7th of March - Bringing Murphy Home!!!!

After speaking with the breeders we decided to go with getting a crate for Murphy as his kennel at home. This is what he is used to and so it would make settling in a good bit easier. For traveling in the car, as he is going to be such a large dog we wanted him also be in a crate so we bought a travel one that folds up from pet barn as well.

Things we packed in the car for pickup day:

• Travel Crate
• Puppy pads for the bottom of the crate
• Towel for over the puppy pads
• Water bowl
• Water
•  Clock – (to act like the mothers heart beat, it would be wrapped in a cloth with the sent of the litter and mother on it)
• Soft toy (preferably with sown on eyes and not buttons that can be bitten off and swallowed)

That was it. We headed off and arrived at the house at 3pm.

Murphy was out of the crate running around with Col. They had separated him the previous night from the litter so he was used to being on his own for one night with them. Which I thought was a very clever idea. After getting a lot more information on the do’s and don’ts when we got home we felt ready to head back to Sydney. Col carried Murphy out to the car and put him in his crate. Murphy settled down immediately and nuzzled up beside his teddy. We put a small bit of water in his bowl and hit the road… slowlyJ

We stopped once along the way to get some ice cream and Mark peaked inside and Murphy was fast asleep. We continued on our way.

Once home we anticipated the clean up job we may have ahead of ourselves in the crate but to our amazement he didn’t pee or poop at all!! We carried the crate into our front garden and opened it up, put the lead on him and walked him out. He walked about on the stones for a second and then peed straight away. We gave him a lot of praise and then decided to bring him into the house.

He was immediately confused and started to get quiet upset. I came to the conclusion there was just too many new things to take in so we took him out the back garden. We set up his crate outside and filled up his water bowl. He hadn’t been fed yet so I got started on preparing that. Which wasn’t difficult, as the breeders had pre-prepared his food for us along with 3 weeks worth. That has definitely taken the stress out of the first few weeks for us.

As I thought might have been the case he didn’t eat much of his food at all. We tried feeding him inside and then I thought he wasn’t used to that so I brought the food outside and he had a bit more. I didn’t push him too much.

Throughout the whole time I must mention that he was whimpering a lot. It was pretty constant but once we left him alone for a little while he calmed down more. We put him to bed around 10pm, that was actually quiet easy, as he was very used to going into a crate at nighttime.