Marigold

Marigold is a twelve week old Golden Retriever puppy. And she has joined our family. (We affectionately call her Mara.)

I'm now sitting here, listening to Brian as he says, "That's right! On the paper!! Good girl!!"
We are trying everything we can to get her housetrained. What's working best right now is newspapering our kitchen and keeping her in there until she does her business (she had NO idea what we were taking her outside for...so this system works better.)

Here's how it works: The kitchen is completely newspapered. Each day, as Mara learns that the newspaper is the only place she should pee/poop, we take away one piece of the newspaper. So, the space that she uses to pee/poop gets smaller and smaller. When only one piece of paper is left, we bring that outside and then reward her with treats and lots of "good girl"s and petting when she goes outside. We may look crazy walking a dog outside to pee on a piece of newspaper, but it'll hopefully cut down on the amount of time it takes her to figure out the whole outside peeing thing.

Anyway, she's an absolute JOY to have around. My cat Moxie seems to be wary, but she hasn't hissed once, not even when Mara tries to "play" with her. Moxie just runs away.

So we'll be taking her to the dog park today to bond a bit, then off to the vet this afternoon for some shots and a check up. I'm so excited!!!!!

Having a puppy is great consolation (I had to say goodbye to my sister today...I'll hopefully see her in May.) Today's a good day. :)