Megan says the crate has saved her relationship with Stevie. The whole not knowing what she would come home to every day was so frustrating and was making her crazy (or crazier than usual).


She reported to me this evening that Stevie is beginning to go up and down The Big Stairs with less and less prompting and overt encouragement. She occasionally will hit her chin going down (have YOU ever tried to go down some stairs with your eyes closed???), but she is getting more and more comfortable and confident every time they do it.

We are contacting this eye specialist this week and hope to set an appointment for the initial exam soon. We are all curious to see what the doctor will say...

G

It's been a relatively uneventful week in the Megan-n-Stevie house.

Megan reports that Stevie is getting better every day about going *down* the stairs as well as *up*. Probably one of the funnier things that happened this week was when Stevie decided to rearrange her entire bathroom area... she pulled everything out of her crate, moved the crate and dragged everything through her water dish. They had been playing "Fetch Lucy" when Megan [who was no doubt multi-tasking] realized it had gotten strangely quiet and Stevie had been gone for a rather long time. Hmmm?


Stevie came out of the bathroom with her Pooh Bear blankie trailing behind her. Megan took it from her and noticed it was quite wet. At first, she thought Stevie had peed on it. But when she looked in the bathroom, she realized that there was not a speck of water in her bowl...

Dogs are nothing if not resourceful when it comes to entertaining themselves.


I'll be back out for a visit next weekend and look forward to detailing her progress on the stairs and other areas. In the meantime, of course, I'll post if anything else noteworthy happens.

Cheers!
G

The crate is working wonders for both Megan and Stevie. Stevie seems to be much calmer and is not tearing anything up in her big new crate. Megan is much happier to come home to a house without any extraneous clean up to do. Megan says it will save their relationship. Too bad it doesn't work on boyfriends or husbands, huh?


I went for a short visit yesterday, and Megan insisted that we go for a walk so she could show me how well Stevie is doing on "the Big Stairs". Going down is still very scary, but she does it well enough. We walked over to the mailbox and back and Megan told me, "You'd better watch fast, because she goes up the stairs much faster than down." Sure enough, Megan said "Step up" and Stevie bounded up them like she was doing an agility course for points.

She's so amazing, so cute and just a joy to be around. Sure wish I could bottle all that energy, though. I'd be fabulously rich...


Check the GALLERY for new photos!
Cheers,
G

Stevie is now the proud owner of one brand new, very large dog crate. Megan went ahead and stopped at PetsMart on her way home from work this afternoon. She is leaving it open in the front room so Stevie can get used to going in and out of it.

When Megan got home, sure enough, Sevie had shredded, torn, ripped and otherwise completely rearranged the potty papers. Many were out in the hallway area instead of the bathroom. All this in spite of walking nearly a mile this morning before Megan went to work.

It's not so much that Megan minds cleaning up, although that's annoying enough in and of itself. She's much more concerned about Stevie eating the paper, or the tape that [used to] help keep it in place, or the puppy pee pads underneath it. Tomorrow will be her first day in the crate. We'll see how it works out...

On a brighter note, Stevie did even better on "the big stairs" today, so some progress does continue to be made in other areas.

Ah, life with a puppy. There's nothing on earth quite like it. And, according to Megan, it's *still* all my fault. Mea culpa.

G

Today is one of those "good news, bad news" days. The good news is that Stevie went all the way down the apartment stairs AND all the way up them, all without too much additional prodding or coaxing. It was definitely a red letter day in that regard.

However... Despite two walks and playing "fetch Lucy" until Megan says her arm was about to fall off, Stevie still decimated the potty papers in the bathroom. More exercise worked for a couple of days. Kong worked for a couple of days. Bigger play area worked for a couple of days. But now, we're back to square one. As those of you who have raised puppies may remember, this is a VERY frustrating phase.

Megan is considering buying Stevie a larger crate to stay in while she's gone to work. I told her it's possible that will only have her tearing up stuff inside her cage. Who knows?

She feels it's a "last resort" -- she doesn't really want to do it, but until Stevie grows out of the newspaper shredding stage, it may be the only answer right now. I asked her if she would talk to my friend Annette Betcher (the animal communicator), but she said no. Oh, well, guess it's not for everybody.

I'll be interested to see how this plays out; you will, of course see updates here as soon as they're available.

G