Apollo comes home tomorrow!

Knightley: 1 year, 3 months, 1 week and 6 days old
Apollo: 9 weeks and 2 days old

Apollo on the right. This was taken yesterday after three pups
had already left to their new homes.

Well, the day is just about here, that Knightley gets a new little brother. I'm very excited, despite the fact I have a triple bacterial infection, sigh! But tomorrow hubby and I drive up to Sydney to pick up our ball of fluff and sharp little puppy teeth. I could have pneumonia and I'd still be going!

I'm going to give him a couple of days before we start training in earnest, but the first couple of days will be dedicated to house training and general manners. I am so looking forward to see what happens between him and Knightley. They should be well matched in personality.

Apollo a couple of days ago. This and the following pic are our
formal puppy pics from the breeder! He looks good.

We still have a bit of puppy proofing to do, but I've set up our 'dog room' back to how it was when we got Knightley. Currently we don't have a big crate for Apollo - he's got a little fabric one, and we have a big fabric one too.... but I haven't got around to getting a wire crate for him yet. I will though, it's useful and that's where I feed Knightley, and I'd like to have Apollo with his own. It'll make sure there is no squabbling over nice fresh raw food. I'll have Apollo sleeping beside my bed in his little crate for the first couple of weeks until he can hold his bladder all night, but after then he'll spend nights in a wire crate - so I'll have to get one before then.

Apollo age 9 weeks, face shot!

Definitely looking forward to diving into Sue Ailsby's levels from the beginning again. I'll have to get my books out soon and re-read level 1. From what I can remember it teaches a basic sit, zen (leave it), down, come and target. While you are supposed to do the steps in order when doing 'the levels', I found working on target really helped Knightley 'get it' as regards clicker training. I'll be interested to see how the first training sessions go with Apollo. I'm a much more confident clicker trainer, for a start, and I'm also really really hoping for a more food motivated pup! It was always so hard to get Knightley enthused in his training because he really doesn't care much about food. Hoping for a massive food drive with Apollo.

I am thinking of getting a dehydrator so that I can make my own jerky for Apollo (and Knightley) our of the lovely beef hearts I buy in bulk. That way if I need some extra good treats with Apollo, I can use raw food, or even a little cooked with parmesan or garlic. That is the only problem I've found with raw feeding - finding treats that don't cost the earth for your dog, but are good nutritionally. I feed a lot of beef heart - they come from near here and are from grass fed beef, so I am reassured about the quality. Knightley loves them raw.

That's the other thing I'm looking forward to with Apollo - starting him on raw from day 1 with us. He has already had a reasonable amount of raw in his diet, although it has only been minced beef/chicken. It's much better than nothing, but doesn't offer all the great benefits of feeding a proper raw diet. I plan to use a bit of Artemis dry food in addition (very high quality grain free stuff - I don't believe in feeding dogs grains). Eating raw should slow down Apollo's growth and make hip dysplasia (HD) less likely. I do wonder what would have happened if I had fed Knightley raw from the beginning - would his HD be as bad as it is? It would probably be a little better, even though I did a slow growth plan with Knightley.

I'll be starting Apollo on raw chicken - just a whole chicken cut up into Apollo sized chunks (about 180g, four times a day). Because he's had some raw already, and because he's so young, we won't have to stay on plain chicken for long. Hopefully he'll be eating beef heart by the end of our first week together with no tummy repercussions (heart, while it is counted as muscle meat and not organ, is quite rich for a dog not used to it).

Anyway, tomorrow is going to be very interesting, especially seeing them meet each other. We'll be going up and back to Sydney in a day, so we'll be back just after dark tomorrow. I'm pretty excited!!!

See ya later internetland, will try to upload some Apollo and Knightley pics soon - hopefully showing how well they're getting on!