Avery's Adventure: A New Addition...

We have a new addition to the family...meet Joe! We adopted him on February 18. He was 11 weeks old and about 19 pounds. When we went to the shelter, he was the only puppy there. We walked in and saw him in the cage. He had such beautiful markings but was crazy!! He was barking and biting when you put your hands in his cage. Tim said, "I want him!" I said, "are you sure, he seems nuts". We decided to take him out and hold him in the front section of the shelter. Everyone that walked in said "Aww" or "He is so beautiful". He ended up calming down when we held him. We found out he was adopted out prior from this shelter and his owners returned him that day. Their older dog didn't get along with him and was aggressive to him.

We brought him home and at first, Chewie wasn't a fan. Joe kept biting him and jumping on him. In the past couple weeks, Chewie has learned to like him..the cats, on the other hand, are a different story. He chases them and they end up spending most of the day in the basement. They will eventually come around just like they did with Chewie and Scarlett.

Besides biting and chewing, which are typical for a puppy and to be expected, he has been great. He has had NO accidents so far! We keep him in a crate in our room at night and when we get up to feed Reagan (around 3 or 4am) we let him outside. When I am getting ready for work in the morning around 5:30, I let him out of his cage to run around a little..and he always manages to get in trouble by chewing everything in sight. Then when I leave for work, he goes back in the cage until Tim wakes up. He used to whine a little bit when he first goes into the cage but no longer whines, probably because we give him a treat every time.

In the past week, Chewie has really started to play with him. But Chewie also puts him in his place when needed. When Joe went to chase after the cats, Chewie ran over and growled at him. The one time he started running towards Reagan, Chewie ran over and growled. Chewie knows he is boss and is starting to like having a friend to rough house with.

Joe's best friend though is Avery. She LOVES him. Every moment she is awake, she is asking for NoNo (Joe Joe). Poor Joe is tired and sleeping and Avery is all over him, waking him up and trying to make him play. She is the definition of the Coppertone water babies ad..she will run and look backwards and wait for Joe to bite at her butt..lol.

Joe has been really good. His previous owners must have worked with him a little bit. He knows "Sit" and in the first week we had him, he learned to ring the bell when he had to go outside like Chewie. Scarlett never rang the bell in the 8 years we had her. Not because she didn't know how to do it but because she was too good to do it. It makes me smile that she never ended up doing it. She just always let Chewie ring the bell for her :)

Joe going to his new home