Sadie the Houdini Puppy

It's day 2 with Sadie, my new puppy. She's so cute! She's also very enthusiastic, wants to be into everything I'm into (including my morning shower) and has little fear. Because she's small, I thought there's no way she'd get over a 12" wall...you can laugh hysterically now. That little wiggly body has enough strength to move a gallon jug of water out of the way to create an escape route out of the basement. After being gone quite awhile yesterday, I came home to a house full of poo and a very happy escaped puppy! In escaping the basement, she has also apparently conquered stairs - both up and down. Down still causes her a few problems and it sometimes sounds as if she's falling down them, but she's doing fine otherwise. I tried changing my door blockade in the basement this morning but she managed to climb over it in less than 30 seconds. Figures. I left her with the run of the house and could only hope for the best. Apparently she's been good because my fabulous friend Becky is puppy-sitting for me today and said Sadie was in the basement when she came downstairs. All I can hope is that she figured out that she can go potty down there and was taking her needs to an appropriate place. *prays* Of course, I'm still trying to train her to go outside but come on...it's been close to 0 degrees...sometimes it's just TOO cold to go traipsing out in the middle of the night for a potty session.

I'm already spoiling her though. I let her sleep with me and she does really well. Once the light is turned off, she's just happy laying next to me chewing on her bone. Within about 30 minutes she's asleep and will usually sleep through the night. I wish I could say the same. Having a puppy essentially snoring in your ear isn't conducive to sleep. Of course, what I will NOT do is feed her human food. My brother and parents give their dogs human food so, of course, Sadie got spoiled with that on Saturday. The result was me having to deal with a very upset puppy tummy all Sunday evening. I've decided he's in the dog house.

Now if I could just get the food frenzy attitude to calm down long enough to get her to learn a few tricks....like "sit" versus "frantically jumping to grab the treat".