finicky about her food though. She’ll eat one brand for a few months and then decide she doesn’t like it and refuse to eat for a few days. Then I switch her to a new food and she’s eating again. I suppose she just gets tired of eating the same thing all the time. We love her to pieces and wouldn’t know what to do without her. My cats are not pleased, but after a year are tolerating her.

  13. Courtney, Our girl Bichon is 15 years old as of July 4th. I have read the comments here and the crate will be your lifesaver. They look at it as their place, den, private quarters, etc. and should not ever be disturbed while they are in it. Once Snowball is completely housebroken you can leave the door open and she will most likely go in it on her own. We use the word box for crate and we made a big deal of excitement to go outside as in the positive. She only had 3 accidents in the house and none in her crate when we were housebreaking. Always remain positive – they mess up and if you get upset she will associate that with the negative – you don’t want that. No rubbing noses in it ever. That creates fear. We kept Sophie on a leash in the house when she was out of her box so she was never more than 2 feet away from us. She learned to bark and get excited to let us know she needed out and she still does this although with her age she wears a diaper in the house. She actually helped housebreak our boy Bichon as the Teacher. He was a joy but had cancer at the age of 6 and we had to let him cross the Rainbow Bridge. We now have a 3 yo Goldendoodle who is her big companion. Good luck and pray for consistency – that is the real key here with potty, feeding, play time etc.
    In Christ,
    Erika

  14. Courtney, When Snowball does something that is not acceptable, remember, the Momma dog would always slightly nip her puppies behind their front shoulder to correct them. The way to continue is to make a shhhtttt noise and slightly grab their side (not pinching, more like a tap with two fingers while you make the noise). She will get the message and again, consistency is the key. Also, introduce her to people, even joggers. If you don’t want her to bury her toys, do not let her on the furniture. You are the alpha in the house, not the other way around. Too much freedom tends to create bad habits. Our dogs are not allowed in certain rooms or downstairs and they know it – it is about teaching boundaries. Take her on the leash throughout the house, room to room, to get her acquainted, especially where the door she will go outside to and she will get her bearings.
    We are not experts but we have well mannered dogs.

    Erika

  15. Oh my goodness! Snowball is just the sweetest thing ever! She looks a lot like our Zuzu, although our dogs are all havanese. I read a quote years back that stuck with me. It said, “some angels choose fur instead of wings”. Isn’t that sweet? Puppylove truly is a blessing and cuddling with an affectionate, fluffy furbaby is an amazing way to melt away daily stress! Congratulations to you and your family! Enjoy the journey ahead. 🙂

  16. Adorable! My parents have a mini human disguised as a Corgi, named Sasha! We personally are kitty people, two in fact, that ironically, are like dogs! Susie and Kirby used to sleep with me during my single days (can you imagine…a single girl with cats? Ha!), however the Hubs put a stop to that once we got married. They’re always with us, very affectionate, greet us at the door and love to be held. Too cute! Enjoy the new addition to your family! 🙂

  17. We have a 7 month old Rhodesian Ridgeback puppy. Her name is Ruby and I got her for my hubby for his 40th birthday. One of the best things we did was bell train her to go outside to go potty. We purchased long bells that we hang off of the back door. When she needs to go potty she hits the bells with her paws, we open the door, and out she goes. It has been fabulous, especially if I am working upstairs, I can still hear her ringing the bell and then we avoid accidents. GOOD LUCK!! Your puppy is adorable!!

  18. Our Bichon, Biscuit is one of the best dogs we have had. He has a strong will but also is very affectionate and loving. He is able to communicate very well with us and loves to please. We LOVE our dog. He has problems with kidney stones occasionally which apparently can be common in Bichons. Snowball will be your best friend and she will be eager to please you I am certain. Enjoy her life.

  19. I have always had a dog. When I was a baby, my parents had a German Shepherd named Penny…not sure exactly what happened to her but I recall a picture of me at 6 months old with Penny. Then there was Nicki…she was a mixed breed…of what, I’m not sure. It was a sad sad day, when the mailman accidentally hit her with his car :'( Then we got poodles. They were supposed to be miniatures but were more like toy size. First came Scruffy, then we got Pookie, a male whom I named after Garfields teddy bear. Pookie and Scruffy had a puppy and that was our precious Ebony!!!

    Ebony was such a love!! She was all black and weighed all of 5 pounds! I had a few of my Senior pictures taken with her! EVERYONE who saw Ebony fell in love with her! She was the best little doggie…so sweet and loving..she never ever bit anyone. We had her for 12 years until she died. I got a puppy my senior year..a chocolate poodle named Chardonnay. She was a sassy thing!. My mom did all the training with the poodles.
    Like your Bichon, poodles are hypoallergenic. We always let our dogs up on the furniture, sit in the chair with us on our laps…they want to be where their humans are. Sometimes, we even let them sleep in our beds with us. 😮

    We would housetrain them on newspaper an then move them outside. Now my husband and I have a boston terrier/jack Russell mix dog, Bandit. We’ve had him for over 5 years now. He sheds but not that bad. He’s a very good dog too. Not too high energy. Likes to fetch, loves to take walks in the cooler weather. When we’re at camp, we don’t have to leash him because he’ll stay right on our campsite. We don’t have to worry about him chasing anyone or anything. My brother wants a Doberman in the worst way but his wife won’t let him have one 🙁 I can’t imagine our home without a dog….we’re thinking of adding a Boxer to the mix soon!!

    Even though I was bit by a dog(in the back of my leg while riding my bike with my mom) at age 10 and am wary around large breeds that I don’t know, I think because I was raised around dogs, I really like them. And I think that makes a difference.

  20. So precious!! You will LOVE her. What a great choice for your first dog. Our bichon, Duster, was with us for just short of 15 years. He was a wonderful dog….we miss him. But, we just couldn’t wait for another puppy. So, we have a cockapoo named Cooper now. He is a sweetheart and has already earned the label “mommy’s dog” since he follows me everywhere. Have fun with her! So happy for you!!

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