Our Inquisitive Toddler

Our little baby long-haired Chihuahua is 11 weeks old today. He went to the vet this morning and he's gained a full half a pound since we got him. Now he weighs in at a whopping 2.4 pounds.

His training--of us--is progressing fairly well. He was regressing on his housebreaking. We evaluated our behavior and determined he needed to be taken outside more frequently. Now as long as we remember to take him out every hour or so, there are no accidents. Well--let's just say the accidents are fewer and further between. It's all about progress.

He doesn't have any problems getting in his crate when it's time to go to bed or when we leave the house. He makes it through the night without crying now, but is definitely an early riser. That's OK. We are too, rarely sleeping past 7.

Now he's at the age where he is very inquisitive with a tendency to get in to everything. Keeping him out of the Christmas tree hasn't been too bad. Keeping him out of the presents proved impossible--we've now placed them under a small tree on a table where they are out of his reach. He adores the felt tree skirt, however, and would love to rip the felt appliques from it. He completely ignores "no" when he's attacking the tree skirt which caused us to pull out a new discipline tool--the time out. The first time we put him in time out, we opened the crate after about 3 minutes but he didn't come out for more than two hours. I think his feelings were hurt.

He's a smart little pup. My partner is click training him. You click the clicker during the training practice when he does what you want him to do. This is supposed to make it easy to teach him difficult tricks when he gets older. Seems to be working as he's already got "sit" and "lay down" mastered. Now we're working on roll-over. You can see how he's doing here. You can also see the aforementioned tree skirt.

He definitely adds a lot to life around here. When he's at his playful best, it's awfully hard to even pretend like I am...

The Crotchety Old Man