No Foolin' Ember is here.

 

Gloria and her granddaughter arrived around 6 p.m. Sunday, with not one, but TWO puppies on board.  Gloria herself is adopting one of Ember's sisters.  The two of them rolled around on the front lawn for a bit while we exchanged "stuff".  Then Gloria and the silver girl headed out, and Ember and I began getting to know one another.  

Before very long, the mythical son and his wife rang the doorbell, and we had a little photo session, as part of the mission to wear Ember out.  "She's so soft," observed my DIL!  My son's comment was about her smooshy loose skin at this stage of life.  She is definitely puppy-puppy!

Later:

The testing time has begun.  It's 9 p.m.  Ember has been sleeping in her crate with a blanket that has her doggie mom's smell on it.  But I just let The Prisoner in.  I can hear Ember whining (she had been quiet for a couple of hours), after she'd been out for the "last call" and gave me a good poo.  I have yet to observe her peeing.

Now she's crying.  I let Prisoner in deliberately while Ember was in the crate to give them the chance to sniff at each other through the air holes.  And I retreated to my room to let them "work it out".

After a bit, I went downstairs to make sure that The Prisoner was not tormenting her.  Nope, he has made himself scarce.  She quieted down enough for me to take her out of the crate for one last trip outside to pee.  

Praised her a lot, put her back in the crate, and am now ignoring the whines because I know she's safe.  When we came back in she started sniffing the cat's chair quite a bit, but I insisted on her going back into the crate.  I will sleep a bit myself before I check again.

The remainder of the overnight story, written in the morning:

Turned out in this case the whines were serious business.  After letting her fuss for quite I while I went down and discovered she needed to go out again, and we did not make it to the door, but at least we got to the tile floor before she poo'd.  Oh, well, mom's getting to know how this one operates, biologically.  Lesson learned.

Took her out about midnight for a middle of the night pee, and at that point, moved the crate up to my bedroom, and settled her for the rest of the night.  Dog TV is good for calming humans to sleep, too!  I woke at my usual time (between 4 and 5), took her out to pee, and put her away again so I could shower.  Boy did I smell like dog!

It's 6:30 now, and we've had another trip outside and some play time and some simple training games before she showed signs of ready to chill out and nap, so back in the crate she is.

With puppy back in the crate and quiet, I let the Prisoner back in (he went out when Ember had her 4:45 wake up trip, and was at the door).  I dished up his wet food breakfast, but because Ember started whining, he wouldn't eat it in his normal spot.  Sigh.

Anyway, just now, he's outside "someplace", and his breakfast is sitting on the deck, in case he decides to come eat it!  I'll check on it before too long, because I don't particularly want the neighborhood foxes to become used to food being available there.

Life is good, perhaps especially when there are challenges?  Spark on, little (soon to become big) Ember says!