COFFEE TALK: MEET OZZY

Greetings, friends! I hope you all are faring okay. It’s been quite a week in the news, and here in the Shane household.

I don’t really care to dwell on the news, so let’s talk about the newest member of our family.

Meet Ozzy

If you’re not interested in puppy talk, you may want to skip this post. #fairwarning

For anyone just tuning in, Ozzy is a mini goldendoodle, and he’s 9 weeks old today. He will be 20-30 pounds, fully grown.

We brought him home on Monday, so we’ve had him now for almost a week. I’m head over heels in love, and all three kids adore him. Paul tolerates him, haha!

Here are some pictures from the day we brought him home.

I’d say he’s doing great, all things considered. He’s very smart. The girls have already taught him to sit and lay down on command, and when I say “git it!!!” he knows that means to grab a toy or ball and play a light game of tug-of-war.

He knows that he’s supposed to do his business outside, and he will usually signal to us that he needs to go out. Some of us are more in tune to those signals than others, so there have been a few accidents, but not many, and they really weren’t his fault.

The puppy pen in the kitchen has worked out pretty well, since there is no easy way to barricade the entire kitchen due to our open floor plan. At first, he wanted someone with him or right beside him at all times, but he’s gotten better about entertaining himself.

Of course, we are never far away, and we play with him a lot — both outside and in the family room, and sometimes we just get in the pen with him.

He plays hard, but fortunately, he also sleeps hard. He loves his bed, and we find him sleeping in all manner of adorable positions. I can never resist snapping a picture . . .

Is there anything cuter than a sleeping puppy? I think not.

He sleeps pretty well at night, and he seems to like his crate. During the day, we move it downstairs and attach it to the pen in the kitchen, so he can go in and out. At night, we take it upstairs to one of our bedrooms.

I know some are opposed to that idea, but it’s right beside someone’s bed, and we don’t let him get worked up. He may whine a little bit when we shut the door, but he always settles quickly if we talk to him.

Of course, he wakes up and needs to go out a couple times a night, but that’s to be expected. He will usually sleep from midnight or 1AM to 5AM or so.

R is totally smitten with her new charge, and she’s been taking great care of him, but she was only able to keep him in her room for a few nights before the lack of sleep finally started taking its toll.

I fully expected that, so C and I each took him for one of the last two nights, and the three of us will probably continue to take turns.

D isn’t interested in being on all-night puppy duty, but he has offered to take Ozzy outside during the night if someone asks, since he is usually awake until 3AM anyway.

I may take him up on that. I don’t mind getting up, but going outside in the dark and the cold is not my idea of fun.

Fortunately, Paul has no trouble sleeping through all of it.

And then there’s Savannah . . .

Our Savannah is about 10 years old, and she’s quite the prissy old lady. She’s not too sure about this rambunctious young pup who has joined the household where she has ruled the roost for the past 8 years.

I love this picture. Look at her looking at him like, WHO are YOU?

If you want a blast from the past, here is the post I wrote when I introduced Savannah… look how little my kids were!

And how short my hair was… and let’s not talk about how young I looked.

Also, remember when we all used those Instagram frames? Too funny.

Savannah is slowly becoming accustomed to having Ozzy around. If he doesn’t approach her, she pretty much ignores him, and when he crosses her path, they will sniff each other and start circling.

From there, it goes one of two ways. Either Ozzy gets distracted with something else, so she moves on her merry way.

Or, he decides he wants to play, and that’s when things go south fast. Savannah only plays with humans. In fact, I’m pretty sure she thinks she’s one of us.

Ozzy does the best he can — he will roll over on his back or get down low, obviously trying to be submissive, but it doesn’t seem to placate her. And when he gets really hyper and playful and bats at her, she becomes agitated and growls and snaps at him.

So yeah, they need a lot of supervision, but I think they will come to accept each other in time.

This happened one night after I went to bed. R took the picture of both dogs asleep on the couch with C.

I mean, if they can both fall asleep that close to each other, surely they will eventually be friends, right?

C is the dog whisperer. If anyone can convince these two little critters to become friends, she can.

Okay, here’s one more random sleeping puppy picture, and then I’m done. This time he was on R’s lap.

In other news, R and I were able to get out of the house yesterday for a few hours, and that was refreshing. She had a drive-by birthday party for a friend, and we stopped at the store first to pick up balloons and a present.

It was a beautiful day for a change — sunny and mild with no wind at all. The rain is back today, but I keep telling myself, April showers bring May flowers!

Fortunately Ozzy seems impervious to the rain, because he’s been out in it a lot. Savannah is a prissy one, and she avoids the rain at all costs, so I was relieved that it doesn’t phase him.

Well, that’s all I’ve got! I won’t be regaling you with Ozzy updates every Sunday, I promise, but he has pretty much consumed our lives this week, and a lot of you have been asking about him.

He’s a lot of work, but it’s been nice to have a distraction during this crazy time, and I’m so glad we found him.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!