We have a new member of the family...

Meet Benji...

Benji is our little puppy, we have had him for two months now and absolutely love him to bits. we got him from our local animal shelter woodgreen, he is now 5 months old and a cross-breed. He is training well, Sit, Stay, Lay down, we had him house trained within the first week of getting him, we are trying to socialize him by taking him to the park to meet with other dogs and all the dog owners we have meet have been wonderful and patient with his excitement and jumping up, he is great at home when we have left him for small amounts of time, we will not stroke him or greet him until he is sat and has all paws on the floor to stop him jumping up and he has responded very well to this, I am still trying to train him to walk on a loose lead which seems to be the most challenging thing of all to do so far, when he starts to pull on the lead I make him stop and sit and his reward for doing this on command is to continue walking which is what he really wants to do, but then he will start to pull again so we repeat the stop and sit method it takes about 30 minutes to walk about 30 meters, but we are getting there, sometimes if he pulls I will walk the other way to confuse him so he will not pull, but it is so slow and if any one has another method to train him to walk on a loose lead I would love to hear it.

When we went to pick him up from the shelter it was like we were going to get a little baby, we was all so excited. It is amazing how now he is just part of the family and would be very odd if he wern't here.

I am more of a dog person, although I do like cats but have never had a cat. I felt a dog would be better for the children, They are now old enough to care for and take a little resonsability for a family pet. Although having said that I find it is myself and hubby that do everything for Benji and as we had discussed before getting Benji it would be us that would be the one to take care of him, The children promised they would feed him, pick up his poo, take him for walks....and so on.....'Pleeeeeeaaaasssseeee mum and dad, we will do everything for himmmmmm.' HA!!! The novelty of picking up his poo very soon wore of. My youngest Elyssa claimed the responsibility of being chief poo picker-upper the day we brought him home, her new found job was self-made redundant after her third picking-up, LOL. GOTTA LOVE THE KIDS xxx

Needless to say having Benji is also doing wonders for my weight loss, he is getting me off the sofa and down the the parks for walks, It is a bit of a tie having a dog and I think this is the only downside, you don't have so much freedom, but luckily we have a caravan at the coast so we can still enjoy going away for the odd weekend and he can happily come with us.

So there he is, our sweet little Benji, our little pup pup, that loves affection, loves to play, and is happy to sleep the rest of the time, oh and poo's alot. No I mean ALOT!

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