A Taste of Life: Meet Tuck

I think people underestimate (or don't talk about) how much a puppy really does change your routine. We've read tons of books and we've tried to be as prepared for getting a puppy as we possibly could be but I guess just like having a baby, you don't really know until you take the leap. We love him though. He's been so much fun to watch and to get to know. I just didn't want to write this post and talk about how cute he was and how cuddly he was without being honest that it is a huge change in routine and it was rough at first getting used to it.

The biggest change we've noticed is not sleeping in on the weekends. Poor Casey has taken the morning shift. He said he has an easier time going back to bed than I do (which is true) so he decided he wouldn't mind getting up and then going back to bed until we realized that there's no going back to bed once Tuck is up. We're going to try putting him in our room tomorrow morning after we take him to the bathroom and seeing if he'll go back to sleep. This should calm him since not being able to see us is what upsets him when we try to put him back in. He's crated in the living room where we can hear him if he barks but not hear every snuffle and drink of the water bottle. He's never crated when we're here and does a good job, so we'll see how he does uncrated while we're sleeping. I'll let you know how that goes...

Let me also say that he's an awesome puppy, we are really really lucky. He picked up on going to the bathroom outside really quick. Luckily for us, shih tzus aren't much on being outside so getting to go back in is a reward because he hates just standing outside. He won't use the bathroom in his crate and he's in it for 8 hours at night and then 9 hours during the day while we're at work (I come let him out at lunch). He won't bark in his crate at night and he also won't really get into anything or chew on too many things. He chews a little, but he's teething so it's expected. All these things added up, equal a really good puppy so we've lucked out on him and we're so happy to have a new addition to our family. It's teaching us responsibility and having to put something before our own needs which is a really good thing to learn as a couple.

I suppose I'll post some pictures of the little guy today =) We had Kara there to capture the moment Casey got to the apartment with him so it's kind of cool that we have those pictures to look at.

This is right after Casey got home and got him out of the car, we're a big corny family haha

Tucker Ducker himself

We got the chance to take him out today to our dog run. Our apartment complex has this huge fenced in piece of land where you can just set your dogs loose so that they can run around. There aren't usually dogs in there at the same time so it's not a big issue having them unleashed. It's also really shady because there are weeping willows surrounding the outside so Tuck doesn't overheat himself (which happens easily).