Hunter - Ina/Silas 2016

Good morning, Rhonda,

I thought I would take a moment to give you a little update on our new little puppy! It is hard to believe we have had him for almost a week already! 

The trip home went well.  When we were leaving the yard, Hunter started crying and immediately, Noah started to get tears in his eyes also and just said, "I feel sorry for him!"  The boys basically didn't take their eyes off of him the whole way home.  He cried off and on for the first hour, but then did very well the rest of the trip. 

He is doing great with the nights.  Getting up once or twice to go potty, but then he immediately goes back to sleep.  He cries only at night when he wakes up needing to go outside. He is an early riser, but so are we and I think the sound of the shower wakes him up. 

House training is going well also! Yesterday, we had no accidents inside the house! We are teaching him to use a doggie doorbell and he has caught onto that very quickly.  He is such a good boy!

He has definitely become very comfortable with our family and home and every day proves more active. He has started to want to chew - chew - chew! :) Including our hands, arms, etc - which we are teaching him is not allowed. He loves the buffalo jerky that you sent home with us and we also found a "bully stick" that he LOVES to chew on. He loves being outside and running around with us in the backyard.  Every leaf, twig, and blade of grass proves exciting to him. :) It is so fun to watch him as he hears new sounds and sees new things.  While he definitely has his calm moments, he definitely has big playful, active moments as well. 

We are working hard each day with continued socialization and meeting new people and have had some dogs over for him to meet. (one at at time).  We have decided to not send him to puppy daycare until he is older with a strong immune system and have arranged for friends to come in while we are gone for the day to play with him and let him out. His crate training is going very well.  However, Randy has been able to be home with him for most of this week so a friend has only needed to come over twice thus far.  Next week we have no school for Easter so we will be home with him all week. 

He has learned "sit", "come", "outside", and "potty" commands very well in just this week. He still LOVES to be held and snuggle and we do so daily.  He lets me pet every single inch of him without resisting. He continues to just melt in my arms. I love it!! He did great at the vet - weighed in at 12.9 pounds. 

We just love him SO MUCH! He has brought us so much joy this week already. 

I will continue to keep you updated.  I wanted to attach some fun photos from this week. The one with him sleeping with the head on the floor is right after we ran around in the backyard.  He was SOUND asleep. :) 

Thanks again for everything that you did during his first 8 weeks getting him ready for us.  We just love you guys!

Rachel, Randy, Ethan, Noah, and Hunter 

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