The Puppy Saga Continues…

River is now 5 months old and over 50lbs! Her crate is about a quarter the width of the room she sleeps in! She has not had an accident in the house in over two months and we have been slowly increasing the time she is allowed to play inside with us from 20 mins. to an hour now. We are still battling the loose stool war. We have tried 2 different premium dog foods with no huge improvement. We’ve tried adding rice and cottage cheese (bland diet for sensitive stomachs), adding canned pumpkin (one person suggested it for helping firm up her stool, but then a vet told me it was more likely to soften the stool-who knows), and adding pancreatic digestive enzymes. None of these were the golden antidote although they didn’t seem to make anything worse either. I am considering going back to the food the breeder was originally feeding the puppies and her older dogs. It is difficult to find, probably because it was originally designed specifically for mushing sled dogs! She had a very healthy stool when I picked her up from the breeder, so I am hoping to get her back to that state! Her obedience training is going very well. She sits and waits for: her meals, to be let out of her crate, and to be let in from the backyard. Her calm leash walking is going well, and her leave it command is getting a lot of practice! Her greatest challenge is greeting new people. She eventually warms up to everyone, but she is initially unsure of new people. Even with the 100 new people a week strategy implemented for the first two months she was with us, she is still apprehensive at times. She is exceedingly gentle and calm around Kelsey, which is a very good thing since she is very bouncy around Debra and I. She is learning to bounce keeping her paws either in the air or on the ground. We are looking into tracking training as she appears to like to use her nose a lot and we are also investigating cart pulling as this is what her breed was originally bred to do! I’ll keep you posted!