Monday 25 March 2019

w/c 18th March 2019

 Monday 18th March

This week has been really hard, absolutely nothing to do with Dembe, he as always is my boy and an angel. Its me, I had a medication dose altered and I’m away with the fairies or trying to function through thick fog all the time. So this weeks dairy entries are going to be a bit scarce.

For the first day since he came home with us I forgot to take a photo of him, which proves how bad it has been. He has been well looked after and as always is my number one priority. It’s just well the dosage was too much and now I have dropped back to what I was on before.

We had a lovely day together and he has been very cuddly and following everywhere, which shows he has picked up on the fact that I wasn’t right bless him.

 

Tuesday 19th March

As Jay was day off today and we had several things planned Dembe was taken for a walk on the common at around 8am. He is looking so big in the back of the car these days it is scary. He still seems so small to us.

back of car

Before they left for their walk I asked Jay to take some photos for the blog. Due to my mobility issues I can’t go out with Dembe unless it is somewhere there is pavement. I do have an off-road trike attachment but due to the issue of the trapped nerve in my neck I am not using it at present. Jay took some cracking photos.

on the walk

on the walk

on the walk (1)

He loves to either carry the ball around during his walk or he likes it being thrown for him. Mollie used to love having a ball thrown for her but she is nowhere in the same league as Dembe for a ball obsession,

Jay spent the next few hours getting rid of the old wood from the back garden which meant Dembe had to be in his crate for a bit as we live in a terraced house with no rear access so everything has to come through the house. A nightmare if you have pets or small children. Dembe was an absolute angel and patiently waited until Jay had cleared up all the mess before he was let out. He then had some fun as I was getting my hair done, it was the first time I had a full set of foils on my head for highlights so his face was a picture looking at me wondering what on earth I was doing. He was pretty good around the hair only taking a few curls and running off with them.

As he had been such a patient boy all day with so much going on and had behaved himself when Rachel my hairdresser was here he got rewarded with another walk up on the common. When we got home we looked in our post box and found that Dembe’s coat for when he is a bit bigger had arrived. I’m not sure what he thinks about it?

Tues my new coatWe also have a cover for his lead that says in training. We are getting the basics down. Our next major challenge is to get him to walk alongside the mobility scooter without him trying to jump on me all the time. He walks like a dream for Jay but as soon as I am in the picture he just wants to be with me. So we are going to find a local car park and for the next few Sundays in the early mornings try repeatedly getting him to walk alongside me. It maybe that we have to think of a super dooper new treat for daddy to carry whilst we do this so his attention stays on Jay and not me.

Wednesday 20th March

I have no clue where this week is going! Dembe’s new adult teeth are almost fully formed and look quite strange against his baby teeth that he still has. He has been an angel all day again. There have been things that I needed to get done and he has just put himself on his bed and gone to sleep. He hasn’t got himself into any mischief, I am sure that will happen by the bucketful in the future! I thank my lucky stars that I have such a lovely boy, especially when I read the horror stories on some of the Labrador social media groups ( not our Broadleaf one ). I do wonder though if these people thought properly about getting a dog before taking the plunge, some of the things they complain about have me in shock, they are expecting way too much from a 9 week old puppy.

As we were up early this morning 5.30am for me, my nose was being gently chewed and 6.30am for hubby we got Dembe up on the common for a good run by 7.30am. It has set us up nicely for the day as he has been asleep for a lot of it and none of his usual antics of constantly wanting his ball thrown. I think all the excitement of yesterday as well has probably worn him out.

He has been my little helper today, picking things up for me when I have dropped them – and not running off with them but giving them back to me. Nothing that we have been working on this is his natural behaviour. Very good when I dropped a load of socks on the floor when emptying the tumble dryer.

Here he is lying on the bed

my little helper

He really loves stealing his dads star wars slippers. It doesn’t seem to matter where Jay hides them in his bedroom Dembe finds them and brings them into my room. He also has in his mouth his comforter that he brought home from the breeder. It’s never been washed and I had to do a slight repair job on the arm of the teddy as it had torn, he still plays with this everyday. We keep it upstairs in my room so he has it there at night.

He has been out in what we have left of the garden which is the patio and a small amount of decking as we are having a garden make over at the moment. Which is being done on Jays days off. It will be a long project, but when it is done we won’t have to do anything to it again other than weeding! Plus it will be so much safer for Dembe to run around on. The decking as soon as it is wet is lethal and I was constantly terrified he was going to hurt himself

weds back garden

Thursday 21st March

As Jay was on a late night Dembe was up for a walk on the common by 9am. He loves his walks up there as he gets to meet other dogs and have a play. Today he met a very elderly black lady Labrador who was very patient with him as he bounced around and tried to get her to join in and play with her, He also met a horse properly today.

Jay and Dembe have bumped into this rider a few times, she has been watching Dembe grow up. Today they met properly and she got the horse to stand very still whilst Jay lifted Dembe up and let him have a look at the horse properly. He then put him on the floor and let him walk to the side of the horse. The horse snorted and Dembe had a bit of a jump as it startled him. He was very well-behaved as normally when he gets frustrated or wants something or is frightened he will bark. ( I still haven’t got him over his fear of the printer, every time a printed page drops to the collection tray he barks and then runs away! It is the strangest thing to be frightened of). He was shattered by the time he got hoe and slept the rest of the morning.

 

sleeping on the sofa

Dembe  has got much better at entertaining himself if I am doing something where my attention can’t be solely on him. Most of the time he will get up on the sofa and go to sleep or put himself on his bed. I have been lucky that he hasn’t got into mischief so far. I check on him regularly to ensure he isn’t chewing or destroying something but he has been very good. He reminds me of our first dog Travis who was a good boy when we couldn’t give him our undivided attention because we were doing jobs around the house. We could trust him not to destroy things, he was just happy we were in the house with him.

As we were by ourselves this evening we were up in bed by 7.15pm. Dembe settled really quickly and only woke when Jay got home shortly after 9pm. As soon as I felt Dembe sit up I said to him it was daddy, so he didn’t bark. He got off the bed and waited patiently by the baby gate until his daddy came upstairs. He goes mental when Jay gets home and showers him with kisses.

Friday 22nd March

Dembe had us up at the crack of bloody dawn! From 3.15am he was trying it on for his breakfast. He eventually had it at 4.30am as Jay was on an early shift, he then did his business in the garden and came back to bed. I ended up getting up at 5am as my back was sore. This lazy lump then decided to sleep for the majority of the morning! If only us humans could get away with that.

I just have one question though how does something so cute and small snore like a warthog?




When he isn’t next to me on the sofa sleeping he goes on the sofa opposite me so he can keep an eye on me. He is quite a guard dog, any strange noise outside the house he will bark. The other night Jay got up for a wee and Dembe barked at him as normally Jay doesn’t get up at night. He really does see his job as protecting both Jay and I.

sleeping

When Dembe was more awake in the afternoon we started back on the “lie down” command. We started it over a week ago and due to me feeling rough and not very with it I didn’t go back and revisit it. I was so surprised that he remembered what I wanted him to do. Ok so he isn’t lying down immediately but he is getting it and considering this was our second session I was impressed. Lie down is quite submissive for a dog and many of them will flatly refuse to do this. I did have Frankie and Willow trained to lie down but Travis and Mollie would never do it!



 

I weighed Dembe today and found out he now weighs 14.5kg / 32lbs / 2st 4lbs at 18 weeks old, he is roughly supposed to gain 2lb a week at this stage so I can stop panicking that he is overweight. He certainly doesn’t look fat, you can feel his ribs and see then when he turns a certain way. I can also feel his spine and pelvis without having to rummage around. Plus his waist does go in. With him being a Labrador I panic constantly in case he becomes chubby.  He doesn’t half try it on now though, he is forever sitting in front of the fridge waiting to see if any cocktail sausages fall out!

Saturday 23rd March

As Jay was on a late night Dembe got a nice walk up at Woodbury Castle this morning. Dembe had a wonderful time playing with a Collie cross called Sookie. However Sookie ( like all dogs tend to do at some point)  decided to have selective hearing when her dad was shouting at her to come back. She was having far too much fun playing kiss chase with Dembe. Jay wasn’t bothered as running around playing is as good as a walk. In the end though Jay had to call Dembe back to him – and he came back first time, the miracle that is a bag full of bits of cocktail sausages. Jay then stayed put until Sookie’s owner came and collected her. She wasn’t impressed but her dad was exasperated with her. Jay couldn’t wait to tell me when he got back to the car about how good Dembe had been coming back with his recall. I am sure when he hits his teenage years he will decide to be a plonker and develop selective hearing. We are just very lucky that we have concentrated on this from day one. I could always call Mollie and Travis back however Frankie and Willow had selective hearing. I know how scary that is so I wanted to ensure we didn’t have that fear with Dembe.

After his escapades on his walk he has been a pretty tired pup bless him. We have had a couple of play sessions to burn off any energy and we have continued to work on lie down which he is getting faster at responding to.

One thing I really do love about Dembe is he loves getting mummy cuddles as much as I love giving them to him. He really is the soppiest dog I have ever owned and Frankie was a very loving boy.

Sunday 24th March

Sunday the day of rest, that’s a laugh in our house with the garden being revamped. BY 11am this morning the remaining decking and joists had been removed and are sat on the sliver of front garden that we have running alongside the drive. Dembe was a good boy as he had to stay in his crate for quite a while, whilst the wood was taken through the house and then whilst the mud was cleaned up. We are very lucky that he really doesn’t kick off much at all when he is put in his crate.

As we knew he would have to be in his crate for a period of time today we took him out on Woodbury Common at 8am. He met two female Bulldog puppies, who loved playing with them. He also met two elderly chocolate Labrador’s who were very placid when faced with a bouncing pup and had they been a few years younger would have had a play. It is really nice now that Jay can take Dembe anywhere and not have to worry about running into other dogs. The Weimaraners were not good with other dogs, particularly Frankie who was nervous aggressive. This always caused us so much stress, now we have the freedom to choose where we go.

Dembe had been such a good boy this morning that once all the garden work had finished and Jay had some lunch he was taken out again for another run around. This time we went to another part of the common. This time he bumped into three horses, thankfully after meeting the horse earlier in the week he knew to sit close to Jay whilst they passed. All these things are excellent experiences for a little pup.

He has slept the remainder of the day bless him.



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