Hello to all puppy and Havanese lovers. We are starting this blog for three reasons. One is to introduce people to the wonderful, funny, smart, and happy havanese dogs. Two is to, hopefully, bring some of trials and tribulations of puppy raising, as well as the sweet, hilarious and captivating moments of raising one of these great pups. (Or any pup for that matter!) The last reason is to have a place where we can keep track of his puppyhood for ourselves to look back on as well.
I have been trying to keep track of his everyday accomplishments. Even tho I thought I'd remember them forever,,,as the days go by, I'm realizing that I will not.
I hope that if you read this blog, it will make you smile, or maybe remember the last time you raised a puppy and how much work it took, how hard you may have tried to get everything right and how much your heart goes out to these little babies we take into our home.

I started thinking about getting another dog to show in competition,,,let's say, the thought entered my head. I had shown dogs before, some years ago and loved it. Both conformation and obedience. Both Jim and I have been working very hard for many years with various endeavors that take our time and some of them, our spirits. I helped our daughter research their puppy buying decision and that led me to the havanese breed. It is a toy breed with many, many qualities that make it a good decision for a family dog. I thought perhaps I could get one too. We were considering a labrador, but due to some physical problems (not for long I hope) we needed to get a smaller puppy. I thought, perhaps maybe in October 09 I would be ready to take on the work of training and living with a puppy.

Of course, that was until we began our search and found a wonderful breeder right in our area. We went with the intention of just begining our search and starting the learning process, after about the third visit with them,,,,and seeing the litter of 7 pups, meeting the mother and their other havanese, learning about the father of the litter and what wonderful, caring and attentive breeders these two were, we decided this was the place we wanted to get our pup from. The rest is history as we came home with Maverick soon after.

This puppy is a joy!!! We introduced his new crate and got him all settled, brought him up to the bedroom beside our bed and said to each other, "see you in a few hours" To our complete surprise,,,,,,we woke up at our regular time of 6:30 or so the next morning and just LOOKED at each other!!! WHAT!!! CHECK THE DOG!" Not a peep all night, he was just fine, looking at us through the door!!.
We actually took him, crate and all, set him down in the kitchen, got our coats, dog treats & gloves and out we went.....OMG,,,,he piddled, pooped, piddled again and happy as could be bounced right over to the steps ready for the day!!
We could not believe it......Actually, the breeder called the next day and said she didn't sleep hardly at all worrying about him!!! We slept the whole night.
That was the start of a very "easy" puppy days and nights.

We got him his x-pen and set it up with his crate, litter, (Yup, he can use a litter box too) dishes, bed and toys. We started our daily routine of when he is out (we'd better be watching him) or just in his area or actually in his crate.
Jim or I would take him out in the snow. He loved it. He loved to snuffle his nose in the snow and it would come up all covered with white. He did this over and over. One day, Jim came in and said Maverick licked the woven fence!!! Typical boy, has to try that once I guess. It did stick there for a second and he did have to pull it off.....No problems tho,,,and he never did that again!!

After the snow melted, it was potty training day 1 again,,,,he had no idea where he was supposed to go,,,and "Oh my,,look at that stick,,gosh there are so many of them and I have to take each one and run like heck" (a typical havanese game they all play, it's actually the runlikehell game) Then "over here,,all these leaves blowing all over the place, wow, look at that one go,,gotta go after it and catch it and try to eat it"
We were out there more than we were inside for quite a while till he got the hang of it again. And it was COLD..

One day our granddaughter was with us and we both took Maverick out,,,,he did his business and ran right up the porch steps to the door...She was amazed..."Wow, Maverick ran up the steps" One more accomplishment.

We took him for his second shots and he fell in love with everyone. He weighed in at 5.1 lbs. He was sleepy and tender after his visit for a day or so. But that didn't stop him from having a ball with his best friends Boomer (lab) and Bandit (Short haired havanese) at our daughter's house. We try to make time each week to get them all together for a play date...The kids have a ball too.

We got him enrolled in puppy kindergarten and he let everyone know he was there that first night with his wonderfull "woof, woof" bark. The instructor said maybe she should let Maverick teach the class..

We also take him once a week to puppy social, which is a half an hour with like sized puppies to romp and play and meet new friends. It was funny to see that Maverick picked out the puppies in his kindergarten class to smell first!! His sister was there for the first few times, and as they had played since birth, they were all over each other for the whole half hour. She is black and white too, so you could hardly tell who was who.

We try to get back to the breeders every week (that lasted two weeks until we got so busy with his schedule!!) There he played with his litter mates still there in their large play area...Runlikehell game was number one. He would grab the yellow toy with a tail and run through the tube and around and around till someone caught the tail then he would chase them...It is not stop roudyness for at least a half an hour. So, that is our social life,,,,4 days of Maverick appointments and three days for us to rest!!!

We've taught Maverick some things so far. He sits too well, so we never tell him to do that. So far it's, come, down, leave it, wait, stand, go potty, in the house, in your crate.

Last Friday, he graduated to a larger crate and we wanted him to sleep downstairs now....I really don't think he needed to go upstairs to bed in our room as much as I wanted him to!! So, with much sadness, I went up to bed without him.....as usual, he was fine with it,,,,got up in the am and went outside as usual. I was not wanting to talk about it!!!!! It was so nice having him there beside the bed!!!

His routine is play for an hour or so in the am, then eat breakfast in his area while Jim and I get ready for the day, play and go potty for a while, and have a special treat in his crate while I go out to the office on our property to work for a while. Back in for potty break and a walk, then maybe one more little stint in the crate if I have more work to do...and get ready for supper and whatever activity he has scheduled. Home tired, play and cuddle and off to bed for all of us.

I have a leg that I need to rehab, so I have to lay on the floor on my back and stretch out and let my knee relax into a regular position....I do that for about 10 minutes at a time. I just did it about an hour ago, and he decides he wants to play runlikehell!!!! OMG,,,,Samantha was in stitches, he was running back and forth between rooms, skidding around corners over me a million times,, stomach, chest, leg,,,just run, run, run. Then out like a light.

One last thing. I was so touched when we went to the pet store and Jim was studying the toy isle trying to buy him something safe and fun. He bought him the biggest toy squeeky aligator. It was great because lots of guys don't want a small dog,,,especially one that has a lot of coat, but this boy is SO fun, and SO smart that Jim is having a ball too.
It is not really a chore raising a puppy, especially this one. He's so smart that he catches on really fast and has fun doing whatever it is we are trying to teach and we have fun watching him think and doing it and remembering each time. Every time he does a command,,he runs back to us and his little pink tongue comes out and licks a couple of times,,,he knows he is getting a treat!! (Have to start weaning him off those every time tho....)

Sorry this is so long,,,,hope it wasn't boring,,,just needed to catch up on the last month or so. See you next time.