Merry Christmas ,do you celebrate Christmas? Well we drove down in snow and rain from cold Seattle to cold Seaside town in Oregon , our home for next three days. The girls are watching Jumanji for the first time while Ginger is cozying up next to S‘s feet as he prepares our dinner as I put finishing touches to this post from Crab Pot -our beach cottage.

• 

Just one week left to new year, are you excited for 2022? Wouldn’t you agree 2021 was smidge better than 2020? As I reflect back on this year’s moments , I realized it had been a while since I gave you an update on our not-so-little-anymore puppy Ginger.

❤️ This December our puppy completed four months with us! Ginger is now 6 months old.❤️

• 

In last one week since I started on this post ,our puppy has had a second playdate, pooped out one of Ms. V blue sock, vomited the other one out, chewed up on S’s Birkenstocks , visited the Space Needle and well the list goes on.

• 

• 

Up until few weeks ago Ginger was pretty much home bound except for her regular walks. She needed to be fully vaccinated before she could interact with other dogs for the fear that she may end up catching or passing on an infection or two to other dogs.

All that changed after she got her final shot of vaccination two weeks back!!

First visit to Groomer

Before the groomer, S cleaned her up (read bath) every time she got herself dirty and well guess what?? It was happening oh quite so often as she went digging for worms in the backyard in the rain! Eventually S gave up and missy lost her backyard privilege 🤷‍♀️.

• 

Fully vaccinated she was finally ready for her first playdate, but before she could go out and socialize she needed some serious grooming, a little TLC and a good haircut (after all her mom is a doodle!).

• 

• 

When S got her back home from the groomers , I refused to accept her as our puppy! Staring back at me was a fluffy polar bear. Where was my Ginger ?

• 

Oh I wanted that dirty looking puppy back, this one looked nothing like our dirty cutie beauty , this was also the first time since she came over to stay with us that we got a good look at her eyes 😂 . The haircut revealed a lot about our puppy.😍

• 

The ladies at the groomer had taken some serious interest in our puppy , I mean look at that picture does she even look like Ginger? 🤣🤣

First Playdate

After her grooming Ginger was finally ready for her first playdate with cousin Hobbes. Hobbes is my cousin’s 5 year old golden Labrador Retriever.

• 

Boy o boy did she have a blast that day or what? While Ginger hopped around Hobbes like a little rabbit😂 , Hobbes the matured big boy just stood there wagging his tail, letting the excited puppy have her way!

• 

He was like “I been there, done that, go on puppy it’s your day hop all you want!“😂 ( Yes I now posses the ability to read a dog’s mind, if that was your question 😜🤣)

• 

So Part1 and Part2 of Ginger’s Here sounded delightful isn’t it ? I mean we have this adorable bundle of fur and she’s the apple of girls eyes and well I too fell in love with her. I mean S of course just adored her.

Yes it was perfect for us but she was also a LOT OF WORK for S, like any new born in the house she demanded constant care and attention.

Emergency visit to the Vet

Our first week with her was eventful, Ms. Ginger ended up going to the vet on her 4th day with us. Now for first two days Ginger hardly ate, she even refused the food the breeder had sent along.

S tried to feed her himself but this puppy wasn’t having any of it, one sniff and she would just shut her mouth.

• 

This 8 weeks old puppy was giving us all the attitude of a new born To get her to eat S gave her a tiny piece of cooked chicken mixed with her kibble and wow just like that this girl gobbled it down in minutes. What a relief that was !!

• 

On the day three when she didn’t eat her kibble again and while S was busy with a work meeting, I went ahead and served her a little chicken. Happy that she liked the chicken I kept giving her little pieces of chicken till she had finished a whole breast.🤪

• 

S comes down and instead of getting a pat , I got an earful for giving her so much chicken, like human babies puppies can’t digest new food.

• 

Now how was I to know that!! Anyhow, within an hour she had started pooping like crazy. She was pooping every 30 minutes, a green slimy poop all over our backyard 😷.

• 

We immediately called the vet she was scheduled to meet a month later and guess what ?? They couldn’t see her that day. I pleaded explaining “We are new pet parents, she ate chicken, she’s popping a lot , green slimy poop ” but NO they couldn’t do anything. Even their emergency was full!

• 

The receptionist gave me other hospital’s number and the same story repeated there. I finally went on Facebook groups and spent next one hour calling all hospitals recommended by strangers only to be told “I am sorry, we wish we could see her. Maybe you can try this hospital” and passing me a new number.

• 

Luckily for us one of the recommendations worked, well before the receptionist could say anything I was yapping “I have tried 10 numbers, no one is ready to look at her, I heard so much about your clinic on Facebook, I really hope you can see her” and with that this sweet receptionist agreed to Ginger in between appointments.😅

• 

• 

Phew, I haven’t worked this hard even for the girls😜. It turns out that the chicken had given her a bit of indigestion and well the vet asked us to stick to just kibbles! So we did! or Did we ?😜

Potty training.

As you recall S agreed to all my conditions and condition two was “He would take care of the puppy” and well he did all that and more.

For close to 6 weeks he was on night duty, a little sound from the puppy and he would up, worried the puppy had to go or worse she had already done it in her crate.

• 

He spent sleepless nights potty training this girl, waking up in the middle of night and taking her out to pee in designated area. We didn’t want her pooping all over the backyard.

First it was every 2 hours and then after few weeks stretching to 3 hours and so on finally after 6 weeks of hard work she was finally sleeping through the night.

• 

Well I can say that Ginger is 99% trained , she’s still a baby so we still have accidents. Like the time when she met Hobbes, missy was so excited to see Hobbes that she ended up peeing in my cousins house but with time the accidents have surely become few and in between.

Climbing the stairs

Don’t doubt the amount of time and energy you’ll end up spending once you get them home.

With potty training came another challenge getting this girl to climb up and down the stairs. She was sleeping upstairs in her crate and well she also needed to take the steps down the deck to access her designated peeing area.

• 

We tried training her the first month with us but she would get so scared at the sight of stairs that her legs would start shaking. S let her be, he had read about this, little puppies take time with every thing new.

First month she was carried up and down the steps. But of course as weeks passed she grew heavier, only S could carry her up and down 🤪.

• 

But soon it became evident missy would prefer to be carried up and down then do the hard work herself. We tried so many tricks with her treats on each step, carrying a few steps up and leaving her there hoping she would run up the remaining stairs but no she wouldn’t budge.

The only trick that worked for a little bit was the sound of barking dogs on YouTube which made her rush up the stairs. It wasn’t ideal S would rather her be comfortable with barks than be scared of them. So I stopped.

• 

I was far more invested than S to get her to start using the steps. I continued taking her a few steps up and sitting one step away from her, cajoling her to just come to me, finally one day just like she did !! Yay!! 😂

Boy puppies are a lot of work!

---

Oh well I forgot to mention she also had motion sickness in the beginning, she had puked all the way when she travelled with S the first time. Every time we took her in the van, missy puked out the little food she had eaten 😑.

• 

Haha did I scare you? Well her first few weeks she was a lot of work but this girl just made her way into our hearts. We can’t imagine our day without her.

• 

She never sits ideal when I want to take her picture but she will photobomb all our photos. She turns my frown into a smile within minutes. Ms. N hangs around her all the day and Ms. V takes her potty, cleans up after her.

• 

• 

• 

S claims he’s heartbroken as she misses me and follows me every where in the house. 😂. Well I do spend good one hour in the morning every day as I prepare breakfast for the girls and sneak in an slice of apple there or an orange here.

We just LOVE Ginger.

• 

“Happiness is a warm puppy.”~ Charles M. Schulz