Recently, about three weeks ago, my mother decided to adopt two new puppies. They are both from the same litter, sisters to be exact. Supposedly, when we got them, they were eight weeks of age. As we were told they were Great Pyrenees and Lab mixes, yet we later discovered they were just Labs.

Taking care of them thus far has been an exciting adventure. Our first challenge was deciding the perfect name for the two. Wrestling with the names “Lily” and “Rose” in the beginning had presented a challenge harder than we had expected. Finding these names too generic lead us to other names which we also decided we disliked. Eventually we decided on “Ellie” and “Dina”. Once again though, a name change had to take place although I loved their names. Dina became Daisy before you could say potato soup, and it was settled.

We began by buying them the necessities, food, a bed, leashes, puppy pads, and we had already had a crate. Luckily to our advantage these two were trained to use the restroom outdoors with a couple minor accidents every once in a while. My mother and I quickly discovered they enjoy chewing because they completely tore up their bed. At this point they just sleep with us in our beds if they feel like doing so.

Next was beginning to correct bad behavior. We have recently had three chargers chewed up by the little rascals, and so we find it difficult to keep them in the room at night. When they pee on the floor in spite of us, or even jump on the tables while we are eating they get as squirt of cold water with a “bad dog” as almost every dog owner has probably done before.

As we have found out, they are quite a trouble at night, we decide to try to keep them in crates as long as they can stand it. Their excessive whimpering eventually leads us to release the pups and let them run free. They even randomly jump on our heads in our sleep to make us aware they need to potty. Every time we go out somewhere they progress with crate training, and get treats for waiting to use the restroom which I am personally very proud of them for.

They are a bit skittish around new bodies, but soon warm up. They have had a time trying to get used to my step-father on my mother’s side because he always wears high-vis clothing to work, and we figure they dislike the colors. A small vet visit in the past couple days for their beginning shots and routine check ups allows us to keep them in shape.

When raising new puppies it can be challenging, time consuming, and almost any other adjective you could imagine. One thing is for sure though, we love them with great care and have already grown accustomed to their little adorable faces.