Introducing Hudson

Gary and I picked up Hudson about a week and an half ago from his breeder down in Chico.  It has been a whirlwind since he arrived, and honestly it feels like he's been here for a month already.  The drive back from Chico was a very windy one, and poor Hudson got carsick twice on the way, but otherwise slept peacefully in my lap.

He has settled in well at home, and absolutely loves his great-uncle Levi and his stepbrother Paco.  I try to limit how much time they play together so he doesn't bond with the other dogs more than me.

Hudson's house training is going really well.  He was initially very barky in his xpen or crate inside, but that has improved dramatically.  He still occasionally will bark at the other dogs if they are on the other side of the xpen and he wants to play, or he'll bark sometimes if he's put in his crate and not ready to settle down.  A blanket over the top so he can't see us works magic on that barking.  He's only had two close calls for accidents, but luckily I've been able to scoop him up in time and rush him outside.  He learned his potty spot quickly, and is very good about pottying right when I take him outside.  Now we just need to learn a way to indicate that he needs to go outside.  Hudson is great at entertaining himself with toys, and it's fun to watch him climb in the toy box and search through to pick what he wants to play with next.  He also loves to come up and stand or sit between my legs.

He loves Levi's bed and will pounce onto it with his toys

Still haven't mastered the game of fetch, but we're working on it

Helping in the kitchen

He's been coming to work with me every day, and has been a great truck dog, and has been settling well at the office too.

We took a little walk earlier this week down our dirt road, and he was so funny somersaulting into the tall grass.

Today we went into Reno to run a couple errands and to socialize Hudson a little bit, and he had a great time walking around the shopping center and trying to get pets from everyone he saw. Everyone we walked past exclaimed at what a cute puppy he is (i agree but might be a little biased).

He didn't understand why these "people" wouldn't pet him, and he whined and kept going up to them

Hudson isn't as food motivated as Levi or Kobe were, so it might challenge me a little bit more with training, but so far he is very smart and is learning sit, down, stand, and come very well.  He's pretty good about sitting for attention and not jumping up, except at work were I need to train my co-workers a little better :-).  Hudson is definitely not as high-drive of a puppy as Levi was.  I knew that about his litter, and I thought that would fit well at this time in our lives considering we're hoping to start a family in the next year.  Now that I have him though, I realize that the dog trainer in me really enjoys training a higher drive dog, and he might not be as much fun to train as Levi was.  It will definitely take more work on my part to get engagement out of him, and I already realize that he can only take shorter periods of work/play.

One thing that I realize about having a puppy is that there is always some comparing to the dog that came before them.  I know that they are each individuals, and are wonderful and lovely in their own right, but it's just natural to compare them a little.  The nice thing about getting Hudson when I still have Levi, is that it doesn't make me miss Levi like Levi as a puppy did for me missing Kobe.  Instead, it just makes me appreciate things about Levi even more than I already did.

Time can slow down now so Hudson stays a cute, cuddly puppy for just a little bit longer.

Dog Park

 

A tired dog is a happy dog...and a happy mom!

Davis Adventures

Levi and I are back in Templeton for the next few weeks getting to enjoy the last couple weeks of summer.  We had a few fun outings in Davis (or the surrounding areas) the past few weeks but I was too busy to post about them then so I'm sorry these are a tad late.

Point Isabel Regional Shoreline
Alicia and I took had been wanting to take the dogs to the beach and we read about Point Isabel online which sounded really neat so we though we'd try it a few weekends ago.  We got there and it was FILLED with dogs!  I don't think I've ever seen so many dogs and people in one place before. 

I was expecting Levi to be crazy and wanting to say hi to everyone but he did really well.  I think that since there were so many dogs there he wasn't as excited about each of them. 

Playing with a friendly Vizsla

Happy pup!

Levi really just wanted to find a way into the water the whole time.   Unfortunately what we didn't know going in was that there wasn't very good water access (or at least not that I could find).  It is mostly just a walking path around a water channel that is surrounded by large rocks on both sides. 

Scaling rocks to get to the water.

We found a little area that wasn't as rocky so Levi could swim for a bit but the whole walk after that he kept running down the rocks trying to get back to the water.

The rocks took it's toll on his paw pads and made two of his front pads raw to the point that he started limping at the end. :-(  The next day his feet were so tender that he barely wanted to move.  I bandaged up his paws and he seemed to feel better after that.

American River
The next trip we made was back to the American River in Sac.  Just Levi and I went this time.  We went back to Paradise Beach to a stretch of river that we had found on the fourth of July that was good for swimming.

Does this look like "Paradise" to you?  Good thing it gets better than this.

Levi was so excited to be there and wanted to run all around in the sand and swim after his bumper in the water.  The water was moving a little bit more than I liked so when I threw the toy it would slowly drift down the river and Levi would drift along with it as he swam for it.  I didn't throw his toy very far or let him swim too much because of it but he had fun anyway. 

Waiting for me to throw his bumper

Crazy boy playing in the sand

On our way out I found a different stretch of the river that is a shallower cove where the water didn't seem to be moving much.  It was pretty crowded with families and kids playing in the water so we didn't stop to swim but next time I'll try to go earlier and let him swim there.

Loch Leven Lakes Trail
On Monday Alicia and I took Levi and ChaCha hiking in north Lake Tahoe.  Alicia had hiked this trail with some of our other friends previously and they all really liked it so we decided to go there again.  In their previous trip one of the dogs paw pads were worn raw since the trial is really rocky so I decided to get Levi some hiking booties to protect his delicate little toes.  One stop at REI and he was ready for action. 

Levi sporting his new Ruff Wear Bark'n Boots

He surprisingly didn't mind the booties much, probably because he was so excited to be out hiking.  They were a little big on his back feet and one of them kept rotating so I had to stop and fix it quite a few times.  They stayed right-side-up on his front feet but the top got under his dew claws a few times and irritated it.  Overall though they did a good job protecting his feet which I'm sure would have been torn to shreds the way he was running around on all the rocks and through the shrubbery. 

Levi didn't want to look at me for any of his posed pictures :-(

He can always find a stick to chew

ChaCha somehow managed to scale this giant boulder

Taking a rest break to cool off

Admiring the view

How I love being in the mountains!

We didn't make it the big lake at the end of the hike since we had to be home at a certain time and we got a little bit of a late start.  Hopefully we'll go back again when we don't have any time constraints because it was a really nice hike.  I'm looking forward to trying a few of the other Tahoe hikes that I've read about too.  And the jury is still out on the booties.  I might try the next smaller size and see if those work better (he measured in-between sizes).  If it still gets caught under his dew claw though I might have to try something else.