W/C 4th March 2019

 Monday 4th March 2019

Dembe and I were back to our normal routine today as Jay has gone back to work after his weeks holiday. Dembe has been a soppy little pup today wanting lots of cuddle’s and sleeping loads.

I think I have said before about how he always manages to get in the shower with me in the mornings. Today was no different. Yet again we have a wet dog

Sorry for the picture quality but he was refusing to sit still as usual. I have so many photos that I have had to delete which are just a yellow blur as he has run towards me as I have tried to take the photo.

He was ecstatic when Jay came home for lunch. It’s always really nice to see him get so excited when his daddy gets home. Especially as he is my dog, due to the amount of time I spend with him but he really loves his dad too.

We’ve played lots of games today, tug and chasing the ball. He seems to have boundless energy for such a little pup. In reality it is a lot of activity in a short space of time followed by long periods of calm and sleep.

Jay took Dembe for a walk around the block tonight after work. Due to Dembe only being allowed 15 mins total walk time per day ( to protect his joints) at the moment he is having one long walk ( his full 15 mins ) a day. This will increase again on Friday as he is 16 weeks old ( 4 months) and he will be allowed to have 20 minutes a day.

At some point I am sure I have told you how Dembe likes to sleep at night. It’s mainly as close to me as he can possibly get. I managed to snap this one tonight.

I had to move my head to take the photo, his nose  has to be touching me! If he is sleeping at my feet he will rest his head on my left leg.

Tuesday 5th March

Jay is day off today so Dembe was taken up to Woodbury common for a walk. He deliberately took him to an area he knew would be busy as he wanted to keep Dembe used to meeting other dogs. Dembe is very sweet in the fact he is a little obsessed with other Labrador’s. Today he met a black lab and a Collie. He wanted to play with them but they were more interested in Jays bag of treats that he carries. Dembe was very confident though and trotted up to meet the dogs under his own steam.

There have been various jobs around the house being done today, we keep trying to use different tools so that Dembe gets used to the noise. Today was the turn of the sander, he was a little perturbed at first and then realised it was all ok and settled back down to sleep.

We have a slight issue developing with Dembe and the Hoover. When Dembe is in his crate the hoover doesn’t bother him at all or the steam mop. He is quite happy getting his treats out of a frozen kong toy. However when he is not in his crate the hoover gets barked at non stop whether it is on or off. He is ok if he is up on the sofa with me, it is when he is on the floor that he feels the need to bark. At the moment it is quite cute but give it 12 months and its a big dog bark it isn’t going to be any fun at all!

 

Wednesday 6th March

Jays shift today is late night, so that means that Dembe can get a nice off the lead walk up the common. The weather was pretty grotty, gusty winds and peeing down, thankfully Dembe didn’t care at all. Come rain or shine a walk is a walk to him.

They have been doing a lot of land management on the common and areas that were full of tree’s or gorse bushes have been cut down. So where there used to be a tiny path to the pond, it is now all flat and the pond is in clear view of the main path.

Jay decided to take Dembe to the pond to see what he would do. Initially Dembe was just paddling around in the edge of the water. As Jay had wellies on he thought he would go out a bit further to see if Dembe would follow him. The next thing Jay saw was a blonde streak launching himself into the water and having a swim. Jay was gutted that it happened so quickly he was unable to take a video or some photographs for me to be able to see it.

By the time my boys got back to the car they were like a couple of drowned rats. Thankfully with Dembe’s little swim he wasn't that muddy and just needed a quick wipe down with a towel when we got home. I can never get over how quickly Dembe’s fur dries. The Weims fur seemed to soak up the water and take an age to dry. Dembe just needs a towel dry and he is there. This is probably due to the fact the breed was originally used to retrieve fish, so needed a good water proof coat.

Back of the car post swim!

 

Thursday 7th March

We have just had the best night ever with Dembe, he has slept from 10pm until 5am. He only woke up at 5am because I jolted awake in a panic as he hadn’t been out during the night. If I hadn’t woken him he probably would have managed to sleep a while longer.

This morning Jay took him out for a small walk around the block before work as he was on a 9-6 shift. We had hoped it may help him burn off some energy but no he was still as mad as ever.

On the whole Dembe is pretty much house trained, although he still has the odd accident. His accidents are due to Jay and I forgetting we aren’t dealing with an adult dog. On Sunday morning he had a wee on Paul’s carpet, I was absolutely mortified. This happened because we  didn’t let him out for a wee before we went to Paul’s.  If we had of done this wouldn’t have happened. Thankfully Paul took it a lot better than I did!

Last night I got into bed and my feet hit a cold wet patch at the end of my bed. Yep Dembe had a wee on my bed during the afternoon. I know exactly when it happened and why it happened. I was busy doing something when he whined at me. I assumed he was bored and told him to wait. Clearly he couldn’t. I am just glad he didn’t do it on the carpet and that I have a large drum washing machine and tumble dryer! I can’t be cross about either occasion as both of them were down to human error not canine.

Today I have been teaching Dembe how to go down stairs, up until now he has been carried. However he is getting very big and very heavy, my back doesn’t allow me to do it anymore and he hates sitting on my lap as I scoot down the stairs on my bum. So I decided today was the day he would learn.

It took around 10-20 minutes to get him down the stairs, it was done with the lure of cocktail sausages on each step and gently feeding him bits of sausage, The hardest part for Dembe seemed to be starting. Once he overcame that he was easily managing the stairs. For the next few trips downstairs I was making him do at least half of them. It was an all day training session on and off.

After all those stairs it was time for a sleep!

Friday 8th March

Upstairs with Dembe this morning, he was in my room and I was in the bathroom. When I went to go downstairs I looked around the bedrooms and Dembe was nowhere to be found. I then stood at the top of the stairs and could hear Dembe taking a drink from his water bowl in the kitchen. The little bugger had only done the stairs all by himself! I was so proud of him as I knew how scared he was yesterday of taking that first step. It is also his 4 month birthday today so its been a momentous day.

All the books I have read say that Labrador’s are a quiet breed, rarely bark etc. They obviously forgot to tell Dembe that, he is very vocal and at times he sounds like he is trying to have a conversation. He does this with Sandra every time he sees her. It is quite funny as the more she speaks to him the more noise he makes.

Dembe is a bit of an exhibitionist, he delights in humping his bed inside his crate whenever we have visitors. It wouldn’t be so bad but he likes to make eye contact with me or our guests as he is banging away at his bed! I have enquired with other Broadleaf owners and it seems to be a bit of a thing for the boys. As long as it stays confined to his crate and not on human legs etc he can continue to have his sexy time!

I forgot to say that Dembe was taken on a very early walk this morning – 5.30am. Initially he was a little spooked with it being dark, it was his first walk in the dark. Once he got over his fear he was fine and was pottering alongside Jay with not a care in the world. From today he can have 20 minutes exercise a day, so we are splitting this up into two 20 minute walks.

For his evening walk Dembe was treated to a walk up the common where Jay used to walk our Weimaraners. It’s nice that we have this continuity but it is so bittersweet. Some days when Jay gets back to the car I am waiting to see Frankie and Mollie jumping into the car, our grey ghost and in pops our blonde bombshell Dems. It is difficult for my brain to adjust after all these years. Just goes to show what you actually see and what the mind decides to make up for you.

 

Saturday 9th March 

Today I have seriously wondered if Jay slipped some speed into Dembe’s breakfast. He has been manic for a lot of the day.

The little tike got soaked again whilst I was having a shower and tried to steal a bar of soap!

Here he is perched on the end of my bed dripping wet, Excuse the bomb site behind him we tend to live in our house and aren’t always Instagram ready.

I have discovered that he is not a fan of Andrex which is sad because he is an Andrex puppy! He found a toilet roll and proceeded to shred it whilst I was in the kitchen getting a drink. I could hear him chasing something around the room, I am thankful that he managed to wedge what was left of the roll under the sofa. It looked like someone has sprinkled confetti all over the lounge floor. I did manage to laugh it could have been so much worse.

Dembe is now going up and down the stairs no bother at all, which is great to see. This morning first thing Jay and I left him at the top of the stairs to see what he would do and after a couple of minutes he made his way downstairs. After that he has been going up and down them like he has been doing it the whole time he has lived here which is 8 weeks.

All he has wanted to do today is play outside with his football. I bought him a proper leather football a few weeks ago and he adores it. Its got teeth marks all over it but he doesn’t care. When he first got it, it was almost bigger than he was and he struggled to pick it up. Now he carries it around no problem at all.

This week Dembe has definitely got taller and longer. I am amazed at how quickly he grows. It’s like you close your eyes for a second and he is bigger again. His head still seems quite small and he hasn’t lost any teeth yet but you can see his jaw bone has grown as the gaps between his teeth have got much larger. He is still a bit of a biter so we are working on that.

Sunday 10th March

Its been horrendously windy overnight and there have been tree blown down. thankfully Dembe slept through it. Our previous dogs would have had us awake all night as they were frightened of loud noises. Even when Dembe nearly got blown over having a poo he didn’t bat an eye lid.

This morning Dembe has been up the common. Jay tried to get him into the pond again but he wasn’t having any of it. Too cold I would imagine.

We decided that we would head over to Pets at Home today as we hadn’t seen our favourite lady for ages due to me coming down with that awful virus a few weeks ago. Thankfully she was there and thank goodness I had a 10% off voucher as the little boy was thoroughly spoilt. We got him a treat ball, so he has to nudge it along the floor to get his lunch / dinner out of it, a wobble Kong so he has to push that to dispense treats, a huge Nyla bone, an enormous antler for him to chew as he is chewing a lot at the moment and wanted to ensure he preferred that to the furniture. We also got two more Kong Tennis balls which are his favourite. So he did very well.

The lady who we see at Pets at home was working so made a real fuss of Dembe. She is so lovely, I was asking after her as the last time we had seen her she was suffering with a burst eardrum bless her. I apologised for it taking us so long to get back to the store. she treats us so well, the queue for the till was so long as their was only one cashier on. Our lovely lady took us over to an empty till and put us through. Bless her heart, she is so kind. I hope Pets at Home realise what an asset this member of staff is.

When we got home we gave him his lunch in the treat ball and it took him far longer to eat his lunch than it normal would of. He has seen a treat ball before, it was last week at his puppy socialisation class so he knew what to do straight away.

He has spent the rest of the day sleeping and having cuddles.