Hiking at South Valley Park

May 26 - Dazy and I went on our first mini hike together. I can't wait until she's old enough to go on the long ones.

South Valley is about 10 mins from my house in the Ken Caryl Valley. It's a great, easy hike with no elevation gain (good for the pup). It's about 2.25 miles and by 1.75 miles she was getting very hot and was done, done, done!

She's such a cool dog. I just love her!

Life Has Been a Little Busy! And Dazy is 16 weeks old!

Even though this is Dazy's blog, I feel obligated to tell you why it's been a month since I've updated it! School came to an end right after my last post and I had two really difficult final projects to work on, and both required either going to school to work on a MAC and/or going on location to film. Then after that, I had my final Girl Scout meeting of the year which took a lot of work to pull together. Life has finally slowed down for me and things are normal once again.

Now back to Miss Dazy. She turned 16 weeks old yesterday! She had her checkup and is totally healthy and got her last of the puppy booster shots, rabies vaccination, and her Jeffco tags. She's all official now.

Last week her best friend, Steeler, came to stay with us as a last minute surprise. They had SO MUCH FUN together. They spent all day every day outside wrestling in a ball of dust that would roll around the yard.

Dazy Goes to A-Basin

Week two of dog training. Dazy has "sit" down pat! She can do "down" but you have to drag the treat across the floor in front of her, so it's not a completely learned event yet.




Her two classmates are little "purse dogs". One is a 10- week Maltese who's the size of a hoagie bun, I'm not lying. And the other is a tiny little hyper thing that I have no idea what it is but he won't sit, go down, or anything. She's the "top dog" in her class.

One of Tim's friends had a birthday party at A-Basin this past Saturday so Tim loaded up the Subaru and took Dazy along. He came home saying "If I said 'She's 12 weeks old and/or Her ear is green because she has a tattoo' once I said it 10,000 times." She was quite the hit (she is super adorable). She got super socialized!!

We had our first vet visit and the second round of vaccinations of her career. She's a healthy little pup! She's become a super pistol in the last week. She goes through a period of craziness for about an hour after she wakes up from sleeping and she absolutely wears us out!

Dazy's First Check-up

Dazy Dawg had her first vet appointment today at Deer Creek Animal Hospital. We were going to go to Firehouse Animal to our friend Dr Kathy Wilkes and found out she got called to jury duty this whole week. I didn't want to get behind on shots since I am out of town for work next week, so we went to Deer Creek. How had I forgotten that's where we put Tasley down? Tim reminded me when he told me how much he loved that place. I asked him, "When have you ever been there?" DUH! They are great people. And our friend, Niccole, has survived two young puppy tragedies on Sundays thanks to them being open.

Dazy is 11 weeks and weighs 15 1/2 pounds. At 17 weeks you can double their weight and get a good idea of how much they are going to weigh. Today she had her second round of shots, and we brought in a poop sample. Gross!!!! The vet said she's very healthy. She did great.

She met two German's from a different Conifer breeder in the lobby and they were black and grey coloring, much bigger dogs and only about a week and a half older. Big dogs. Anyway, it's like they knew each other were Germans because they treated each other differently than when Dazy would meet other breeds in the waiting room. Very interesting.

Dazy's first trip to Tipsy's!

Well, I thought I was taking Dazy on her first trip (of many) to Tipsy's Liquor World, but Kylie informed me that while I was at school the day before, she and Daddy had already taken her and he didn't want to tell me and burst my bubble.

So, this is the first DOCUMENTED trip to Tipsy's. They loved her in there. If you go to check-out lane #1, they give your dog a dog treat! She laid down in her spot and ate it. We had to move her, of course, because there were other patrons to check out behind us, but she had a great time. Met the greeter lady and got pet by several folks!

First Bath and Lots of Walks!

Tim drew Dazy's name in the driveway. Great lettering! 

I am sorry that I've missed a few days. I had a deadline to write a presentation for a conference, then our monthly Happy Hour gig, and then Sunday I had a major allergic reaction to eggs. It was pretty scary. It took about 12 hours to completely get out of my system!

Dazy Dawg had her first bath Saturday night. She wasn't too excited about it, but she was starting to stink. She did the "shake, shake, shake" afterward all over the house.

She learned to fetch a ball in about 5 minutes. Tim thinks she is a smart little cookie! She has also been on lots of walks. She loves to walk.

This week we have to make an appointment to see the vet for a check-up and talk about our upcoming shots.

All in all, this little dog is so easy. I have heard how hard puppies can be and this one is the exact opposite. Great doggie. And she just melts all of our hearts.

Little Dazy had a BIG third day today!

I did a bad thing. Tim and I have an agreement that there will be no dogs on the couch and no dogs in bed. She's such a sweetheart. I couldn't resist. She's only going to be small enough for what, another 4 weeks or so???

She played in the snow this morning and was so cute! I have school on Wednesday afternoons so I had to leave her in her crate for 4 hours. I wanted her to be tired so we went for a 15 minute walk before I left (very slow and puppy-paced, don't worry), but still a big deal for a 9 week old. We went down our street and back and around the cul-de-sac. I was hoping she'd sleep while I was away which I'm pretty sure she did. I came home and we walked the 3 blocks down to Sofie's  house to pick up Kylie. We hung out with Pearl, the yellow lab, and then walked back home.

Then we loaded up in the car and went to Pet Smart to get her cool bling bling dog tag. We met several dogs, one being a beautiful American German Shepherd, and walked around Pet Smart for a while. 

We came home, ate some dinner, played, and she's been asleep since about 8:00. The past two nights she's been awake from about 10-midnight and very active. I think this day was a very big day for our 9 1/2 week puppy!

P.S. - She was THE HIT at Pet Smart. Everyone loved her, wanted to pet her, love on her. Lots of socialization today ;)

Great First Night!

Little Dazy Dog is doing great! Personally I think she's really smart. As of this writing, we have not had one single accident in the house. All poops and pees have been in their appropriate place! 

I worked until about 1:00am last night and she slept in her crate in my office, and then when I went to bed at 1:00am and left the room, she only whined for about 15 minutes (she is a momma's dog for sure). She went to sleep and slept like a rock through the night, no whining, until we woke up at 7:00. Amazing.

Kylie had so much fun playing with her before school!

♥ ♥ ♥

D Day is Finally Here!!!

We have all been waiting for this day for so long! Dazy is finally home.

When I picked her up, I was SHOCKED to find that she had doubled in size in 3 weeks! She barely fit in the crate that I brought to bring her home. We shoved the poor baby in it. We got home, she met Tim very quickly on his way to school, took a tour of the house, pooped in the backyard (yay Dazy!) and ate some lunch. Then it was off to Pet Smart for a larger crate for crate training! I came home and set it up and she walked right in it and took a nap. What a good dog.

 Aunt Coley came to meet her and the three of us drove up to school to pick up Kylie. Several of the kids from her class came out to meet her! Then we came home and played with the neighborhood kids in as small of doses as you can restrain kids when a new puppy is around! Tonight she had "crate time" which included a 45 minute snoozer.

She seems very happy, healthy, and seems to be bonding with us very quickly. I am just so in love with this dog.  

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

Getting Ready!

Kylie and I have started the "getting ready" process for our new addition to come home! I filled out a frequent shopper card at one of the pet stores. We also checked on puppy classes. The three family members, plus the new addition, will all be in attendance!


On a funny note, my good friend Heidi's mom, Sandy, told me we should have a puppy shower!!!! Hmmmm....

And the doggie is.......

This past Saturday, Tim went up to Conifer to meet the two dogs and make the final decision! I just couldn't be the one responsible for making it.

Tim chose.......YELLOW!

Yellow will be coming home to live with her new family the day after Easter. I am so excited I can hardly stand it!

Picking out Puppies

This past Thursday I went to a great breeder in Conifer - Rocky Mountain German Shepherds. I was so impressed with her dogs and her set-up. I highly recommend this breeder. She welcomes you to visit her place and meet the puppies, the parents, etc. And she's a very cool lady. I took my friend, Heidi, to meet the two 4 1/2 week old Black and Red females that are available. SOOOOOO cute. 

The two dogs had very different personalities; one was very calm and just snuggled, the other one wagged her tail alot, talked a lot, and made eye contact with me several times and seemed to be connecting with me.  

Today was our second scheduled visit to the breeder so that the rest of the family could meet the puppies! Tim wasn't able to make the trip today. He's a little lost in calculus so instead, he went to the Learning Lab to get tutored. I went ahead and took Kylie so that she could meet the two puppies; Yellow and Orange. I took video of both of them playing so I could come home and show Tim!!

Meet Orange 

Orange lets anyone hold her and is very mellow. She's a total sweetheart. She's very calm and curls up and takes it all in.

Meet Yellow

If you try to hold Yellow, within about 10 seconds she'll let you know that she would prefer to be on the move, playing, running, always busy. 

Which Puppy will be the New Member of our Family?
I plan to get Tim up within the next week because next Saturday is "D" day (decision day)! We have first choice of the two females and have to choose a puppy so the other people know which one they are getting.

At this point, Kylie likes Orange because she lets her hold her. Tim likes Yellow because of the cute, playful personality (I brought back video for him to watch).  I am so confused that I don't know what to do! They are both darling. I really want to turn the final decision over to Tim.

Left: Yellow, Right: Orange

365 Dog Days Blog!

Welcome to 365 Dog Days! 

My family and I are embarking on the wonderful journey of adding a new family member to the Wright-Dappen clan! No, not another child, a German Shepherd! I am starting this blog to chronicle our adventures over the first year of our puppy's life. 

Tim is very experienced with training dogs. He's owned two previous German Shepherds and had dogs as a child. My father is allergic to fur, so growing up we had parrots. (I have an African Grey parrot named Birdman that is 19 years old. Birdman says, "Hey Dog!" all the time so I know he's very excited to meet the new dog!) My only previous dog experience has been with young/already trained dogs.

Tim's last German Shepherd, Tasley, was the greatest dog of all times. I came into her life when she was 8. I have had previous roommates with dogs as well, but I've never had to train one. And of course Kylie is only 6, so she has no experience with dogs. All that she knows is she has wanted a dog for as long as she can remember. German Shepherds require a lot of training and Kylie and I will be learning from "Master Tim" along the way!

Kylie also knows that part of the deal if we get a dog is that she has to pick up poop. Stay tuned as we document her willingness to fulfill her obligations.  

If all goes well our new dog will be coming home the day after Easter, April 5, 2010! So join us as we chronicle our first year with our puppy!

Wish us luck. 

Heather, Tim, and Kylie!