Yumi at 13 weeks

Everything is going well. Yumi had her 12-week shots last week and weighs 20.8 pounds. She was the smallest of the litter, so I imagine she'll be the smallest for a little while. I think Yumi is going to be a big-boned dog, so who knows what she'll weigh when she's full grown. The vet loved her, by the way, and said he'd have chosen her from a litter if he had been getting a pet.

My heart has belonged to Yumi since I first got her, but especially since she started interacting with my dogs. Ardella was a little shy when Yumi first approached her one day in the kitchen, and she went to sit in a corner in the kitchen. Yumi gave up trying to play, but just sat down right beside her as if to say, everything is okay - I'm just going to sit here for awhile and be with you. It's working. She'll do this from time to time and I'm going to have to get a camera to capture it before she grows up. Ardella approaches Yumi on her own now and will sniff and yesterday she initiated play with Yumi. We let her do this for about 5 minutes. It's been easy to be in the main living areas with all 3 dogs. Everyone just lies there chewing on bones or sleeping. It's so peaceful and I love having everyone in one area of the house.

Yumi remains easy to handle. I'm wondering if she learned bite inhibition in the kennels with other puppies or if she was worked with specifically on this issue by people at GDB. Yumi might try to bite my clothing or play with my hand, but a gentle correction usually stops it right away. Even if she does try to play bite, it's not hard, which makes me wonder if puppy interaction up to 12 weeks helped her learn not to bite hard.

Kennel behavior is improving. Yumi still doesn't like being crated, but she's very good in the ex-pen or on tie-down. Even fussing is being extinguished. Lyn has been staying with Yumi 2 days a week on the days in school the longest, and on Tuesdays she's in the crate for an hour, then I come home for lunch for 2 hours, and then go back to school for 2 hours, so her day gets broken up. It's time to sign up for classes again, so I'm trying to find a schedule where Yumi isn't in the crate longer than 3 hours on any given day. I think I'll be able to take a few evening/late afternoon classes next quarter.

Relieving is getting better, but I think this is going to take awhile. I don't know if it's harder to house train an older puppy or not, but I hope to see some bigger changes in the next week or two (there has been some improvement, especially since Yumi is getting better about going downstairs).

Yumi learned the sit command and comes most of the time when I call her name during our FIR exercises. She walks well in the house on a leash and I'm going to take her out to the back yard to walk on trails to get more practice at staying beside me when we're walking. We're learning "that's enough" with tug. Yumi loves her toys and is the only dog I've ever known to actually play with a Goughnut! She's just easy to please.

Anyway, we love raising our newest puppy. Yumi is a happy, relatively calm and even-tempered dog and is very easy to be with. She still has puppy breath! I doubt that will last much longer, but I've loved every minute of it!