Murphy @ 13 weeks

Well time has flown by and Murphy has grown even more. He is pushing the boundaries a bit but we are having fun watching him learn new things. He got his vaccinations on the Thursday before puppy pre-school, as Friday didn’t suit Mark to take him. He took them like a champ and he met another new Vet. He doesn’t seem to mind going to the vet, which is great. We had a 2-week wait before we were able to bring him out to a park and that date was today!! I was bold and we took him out last night as I couldn’t wait and he loved it. He has learnt to play fetch but you have to be careful on how far you throw the item because at one point he just stops playing and you have to go and retrieve it. It’s great to see him being able to run around at his own pace and tire himself out. It’s a lot easier than walking around in circles.

Mark and his mam who was visiting took Murphy to his first puppy pre-school. He loved it. He was by far the biggest in the class but absolutely loved meeting other dogs. The training for the first week was to teach Murphy to sit. This is something we have been working on already so Murphy got to demo it for everyone and he was very good. He even did it on a hand command and no voice command, top of the class for that one. Everyone was then shown how to do a simple vet check that we must do regularly at home so he gets used to being handled which will make visits to the vets a lot less stressful. We were given a good few handouts and helpful tips for over the next week.

The following week Mark was away in Melbourne with his mam so I took a friend along with me to puppy-preschool. This week we had to take someone else’s dog and get them to sit. I got one of the small fluff balls and he did it really well. Everyone passed…eventually. The lessons for today were about nail clipping and what your dog shouldn’t eat. It was all very informative and helpful. The training for the week is to get your dog to sit, stay and you take 3 steps back, wait for 10 seconds then have him come to you. This is a lot easier at home in a quiet space but add in crazy puppies running about everywhere and it is really hard. As we have two weeks to master this. We also have to master walking on the lead. We want him to walk beside us and not pull at all. Generally again out on the walk he is very good but if another dog/small child/jogger/bird comes near us he pulls in that direction. He will get there eventually but I am not sure how long this one will take. He loved catching up with his little buddies. It was very cute to see.

Murphy is discovering that since he is bigger now he can reach more things if he jumps up onto something. Particularly leaning on tables and the outside BBQ area. It’s something we have to keep an eye on and tell him he is not allowed to do because if he eventually tries to jump up he might hurt himself when we are not around or he might get out of the garden, which would be worse. It is mad to see how tall he is when he does stand up. With the increased height he has become a little boisterous as well and started to jump up on me when I was bringing out his food so I have made him wait calmly for his food or else he doesn’t get it. He has learnt this pretty quickly and it makes feeding times a lot more pleasant.

He has continued to dig in the garden in some areas. I am trying to look for some doggy day care places that Murphy could go to so he is not so destructive at home and for him to make more dog friends. Hopefully my next post will be more successful with that.

Some more Murphy points:

• Murphy didn't like this plant or he likes it alot:

• His bed was getting wet so we bought him a new tarp to sort him out and it seems to have done the trick
• He still prefers squeaky fluffy toys to rubber rings
• He loves tearing ropes apart
• He is still trying to fit into his bed even though he is just a bit to big for it now.