Kai and Cousin Vinny

Kai finally got to meet his giant Cousin Vinny the other night.  Vincent is a 100+ lb Bernese Mountain Dog owned by Chris's parents.  Vinny is a little over two years old, I think?  He is a great dog.  But GIANT.

Giant vs. Tiny

Vincent was so excited to meet Kai, and immediately went into full-blown play mode!  At first, it was a bit unnerving to see such a giant dog bounding around tiny Kai.  Kai seemed unsure at first, but after a few minutes he seemed to get more comfortable with Vinny.  We left Kai to play with Vinny, under Chris's parents' supervision, while we went grocery shopping (a suggestion the dog trainer gave to us was to start leaving Kai with family/friends for a few hours or even overnight, to help him overcome any Shibalike antisocial tendencies that he may naturally have... not that we've seen anything like that in him yet!).

 The two dogs were still running around when we got back, although Vinny was getting pretty pooped by the energetic little puppy.  Vinny was SO good with Kai.  He was very aware of his size in relation to Kai, and didn't ever overdo the puppy play.  It was very cute and funny to see them interact.  I think Kai was sad to leave his new friend at the end of the visit.

Kai is about the size of Vinny's head!

 I am so happy that we know that Kai can get along with Vinny.  That means that he should, in theory, be able to play with any socialized dog who has the energy to play with him in his style of fun.  He still has to meet my parents' dog, Abby (a Rhodesian Ridgeback mix) so hopefully we can make that happen in the next week or two.  And I hope that Kai and Dylan (our friends' Golden Retriever) can find a way to talk the same language.  Dylan ended up getting puppy abused by Kai during their one visit together, because Dylan was too mellow to correct Kai and not really interested in puppy play.  And Kai didn't have the manners to understand that.

New Friends

I think I am getting more used to life with Kai.  Getting up at 6:30 is getting easier to do.  We are going to bed a little earlier now, which helps.  We got some bitter apple spray for some of the furniture/rugs/shoes, and that REALLY works.  Yay!  He's responding well to the clicker training so far.  We are planning on trying some leash work with him today, and he will have another visit with Vinny (and probably with Dylan too) this weekend, and also his puppy class.  I know there will be lots of hurdles in the upcoming months, but I am still very glad to have him in my life.