Snowicane

Back at home

Yuki survived his first trip to a kennel this December.  Yay!  Steve can attest to how sad I was when we were away, missing Yuki and trying not to email the kennel owner too much to ask how he was doing.  But I’m happy to say now that everything turned out just fine.  The people at the kennel he stayed at were great and we could tell that he had a blast playing with all the other dogs.

The week we were back Yuki was so tired – I’m sure from all the play and relief from being home – he slept all day for a few days.  He’d play with us when we wanted to but he was just as content to curl up on the couch with me and sleep.  It’s actually been his usual spot during the day since we’ve been back – right next to me, either on the couch or on the ottoman, which we shove right up next to the couch.  Then, in the evenings he lays between Steve and I while we watch TV or a movie.

He’s been hanging out with us on the couch for a few months now.  It’s like he woke up one day and decided he wanted to snuggle – and he’s been doing it every day since.  I’m certainly not complaining.  Yuki is certainly a wonderful napping companion during the middle of upstate NY winter!  I’m convinced he can sense when I’m cold. Every time I reposition the blankets on the couch to cover me better, he jumps up and lays next my legs.  What a sweetie!

The other day I was able to snap a few pics while he was adjusting his sleeping position between naps on the ottoman.

Yuki is a tenor

Yuki has finally perfected his singing voice.  True, we’ve been coaching him for a while.  But he must be putting in his practice hours because he’s really got it down now.  I guess it might be more akin to talking… or maybe gruff howling…  Whatever you call it, Yuki is doing it all the time. The cutest thing is, even though he “speaks” all the time, anytime you offer him a treat for “speaking” he gets so excited about the treat that no sound comes out.  We can tell he’s trying because he opens and closes his mouth and heavy breathing comes out – just no actual sound.  Such a goofy.

We were finally able to capture a picture mid song.

Halloween

I’m not one to dress up animals…in fact I usually find it pretty ridiculous and a little cruel to the animal.  That being said on Halloween we couldn’t resist putting Yuki in one  of my Barcelona jerseys, just to see what he’d do.  He already proudly wears a Barca scarf, so we figured we’d up his fanhood a notch.  Apparently he doesn’t care.  He happily trotted around in his kit  for a few hours, occasionally stumbling, which was solved with a simple knot.  The only reason we took it off was to take him out (I was afraid he’d pee inside the shirt, a mess I’d rather avoid).

So handsome!  Although the long sleeves make him look a little dwarfish.

Our little Messiah

So svelt.  Who knew under all that fur our puppy was so tiny.

Homemade treats for Yuki!!

I recently baked some peanut butter dog treats for Yuki.  Post about them can be found on our food blog here.

better late than never?

Yuki loves snow

Snow!

Its been snowing the past couple of days and Yuki’s dreams of a yard full of frozen leaves has been fulfilled.  Taking him out to do his business has gotten harder, since he is usually more concerned with eating snow and ice covered grass than doing what we want him to do.  He looks right at home jumping around in the snow – even if we’re freezing!

Oh, and he’s 26 pounds and still growing.  Pictures of him in the snow coming soon.

Teeth

Yuki has been losing puppy teeth for over a week now.  Every day it seems, he loses one of his front incisors and an adult tooth miraculously appears in its place.  So far he has about 6 or 7 of his adult front teeth, so he’s almost done with those.  Last night his chew toy even had a little blood on it from his loose tooth.  

Teething inevitably mean chewing… but at least he hasn’t discovered our shoes yet!

Accidents

We can no longer boast 5 days accident free. In the past week we’ve had a couple of not so great days. Last weekend we made the mistake of having Yuki go onto the bed when we were getting ready to go to coffee. We should have known when he was reluctant to come to the bed and kept wandering towards the door (normally he runs right to it and puts his front paws up on the bed). We called him over and he slowly walked over I put him up on the bed, and within 2 seconds he was peeing. On the bright side, we now know that our grocery store has a pretty decent dry cleaning service (for our piles and piles of dry cleaning).

Our second incident came a couple of days ago. Once again we failed to notice Yuki’s warnings, which include going to the door and now whining. At least this time, there were no down comforters involved.

Today, we start a new, hopefully longer streak. So far we’re at 2 days.