Puppy Update

We've had Uma for a week now. Uma's been busy getting used to the house and learning all kinds of things. By the second day she had picked up on her name and started getting used to going outside instead of peeing on the floor... although we still had trouble getting the timing and signals down... and she had trouble navigating the steps to the door. This weekend she's big enough to get down the stairs on her own and I think she'll be pretty much house-broken from now on. She also had to get used to being in her happy-fun place (a.k.a. crate). She had trouble sleeping through the night most of the week and often woke up at 4:30 (fortunately Tom was sweet enough to take care of the middle of the night problems). Since about Thursday though she's been sleeping in until 5:30/6ish when I get up for work anyway.

Kali spent the first few days trying to avoid Uma, but Uma's persistence has paid off. They now nap together frequently...

... and they've become great friends play together all the time!

Mookie's been doing well too. Uma has been a bit hesitant about approaching Mooks, but they've had a few encounters where Uma got put in her place. The only problem we've had is that Kali's decided to try to push the pecking order too and has been trying to gang up on Mooks whenever Uma tries to check her out. Overall they're all getting along and Mooks can go wherever she wants mostly un-harassed.

... and sometimes all four of us get to hang out together.

Complete Overhaul

We had a pretty busy weekend... had friends over Friday & Saturday night, helped another one move Saturday morning, and then both Saturday and Sunday afternoon were filled with the last in our series of bike maintenance classes at Bow Cycle. This one was the Complete Overhaul, so we got to dismantle, clean, assemble, and adjust our bikes. It was definitely worth taking because I learned a lot and got to reinforce what I learned from the previous three classes... and best of all my bike hasn't been this clean since I bought it and it's ready for summer! No waiting to get it taken care of at the shop and we can do it ourselves now.

New Car....

Well... we bought a new car. After having our car in and out of the shop all month we were told that our engine was down to 3.5 cylinders and failing. Replacing the engine with a used one (with more km than we had!) would have cost just about as much as the car was worth so we headed out to check out a few used CRVs and ended up buying this pretty one. It's a 2006 with less than 40,000km on it so we're hoping it will last quite a few years... sure put a damper on our reno budget though.

I mostly took this shot for a picture of the front of our house. We're getting some new windows next month and might paint it this summer since neither of us are a big fan of peach.

More puppy pictures

Well, we brought Uma home on Friday. Kali wasn't so sure of her and mostly just ran away from her and growled when Uma got too close. Of course, Uma was fascinated by having another Ridgeback and just wanted to play and cuddle. Uma & Mooks haven't interacted too much yet. Uma's watched Mooks from a distance and wandered after her once, but no face to face. Mooks has been only slightly more scarce than usual.

When we went to pick up puppy stuff we saw a little bunny that matched the one that Kali had so we had to pick it up for Uma... but when Uma got home she ended up romping around with the big one and Kali was checking out the little one... I'm pretty sure in this shot Kali's saying "Why am I stuck with the little one?".

This morning they were on a bit better terms with Kali growling a bit less and letting Uma get closer. Uma keeps trying to crawl into Kali's bed, but she's not having any of that quite yet (although Uma will probably wear her down). Apparently it's okay for them to sleep near each other with a "mom barrier"....

And once they were settled for a while I was able to sneak out and leave them on their own beds next to each other.

Meet Uma

We picked out our puppy this weekend! We decided on the little ridgeless girl. Meet Uma Makena (or just Uma). She was born on Dec. 16, 2008 and gets to come home with us on Feb. 13. She was a lot more active this time, in fact all of the puppies were. When we showed up we were swarmed by 11 litttle puppies all trying to jump up for snuggles and nibbles.

We were initially deciding between the ridgeless male (left) and Uma (right). They're both adorable, but Uma ended up having some traits that we decided we liked better... besides looking exactly like Kali did as an 8 week old puppy.

For example, we got to take both of them out individually from the pack. The little male went right for our shoes and started trying to chew them... Uma on the other hand went off exploring, figured out how to navigate the couple of stairs by herself, and entertained herself by playing with the pillows and an empty plastic water bottle.

The top two puppies are Uma and her ridgeless brother playing outside.

Anyway... should be interesting getting Uma home and introducing her to Mooks and Kali. We've tried telling them that she's coming, but I don't think they believe us yet. We'll post more pictures next weekend!