Friday, April 19th, Poppy turned 10 weeks old and marked ONE WEEK since we brought our little bundle of love home. She is growing so fast (she now weighs 13 lbs.!) that I’ve had to make her puppy collar bigger! And even though my days revolve around a three-a-day feeding schedule, training and middle-of-the night trips to the backyard, I couldn’t be having a better time than raising this sweet girl.

Poppy is one of a litter of seven. The GDA uses puppy raising groups in Southern California and the active puppy raiser groups are in San Fernando Valley (Sylmar Group), Ventura, West Los Angeles, South Bay, Orange County, San Gabriel Valley and San Diego.

The San Diego group isn’t very large compared to some of the other puppy raising groups (understandable given the distance between San Diego and the GDA campus in Sylmar) so of the seven “P” litter puppies, two came to the San Diego group and the other five went to the Ventura group. San Diego is represented by the Jones Family with Pongo (front row) and the King Family (my husband Ted and me) with Poppy (back row, far right). The Ventura puppies are Palmer, Proxie, Piper, Poco and Peyton.

It’s been an awesome (and at times exhausting!) ten days but things are working out really well. I’m sure all proud puppy raisers think “their” puppy is the “best” but I want to go on record and say that THIS ONE IS. She is so smart and is – it sounds weird to say – a polite puppy. My experience with Daisy at feeding time was a frenzied, jumping puppy who could not wait to get to the bowl. Poppy? I am amazed to say that when she hears me open the microwave door (I heat up a bit of water to soften up her kibble) she runs to me and sits at attention….without being called. And when I move to put her kibble in the bowl, she follows me, sits at attention and just waits.

Poppy is also quickly learning her “sit, down, stand” and “let’s go” and “come” and “get busy” commands; “get busy” is the command to pee and poo. And since her training is “rewards” based (meaning whenever she does anything I want her to do, she gets a piece of puppy kibble) she has figured out that if she just squats and tinkles a tiny bit, she’ll get a kibble. Well, at first I was (again with this word) amazed – and thrilled – that she pees on command UNTIL I realized that she holding most of it and deposits it on the kitchen floor a short time after we get inside. So, we’re working on that.

Poppy also is not very keen on being crated. The first few nights she did OK but then she decided she really didn’t like going back in after the late night potty break. Imagine trying to fall back to sleep with a high-pitched, barking puppy…not easy. Out of desperation, I found a new age channel on Pandora and set the volume on low and set my phone next to her crate. It worked. I haven’t had to use the music the past few nights…she seems to be settling back down quickly and for that I am GRATEFUL!

We have our second Puppy class tomorrow…can’t wait to see how this little one will do!