Meet Cyrus

This past Sunday, all of the other crazy on-goings in this house came to a halt. You may ask what could have caused this? A storm? A trip? Visitors from afar? Some random part of the house fell down? Nope. It was none of this.

What caused this halting of projects of all sorts was the bringing home of our new puppy, Cyrus. He is of the English Springer Spaniel variety and thus far is proving that the Springer is very accurate in his name. He likes to jump and tackle things. He is 8-weeks-old and about a foot high and a foot long. He is mostly white with brown spots. He is currently small enough to fit under the rungs of the chairs in the dining room.

He even comes with Official Papers that tell us not only his birthdate, but all about his parents and grandparents - rather like a birth certificate for a human. This means that he has a regular name and an Official Name. His Official Name is Doorcreek Cyrus. We were very lucky that we found a breeder only about 30min drive from our house. This will be good if we have any questions, and also when he is old enough to learn to retrieve. (As this breeder happens to be a Field Trial Judge, and trains dogs for hunting.) We did have to stop 2x on the way home though, once for me and once for him. All in all his first car ride went okay.

He has a puppy-sized crate and puppy-sized dishes. He has a new set of house keys to go with the new house, a semi squishy frog, and a red ball that can be made to dispense kibbles.

He has a brand new leash and collar that will let him go for walks around the block.

I knew that a puppy of this type had a lot of energy, but my goodness! I am exhausted just trying to keep him entertained, and it's only been a few days. Although, I suppose some of the tiredness comes from the fact that he does not sleep through the night. No, he cries when he goes to bed, he cries when he needs to go out, and he cries at 5am when he decides it's time to get up and play.

We do not agree with the 5am assessment. I have not seen this many sunrises in a row for a Very Long Time. We have tried ignoring him, which is hard to do, as he is very loud and very shrill. It also does not make for good sleep when one must have a pillow over one's head just to try and quiet the noise down. We went so far as to warn the neighbors of the noise, so that they do not worry.

In other activities, he is doing much better. He has learned his name, and the command 'Come'. I hope that the rest of the training goes this well. We have even signed him up for school. This Sunday is his first class in Puppy Kindergarten. I hope that they can help us to get him to sleep when we want to, not when he wants to.

Oh for a peaceful 6 or 7 hours of sleep!