First Week

President's Day, Feb 20, was the big day.  We met Lori (Kai's breeder) at a park in Natomas rather than driving up to Marysville, since she was coming through town anyway.  Kai still had his floppy ears and sausage body, although he had grown and lightened up a little since we last saw him.  Lori said he was a good boy and slept in his crate during the car ride.  We brought our own crate and took him home.

SO many people wanted to visit Kai on his first day!  It was hard to say no.  I was worried, though, that he might be overwhelmed by so many changes.  However, he did great.  My parents came over first.  Then some friends.  Then Chris's parents.  Then more friends, and then Chris's sister, Katie, and brother-in-law Phil.  Kai wasn't scared of any of the visitors.  He behaved perfectly and was really tuckered out by the end of the day!

Lori said that Kai could sleep through the night in his crate without needing a potty break.  She said if he whined, we should ignore him, and that he'd learn quickly.  I was a little worried, but he did great.  No whining, no pottying in the crate.  Even now, one week later, he has yet to have had an accident in the crate (knock on wood).  Sometimes he whines a bit when he first goes in, but it generally stops within a minute.  I try to remember to treat him when he goes in, anyway, just to reinforce that the crate is a good place.  We've been feeding him in there, too.

 Chris and I each took a couple days off work to stay home with Kai.  The day after he came to us, we both were off work.  We took him to the vet, and all was well.  That night, we took him to a friends' place (they had invited us for dinner) and he did very well.  No pottying in their house.  Yay!  (He did have one accident in OUR house that afternoon... I guess we didn't let him out in time.)

On Wednesday, we decided to try taking him to the gym with us to meet more people (we both really want to be on top of the socialization thing) and that went really well.  Katie and Phil were there, too, and between us all we were all able to get some rock climbing in without leaving Kai by himself.  He was sooo tired after meeting so many people.  Being admired is tough!

The weekend was tricky.  We were in our final weekend of Pirates of Penzance, in Davis.  Saturday was a two-show day, so we either had to bring Kai, or drive back home to Sacramento in between shows, which wasn't appealing.  So we decided to try bringing Kai on Friday night and see how he did.  The cast, crew, and orchestra all loved him.  He got to meet some kids and tons of new people.  I think he had fun.  We ended up bringing him on Saturday, too.  He did great, sleeping in his crate in Chris's dressing room during the performances, and coming out to eat and play between shows.  By the end of Saturday, though, he got weird all of a sudden after playing with everyone.  I took him into Chris's dressing room for some water, and noticed he was shaking.  Chris thought it looked like Kai was limping, as well.  We got all worried and took him straight home.  Once home, he was fine.  I think maybe he just got a little overwhelmed.  But due to that, we decided to not bring him on Sunday.  We took separate cars to the theatre, and I came right home after the show to let him out.

This week is our first "normal" week with Kai, with Chris and I back to our full-time work schedules.  I will be going home for lunch every day to feed Kai and play with him, and we have our schedules set up so that he won't be crated for more than 3.5 hours a day.  I wish I could shorten that time, but he seems to be doing ok with it for now.  If it doesn't work out, we'll have to come up with a new plan, I guess.

So... first week went better than I expected, over all.  Potty training was... done by the breeder!  And crate training too, apparently.  So those two big jobs that I thought we'd have to focus on were nonexistent.  People socialization is well under way, and if we keep it up I am sure we will have no problems there.  My concerns at the moment are:

1.  mouthing.  Kai wants to put EVERYthing in his mouth.  He bites gently, but I am sure that this habit will get more annoying as he gets older.  I've read so many different things about how to deal with this.  I've been trying to squeal and ignore him if he bites too hard, but I am starting to think that this is not enough.

2.  dog socialization.  Kai really has only spent time with one dog so far:  our friends' Golden Retriever, Dylan.  Dylan is the most gentle dog ever, and Kai was so annoying with him, pulling at Dylan's tail fur and nipping at his muzzle.  Dylan just stood there and took it.  I don't know if we should be worried.  We have a few other dogs we know that are safe for Kai to meet, so we'll have to take that one step at a time.  I looked into some early puppy classes (10-16 weeks old) at PetCo, so that's an option.

3.  cat socialization.  Kai wants to chase my cat, Molly, about 65% of the time.  Molly has been very tolerant of him, occasionally smacking his muzzle when he gets too out of hand, but also she does tend to run from him... and that makes him want to chase her even more.  If he starts barking at her, I've been telling him NO, and then if he continues, I put him in a time-out (the bathroom).  I hope he gets the message that harassing Molly is unacceptable.

Another annoying thing, although not really a huge concern, is that Kai HATES it when we put his collar on.  He screams.  Once we can start trying to walk him, I hope he will realize that the collar is his key to freedom outside the backyard.  But for now, he just wears it around the house.  He has gotten pretty used to wearing it, though.  We have had him drag a lightweight lead around sometimes, to get used to that feeling.

 He certainly is an adorable little bugger, though!