Puppy Development

A puppy's development is just as interesting and enjoyable to me as a child's. I have lucked out watching Q, his friends and Sloan develop over the years as well as many other before them. I am glad I have had the chance to see the little things as well as the big accomplishments. Animals have developmental milestones just as human children do. Now that we have a puppy in the household again, seeing her change before our eyes made me more conscience of Lyra's puppy development.

Our youngest, Lyra, has grown a ton since we got her about just three weeks ago. At the time of her arrival she had just turned four months old. Lyra had accidents only the first two days, but after that we recognized her signs and she knew to ring the bell on the door when she needed outside to do her business. Since we got Lyra, she has lost all her baby teeth. We actually found four of them which we saved, just like we did with Halo's. Yes, Matt and I are those crazy "parents" that save their kids' baby teeth! :) Lyra has also learned many commands. She knows 'sit', "stay" (for the most part) 'kennel', 'go potty' (makes it quick especially during the cold winter months), 'outside', 'leave it' (waiting to eat her food), 'stop' (when playing too rough with Halo), and many more commands. She has caught on quickly mainly in part since she has two older trained dogs to show her the ropes.

This weekend I noticed that there were some small risen areas of fur on Lyra's coat. I thought she had just pressed up against the kennel which resulted in crimping of her hair. Not so much. This morning I woke up to see her with about 30 small spots of fur doing the same thing. I hadn't even considered she was getting her adult coat until then. She looked so funny with these "welt" looking areas all over her body I just had to take pictures! Her goofy personality in combination with what I thought was a goofy transition look makes me laugh every time I look at her. When I got home this evening her body was covered with even more and bigger areas of longer & thicker hair. She looks as though she had leprosy! I fed the girls and by the time Matt got home Lyra looked even worse. Come to find out she has hives. Not sure if she has developed a food allergy or if she got bit by a spider or something. So she'll be taking Benedryl for the next few days. She is itchy, but not acting sick or weird. Just her puppy self :) Hopefully it is a spider bite and not allergies. Not sure I can handle another money pit dog like Xena. Here are some pictures from this morning. Click on them to see the picture bigger. Hopefully you can see just how silly she looks poor baby :)

Lyra has two favorite activities. The first is playing with Halo, whom she absolutely adores! She loves to rough house with her, fight over the same bone when there are five different ones to choose from and cuddle up in the kennel with her best friend when they are both tired. Lyra's second favorite thing to do it cuddle with dad when he gets home from work. The second he sit on the floor she is in his lap as high and as close as she can get. It only takes her seconds to fall asleep is some weird position. You can see how much she loves Matt. I have kept my distance so to speak so that Matt and Lyra could bond. She is his dog so I rarely sit on the floor with her to help with their bonding.

Just a quick run down... Xena is both Matt and I's dog. She likes us equal and makes sure she gets equal attention from the us both. She doesn't favor anyone like the other two do. Halo is my girl. When she is scared and shaking uncontrollably she runs to my lap. I am her human of chose when she wants to cuddle. As discussed above, Lyra is Matt's princess. She listen better to him than she does Lonnie and I. Funny how those things work out.