A beautiful fox started popping up around our yard this past week, apparently living under our deck and driving Willow bananas!
Then we saw just why she was hanging around!
Rohan upgraded his phone, so I decided I needed to check out the camera 😉
Willow “helped” Rohan with a car project.
And Sebastian decided to chill in the dishwasher.
Also, I’m teaching 2nd graders at VBS this week! So much fun! Here’s the band at a practice session yesterday 🙂
Have a great week!!!
I am a blogger fail 😛 So great at starting things and so hard to keep up with them! I think that may be the definition of an entrepreneur 😛 ANYWAY, if anyone is still following, I will try to at least post a picture every week now! Here’s a progression of Willow from 8 weeks (the week we brought her home) through 5½ months. I still can’t believe she’s going to be 6 months old in just over a week! My little baby is growing so fast.
It’s difficult to find time these days for a proper update (or really anything that’s not 100% watching Willow all the time 😉 ). But, we are doing well! Willow picks things up very quickly, we’ve already mastered “sit,” “down,” and 9 times out of 10 we get a great response from “stay!” Can’t wait to start puppy class on Saturday! Here’s a couple photo updates for now. Also, be sure to follow @naturalnut on instagram or http://twitter.com/lifewithwillow for more to the minute updates 😉 I’ll get back to the full story updates at some point! 😉
I love her fuzzy white chin 🙂
Meeting Jasmine the Sheep
Sleepy ride home after a long walk in the park
Meeting the Chickens
Wait now, who’s walking who?
(Disclaimer: Apologies if this post seems disjointed, I can’t write while she’s awake, and when she falls asleep it takes some time to get my thoughts together. I also just love watching her sleep. She has the cutest little face!)
I can’t believe it’s only been two weeks since we made the trek up to PA to pick up the new addition to our fur-family. With the housebreaking, discouraging the act of cat chasing, vet visits, crate training and keeping a constant hawk-eye on this active little girl, it honestly feels like Willow has been in our lives much longer. Each day we notice that she is starting to look more dog and less tiny puppy, though her actions still scream “I am definitely a puppy!”
She is an absolute angel when she is asleep 😉 And really the other “bad” behavior is either because she is still a baby (10 weeks today!) or just an error on our part (not watching her closely, or needing some more training ourselves 😉 )
She has been doing wonderfully in the crate at night, sleeping from about 9 to 7 straight through the night. And we haven’t had any accidents in the house since Friday morning! This little girl catches on quick 🙂 We have also mastered “sit” and “down” (laying down), though we still have a very short attention span and haven’t quite gotten the idea of “stay.” We gated off one room of the house to make watching 
Willow much easier, and to give the cats a bit of a break without them feeling like they have to stay upstairs to get away from this shiny black bundle of mayhem. Willow definitely is starting to get frustrated that she isn’t allowed past the gate all the time, but once she understands her name and comes when called, she will be ready to explore the rest of the house off-leash.
ADVENTURES
One of our favorite toys is the IQ Ball, we fill it with kibble at breakfast and/or dinner time and she noses it around to get the food to drop out of the hole. Once she figured out how it works, she went crazy! Check out the video of Willow playing with the IQ Ball here 🙂
We met a friend and her 8-month old son at a park last week. Willow just LOVED sniffing around on our walk, and my friend and I enjoyed comparing raising babies and puppies. Her son also was extremely excited to watch an active little puppy flop around. On Saturday, a friend and her 5 year old dog came by and we took a walk so Sully could show Willow just how it’s done. After some excited squealing from Willow and “what-the-heck-is-that-and-why-does-it-have-so-much-energy” glances from Sully, I think they warmed up to each other nicely.
I will admit to days where we wonder “what the heck did we get ourselves into?” But honestly, we wouldn’t trade this lovable little girl for the world. She is just as much a part of the family as Oliver, Maddie or Sebastian, though they would still beg to differ at this point 😉
A whole new world
Every turn a surprise
With new horizons to pursue
Every moment red-letter
I’ll chase them anywhere
There’s time to spare
Let me share this whole new world with you
– from A Whole New World, Aladdin
Here’s a quick little update (typed on my phone, so apologies for any odd mishaps 😉 ) while Willow takes a little snooze.
The past couple of days have been a whirlwind! When she’s awake, Willow is one massive ball of energy! I am up and down emotionally, is there such a thing as postpartum depression for human new puppy adoptive mothers?
She is only 2 months old, but you can see that she is a super intelligent pup! She has just started to understand that running to the back door (and pawing at it) means she’ll get to go outside to relieve herself. We’re hoping she quickly learns that the leash is not a chew/tug toy! Another insight into her intelligence is that she has learned to sit when given a certain hand gesture! She doesn’t quite know to associate the word “sit” with the action yet, but that will come in time.
(Has she really been home only 5 days so far?)
The cats are doing much better than expected. Mostly they stay away during playtime (also known as “how-the-heck-can-a-pup-this-tiny-have-so-much-freakin’-energy!!!), but will venture into the room when they realize she’s fallen asleep. Willow has also received a couple smacks on the nose when she got too intense, which definitely surprise her, but nobody had gotten hurt 🙂
Maddie watching Willow sleep
Night time has been going very well! She sleeps in her crate next to our bed, and, other than the first two or three nights where we had to go outside once in the middle of the night, she has been sleeping from about 11 to about 7 or 7:30 with little to no whimpering.
Next few steps, taking a puppy training class (this is more for Rohan and I so we can know how best to get this smartie’s attention and how to entertain her), first introduction vet visit on Tuesday, and learning how to live being in the crate for a little time during the day so mommy (me, Katie) can actually get some things done and not completely disappear from the social scene!
Thanks for reading! Stay tuned for more adorable cuteness and “tails” of mass puppy mayhem.
We picked up 8-week old Willow yesterday afternoon from just outside Lancaster, PA. A whopping 5 pounds, she is a third the size of the kitties back home! On the way home, we decided to stop by and meet some of Katie’s family – Grandpa, Andrea, and their two cats. Willow was shy at first, but it wasn’t long before she was bounding around the room, looking for something fun to chew. The cats weren’t too thrilled to have a tiny puppy invade their space, but they had good manners.
Willow was an angel for the car ride, sleeping most of the way. Katie and Willow tried sitting in the front seat, but ended up moving to the backseat so the driver wouldn’t be distracted 😉
Once we got home, Willow met Oliver, Sebastian and Madison, took a little poo on the carpet (oops), and checked out her new crate and fun toys. She was still a little timid, everything was so new! She had dinner, played some more, sniffed at the cats, and took a potty break outside before curling up in the crate for the night. Rohan and Katie decided to sleep downstairs near the crate for her first night, so she wouldn’t be too scared. Rohan started on the floor right next to the crate, and Katie snagged the couch. Good thing, because when Willow started whining and yelping, Rohan figured out a good way to calm her down and she drifted right off to sleep.
She slept straight through a full 6 hours! Katie woke up a couple times during the night, once because kitty Sebastian was chewing on the curtain cord right above her head (boy does he chew loud!), but Willow made it until just before 7:00 before she needed to go outside.
It’s a good thing Willow is so cute. With her rambunctious puppy energy, and short (but many) naps during the day, this little puppy is going to be a lot more work and intense than anticipated. But with a face like that, how can you resist showering her with lots of patient love and kisses? After all, she is still just a baby.
Puppy Prep
Maddie investigating and giving the new puppy’s crate her “sit-of-approval.”
Picking Up Puppy
“They’re all so cute, how can we pick just one?”
We found our baby! About to fall asleep on the long car ride home.
Welcome home Willow!
Adventures with Willow 