Scrumpy HATES the rain!

Yes, we have discovered in the last few weeks, Scrumpy hates the rain!!

He pats the door to go out, but once he sees the rain he turns back and comes back inside again.

We have had to go through the following steps to get him out in it:

1.  Pushing him out of the door - which just results in him sitting on the step and not actually doing what he's meant to do.

2. Going out with him, underneath an umbrella - which just means that he sits at your feet under the umbrella too and not doing what he's meant to do.

However 

3.  Going out with him, without an umbrella, getting wet and having your hair go all frizzy, to show Scrumpy that the rain won't kill me (has he been watching too much TV??) seemed to do the trick!!

As you can see, he likes home comforts

Loves to sleep a lot

And loves the AGA

And the open fire!

He also likes to stretch out in one of his 5 (yes 5 - as we had 2 dogs before so we accumulated a few) beds

And he loves being picked up for a cuddle

He also likes to walk on the Trailway

Above is a view of the River Stour which runs along the Trailway - it's banks have burst in recent days

Here he is looking for his next stick to pick up

And these are my red wellies which have come in REALLY handy for dog walks in recent days

Scrumpy is coming on leaps and bounds in the last few weeks.  Things he used to do, like pulling cushions off the sofas. tea towels off the AGA and eating lumps of coal from the fire, he no longer does!

However, one thing he is still doing is having a wee and a poo in his room overnight.

I suppose that he's still young at 15 weeks and he will grow out of it, although we do feel that he's protesting at being put in his room, rather than being allowed to sleep in our room!!

Could there be some truth in that?

Mystery Solved!!

Thanks to Daisy's (Daisy is Scrumpy's Sister) Mum who was even more curious than us as to what our dogs are, she had a Doggy DNA test carried out and it turns out that one of the parents is a Greyhound and the other is a mix of a Dalmation and a German Wirehaired Pointer!

So that explains his build, his markings and his wirey hair that seems to be appearing all of a sudden.

When Scrumpy first came to us he was a little puppy weighing 4.5 kilos.  He's now reaching the 7.5 kilo mark so he's putting on weight - hooray.

He doesn't like his latest medicine that the vet has prescribed but I have become a dab hand at syringing it straight to the back of his throat, which is good as every other method resulted in white chalky liquid going everywhere.

Daisy

& 

Scrumpy

Over worried puppy parents

Today we took scrumpy to the vets as he is still coughing and when he did a puppy poop indoors (on puppy pad) overnight I noticed a little blood so to be on the safe side he went for a check up.
The vet did all the listening to his chest, looking down his ears, thermometer up his &@:;%{¥ etc and gave him a clean bill of health.
To be on the safe side after listening to his history to date she gave him some liquid medicine to combat both worms and lung worm for the next 7dsys just in case.
On another note he has now chewed through my laptop cable so I am a little limited to blogging, tweeting and www until I get a new one.
On another note again we have nearly finished our kitchen and as we were working in there today he came with us to keep us company. He went straight for the aga!
We also went on a lovely walk today.

Dog house

Yes that is where scrumpy is! He has in the last week chewed through
1. Wii cable
2. Play station cable
3. My laptop power cable

That is why I am blogging from my phone.

It's hard to be angry with him as he is so cute.

Scrumpy is growing!

He looks like a much bigger dog this week

Must be all the good food he's getting

Here he is playing with his new Penguin

And here he is searching under the wardrobe for something!

Ah yes, this is the penguin that we bought him from a charity shop - brand new, a bargain at £2.99

We removed his lovely hat and scarf before we gave it to Scrumpy to play with.

Here he is fast asleep on me last night

He was snoring away gently

We have been going on little mini road walks to get him used to a bit of traffic.  

As we live in a rural village we are lucky to have both a main road, which is fairly busy if you walk one way from the house, and if you walk the other way you get peacefully quite country lanes, so we are taking him on both.

We are only going out for 10 minutes at a time at the moment - 5 minutes for every month is the rule of thumb, so as he's about 2 months old, 10 minutes is perfect.

He is also doing his "doggy do's" outside on the whole now, which is great.  He's such an intelligent little thing & does pick things up really quickly.

Scrumpy Plays Football

He loves it and I am so glad we have these soft footballs. 

It certainly knackers him out!!

How to puppy proof your lounge....

Stuff any papers and magazines, tightly between the back and the bottom cushions of your sofa....

Or balance them on top of the back cushions

And put cushions up high and remote controls stuffed tight between sofa back cushions

You have to "think puppy" at all times, especially when you have to leave the room at quick notice e.g. to answer the front door etc.

Or this could happen to your TV guide!

One top tip that was passed to us, is to put extra newspaper on top of your Puppy Pads - this way the newspaper absorbs some of the "wet" and your expensive Puppy Pad will last longer!

We are taking Scrumpy for his very first walk today, but we are going to go to the pet shop first to buy him a  Puppy Harness as we think he might escape the collar that he has on.

We didn't get very far - after about 4 minutes he sat down and didn't want to go any further, so I picked him up for a short while & when I put him back down he walked all the way home!

Well done Scrumpy