Tucker -- 8 Weeks Old

Tucker marked his 8th week on Feb 9th weighing 22 lbs. He's visibly larger this week than last week and the changes are incredible in his face. His muzzle seems to have lengthened and his eyes are more focused now. He's learned to look up and will now move his eyes to the left or right to look at something, instead of just turning his head. He can "load up" into the back seat of the car pretty much on his own now....unless he tries to gain the seat immediately. In that case, he needs a "paw up", but that won't last for long!

He has also mastered moving from the back seat to the front seat of the car. I know one day he'll be too big for this....which is good as it's an annoying trick he's learned. ;) Tucker spends quite a bit of his daylight home time out in his yard. He's pretty happy out there and has discovered a few good digging spots. I'll have to deal with that soon I think. A couple of the areas are fenced with electric fence and that will get turned back on. I'm just not comfortable with him being zapped by the fencer this young, so it will wait.

OK, so now it's time to explain the pics on the left hand side. These were taken on the 10th. Saturday was Mom's birthday and we had plans to take her out to a nice dinner. I didn't want to pick her up in a dirty car, smelling of dog...so I got out the hose to was the car. Tucker didn't like the hose reel, the hose, or the water coming out of it....so he took himself off to hide from the hose.

After I was done washing the car, I went looking for him. I was curious to see where he would hide himself given the opportunity.

Evidently hiding wasn't in his plans....just getting out of the range of the hose. lol He was pretty sound asleep. I had to recharge the camera batteries before I was able to take these pics and even then he didn't wake up fully during these shots. He would adjust his position, but not open his eyes.

He's still what we call a "slow-waker". He opens his eyes, stretches, looks around and then lays there for a bit before getting up. He may sit up, but there will be no "fast" movement until he's fully awake. A dog after my own heart! lol He's clearly not impressed with being woken up at this point.

Ok, now he's thinking of getting down...lol. Well onto other progress. Tucker is an amazingly fast learner. He's walking/running on leash really well. He adapted to being tethered to a fixed object with no real incidences. The kennel trainings in question though. He has no problem with being crated at work, but at home it's torture. He's probably just showing that he's smarter than I. lol

"OK, I'm awake, I'm up....what do you want?" lol. He's developing so quickly and so well that it's hard to remember that he is just a 2 month old puppy. I have to continually remind myself when I'm working with him that he's just a baby still. He has learned to "voice his need" when he has to poo, but can still pee without seemly knowing he's going. Occasionally we'll see that he's aware and searching for a spot to go and then we can get him out in time. Normally we take him out every time he wakes up and about every 45 minutes if he's awake.

He really enjoys going to work with me and visiting everyone. He shows extreme excitement when anyone from The Outback comes in. The Outback is the Farm he was born on. Most of them come into the store on a regular basis, so they are getting to see him develop and grow. He gets a real jolt from seeing them all and smelling all the familiar farm smells on them. It's fun to watch! It will definitely be hard on everyone when it's time for him to stay home. It will be a major adjustment. We'll cross that hurdle when we get closer to it.