One Quiet Weekend

It's kind of weird not having puppy for the weekend. But it's good. We get to sleep past 6 a.m. ;)

A lot of people ask how co-raising works for me and the answer is:

FANTASTIC!

We love it. My co-raiser is Marnie... and family. Her house includes a husband- Willie- who is equally involved and takes the puppies to work when they are old enough, 4 girls, 2 cats, and a working Guide Dog.

In the beginning I usually will take the puppy more because it's harder for Marnie and Willie to tell if puppy has an accident unless their girls are home. So they get puppy on the weekend (Friday-Monday) and I get him during the week. As puppy gets older, we start to trade every other week- switching on Sundays. We live pretty close to each other so it's not hard to trade.

We both have our strengths and fit together really well.

Marnie is really good at working on "Come" because that is really important for her to have a dog with a good recall that touches her so she knows he is there.

I'm in charge of teaching "Go to Bed" since Marnie can't see to treat him at the right time.

It's fun to show each other what puppy has learned in the days that we have him- and it's fun to see how much puppy has grown since we last saw him.

Also we both have such different home lives that puppy gets used to lots of different things.

Marnie lives in a house- we live in an apartment (not for long though! We're getting ready to close on a house soon! Yay!),
Marnie has lots of kids and dogs- We don't,
Marnie works in Voc Rehab and Willie owns a Cafe- I work at the University,
Marnie and Willie take the bus or a cab everywhere- We drive a small Toyota and a Suzuki with a hatchback.

Pretty much co-raising is great and if you ever get the chance to co-raise with someone great- I recommend it.