Puppy Postcards: The First Week

Boyfriend and I welcomed a new member into our family last week: a puppy named Rogue.

She’s a 12-week-old Australian cattle dog. She may be a mix with…something, but she may be a pure breed. Either way, she’s PURE ADORABLE! We named her after the X-Men character and the beer.

We had a moment the day after we brought her home where we looked at each other and said, “What have we done?” Getting a dog wasn’t a quick decision and we had prepared. But actually having a puppy in the house? Yikes!

Thankfully, I could turn to our Persephone dog experts, who helped us through the major bumps. Here’s links to the articles that helped us out the most.

• Getting a dog: Prepping your home and surviving the first night: Our bad. We totally forgot we’d read this article. Thankfully, Rogue has a chill personality and was very happy in her dog bed the first night.
• Socializing your dog: We took her to the Fourth of July parade. Such noise! Much action! Wow! This week we’ll be taking her on a short hike since we’d like to take her backpacking when she’s old enough.
• Housebreaking your simple dog: Rogue is not simple: she is, in fact, very smart. So smart that when we implemented this plan, she napped while we waited for her to potty. This doesn’t mean the advice is wrong, just that our dog is different. We switched to taking her out every hour on the hour for 10 minutes until we knew her potty schedule.
• Getting a dog: Surviving the first weeks: We’re still on this. Mainly, we’re clicking and treating good behavior, and she’s even learned sit.

I’ll provide occasional updates on our success with training our dog the Persephone Magazine way!