She's changed my life

It feels strange to be blogging about a dog of all things, since I was so against getting one for so long (meaning 17 years!).   We can definitely say that Milly is fitting into our family very nicely.  It's lovely having her company at night when the boys are in bed, and the boys just love her so much.

Jalen thanks me almost every day for getting her.   Every night when he goes to bed and says goodnight to Milly he says things like 'Mum you will never know how much it means for me to have Milly'.   Jay still really struggles with his grief at times, but he says having Milly helps him a lot.

At first Milly thought she could rule Kobe, but after lots of tears he is now really firm with her and Milly now knows her place and will sit whenever Kobe tells her and will wait until Kobe tells her she can do certain things.  Kobe loves hanging out with her now, after being very wary of her for a couple of weeks.

Because we had no idea about dogs we went to a six week puppy training course which was really good.  It just taught us the basics, but we learned a lot and had lots of homework to do each week.   All the hard work is paying off as Milly is getting so much better.  She is so good at waiting when she wants to come inside, even though she's so excited to see us.

Harri absolutely loves Milly, but it's a big love hate relationship between them. If Milly is going to get grumpy with anyone, it's Harri because he's always pestering her and doesn't leave her alone.  He's always picking her up to carry her around like a teddy. 

I'm not at all used to having a little dog follow me around everywhere I go.  If I'm sitting at the computer she will place herself right at my feet.

If I'm doing housework she will follow me around, unless I have the vacuum cleaner and then she will sit at the landing on the stairs and wait until I've finished.

If I'm outside she wants to be right where I am.  It's like having a toddler again.

One thing that I was worried about when deciding whether to get a dog, was that I would be stuck doing all the work.  I knew the novelty would wear off with the boys, even though they promised me they would walk it and clean up it's mess and feed it.  Of course I was right and the novelty wore off after a couple of weeks, but luckily having Milly hasn't been hard work at all. 

Milly is actually happy to just exercise by playing in the backyard which is good, but it's nice to have another excuse to go walking.  She loves to walk and gets so excited if she hears me say 'do you want to go for a walk?' and will sit down straight away as she knows when she sits I will put her on the lead.  I've found some reserves to walk through so we don't have to go along the main streets with lots of traffic.  I often take her for a walk to the cemetery and either visit Aaron and Noah's graves, or just keep walking past the outside of the cemetery, and do a huge big loop back home again.

She is such a social dog and just wants to be with us all the time.  If we are home she isn't happy to be outside at all, and will sit at the windows where she can see us and will bark until we let her in. 

She knows that when our street gets busy in the afternoon that school is almost over, and will wait at the window for the boys to get home from school. 

When I thought about getting a dog I always imagined that they would just be outside, but I'm quite happy having her inside when we are home, especially as she doesn't shed and she also sleeps inside. 

She has been pretty good and we haven't really had any trouble with her chewing things except for the boy's soft toys which she likes to sneak off with.  They have quickly learnt to keep their soft toys up high.

When we eat tea Milly sits at our feet and then every now and then her head pops up as she tries to see what we're having.

It cracks us up laughing, and it looks so funny and cute that it's hard to tell her off.   It's like when Kobe is so cheeky that he makes us laugh, but you try not to laugh because it just encourages him.

It's so cute when Kobe asks me 'how many people do we have in our family Mum!?'. I always say six and he corrects me and says 'No - we have seven with Milly!'.  Jalen keeps saying how nice it is to have Milly in our family because it feels like we have an extra member in our family now.   He often says to me 'she's changed my life'. 

I'm very glad that I decided to get a dog, and in particular that I chose Milly, being a labradoodle and an older puppy.   Now if someone could tell me how to stop her digging up my veggie garden that would be great.  I'm thinking I'm going to have to fence it off :(