Kruiser's first day with us

Now, this journal will become excerpts from the journal I have been keeping on Kruiser in a MSWord file....

May 20, 2008

We picked Kruiser and his crate up last night after dinner, the evening before Matt and Liyun were leaving for Taiwan. Kruiser elicited several cooes of “ah” from Matt, the same we heard last summer when he was talking with Liyun during our trip in China and she had to stay in Taiwan to work. And despite the fact that Pat loved to play with puppies, he was stand-offish at first. I think he was worried about the role Kruiser would have in our family, but by bedtime, he was playing with Kruiser. The cutest moment was when Kruiser first heard Matt playing the piano. He perked his ears and tipped his head one way and then the other while trying to figure out where the music was coming from. Even once he visually saw Matt at the piano he kept up the ear perking and head tipping, but when Ed came by he very quickly lost interest.

Kruiser slept well after a couple of whines when getting into his crate. The trainer Deborah said he is used to a treat or food put into his crate first, so need to remember that.

This morning Matt and Liyun had to get up really early to go to the airport. Ed took Kruiser out right away and he peed, and then Ed drove Matt and Liyun. After they left, I got into hypervigilance mode--feed both dogs and walked them. Again Kruiser did all his bathrooming very easily. Back at home I went upstairs to meditate and put Kruiser in his crate. He whined (I forgot the food thing.) I ended up with him on the bed with Pat--that worked. Afterwards, I gave them both knuckle bones on the back porch. Kruiser plunged right in. Pat took a while to get going, but really got into it, so much so that while I was washing dishes there was a bark. I think Kruiser had gone too near Pat and Pat warned him off. Very scary for Kruiser. He cowered by the door and was shaking when I went out. I brought him inside and eventually brought Pat in as well. By the time Ed got back from the airport, they were sleeping nose to butt on the sofa.