First days of parenting

I'm writing this on my iPad, cross legged on our hard kitchen floor, with a sleeping puppy a foot or so away.  Not that I'm soppy or anything you understand. Luka, the 8 week old black standard schnauzer arrived with us on Saturday morning. I thought choosing between him and his brother would be difficult, but I knew almost instanteously that it was him I wanted.  It took me another half an hour to convince myself to follow my gut instinct, and be sure that Matt agreed (which he did).  A bit of a paperwork and an hour later we were home, and it was just us and him (and the cats....)

It does feel, and it is, a huge responsibility, looking after another being. I'm finding it interesting tuning in to his needs and wants, in a way I'm learning to with my own body - a lesson learnt from steam rollering through life regardless and causing my health long term damage in the process.  I hear myself repeating things that friends with new born babies have said - I never get to drink tea while it's hot; just as I get up to do something, he goes to sleep on me; it gets to 10:00 and I've been up for four hours (a challenge in itself - bye bye my 1.5hrs of reading in bed in the morning) and I haven't had time to go in the shower yet; I don't get to go to the loo on my own any more etc, you get the picture. And this is a puppy not a baby. I have a new found respect for parents!

Seriously though, Luka's been great so far, the main challenge being that he hates being in his crate; a bit difficult when you're crate training (a well renowned house training technique for non-doggy readers).  Anyway, we swapped crates for the bigger one he was going to have when he was older and he seems much happier.  He started climbing in it before we'd finished putting it together so I'm taking that as a sign that he prefers it. We haven't tried shutting the door yet, I'm taking this slowly after his reaction to the last one, hence me sitting on the floor while he's fast asleep in the cat bed we've given him in there. 

I'm sure there will be plenty more tales (no pun intended) as he grows up, but here's the bit you've all really read this far for - the pics!  These are a few quick snaps from my phone, I'm sure there will be plenty more of these to follow too, and hopefully some better ones. 

Meet Luka!