Welcome Home Jedi!

Today was a big day for Jedi. He made the big leap of leaving his remaining siblings and came home with me and my brood. It was a pretty exciting day for me as well, considering that I didn't know which puppy was coming home with me until I walked through the door. Jedi (formerly known as Atlas) was my "pick puppy" from the day the litter was born, mostly because he was the only black & white boy of the bunch (one black/white tri female, four blue merle boys, and one black/white boy). He continued to be my favorite as I watched the puppies grow up, but for various reasons I just never thought that would be my puppy so I tried to turn my attention to the others. Learning that this was my puppy made me over-the-moon happy and I pretty much floated through the seven-hour drive home.

Jedi was a super traveler. I also had Secret, Kaiser, and Kizzy along, as we'd just competed for two days at a trial in Chicago (my way of breaking up the trip a bit). We stopped about every two hours or so on way home and managed to make it home without any accidents. I took Jedi out separate from the others on stops, so they didn't formally meet until we got home.

Luke was first, because Luke is always first for this sort of thing. I also thought it was fitting because Jedi's name is in honor of Luke. While I didn't give him the name (he got it from the shelter), we've always kind of associated it with Star Wars (I think his sister's name was even Leia). Luke has aged a lot in the last few months and I have a feeling he won't be with us a year from now. I picked the name Jedi as a bit of a way to keep Luke alive in our memories, as we'll always think of him when we think of Star Wars. As expected, Luke pretty much ignored the puppy from the get-go.

Kizzy got to meet the puppy next and she loved him every bit as much as I thought she would. Kizzy does well with pretty much all dogs and she plays very appropriately, so I figured they would get on well together. Once Jedi started to get used to her he felt comfortable enough to begin engaging in play. Kizzy is thrilled to have a new tug buddy! It will be interesting to see how this relationship grows and develops as Jedi gets bigger and starts to overpower Kizzy. Will she think he's so entertaining when he can whip her around at the end of the toy?

I opted to wait on introducing Secret and Kaiser until they'd had a chance to discover each other through the x-pen in the house. They tend to be my problem children and will need a little more time to acclimate to the change. Things went well in the house, though, and we were able to have a supervised meeting outside during one of the times I took Jedi out to go potty.

I've made the decision to use a "puppy pen" to raise this puppy. I figure the x-pen will offer a bit more freedom than being locked in a crate all the time, but still keep him out of trouble and limit his access to self-reinforcement. I still plan on using a crate for at night and in the car. The puppy pen will primarily be utilized while I'm working from home and doing schoolwork. I removed the coffee table from the living room to make room for the pen. I'm using a tarp to try to avoid having to clean up too many accidents from the carpet. It's a good thing I don't care anything about my home decor, as this place has totally gone to the dogs now!