On April 8, 2018, I flew to Portland Oregon, rented a car and drove to Corvallis to meet Emmett.

On April 9, 2018, we flew home to Montana.  Emmett was in a carrier at my feet under the seat in front of me.  He did great.  If you are a new blog reader, use the calendar and click on April 2018 to view those posts.

So.

One year with Emmett!  It has been a year of fun, love, some frustration (puppy!! and my training mistakes and all of us adjusting :) )  … BUT the main thing is that the fambly Summers – we are a house of JOY.

About 3 weeks in with Emmett, I posted this puppy schedule:

It notes that 9:00 a.m. was “go to work” time.

I wrote down approximately what we do now:

Below: a screen shot of the activity tracking for Emmett

Ha!! 9:00 is go to work time *hopefully* … I am actually a “eat when I’m hungry”, “sleep when I’m tired” person and my work accommodates that as we typically do not have work meetings (internet) before 11:00 a.m. my time. Still, the above is pretty close to most day’s routine.

But, despite the time similarities, it feels more relaxed than the 3 week puppy schedule with nearly constant vigilance or crate/pen during the potty training stage. Thankfully, Emmett was very easy on that score and we were good to go at 16 weeks.

And sleeping. Emmett is a champion sleeper! At the start, he slept in a crate next to me:

Sometimes he would stir and whine a bit, but my hand on the crate and he went back to sleep. If he seemed restless, we went out and he would piddle, then immediately be happy to return to his crate and go back to sleep. I got off light on the sleep routine!

My late May, we traded crate for the pen at the end of the bed:

We would have a bit of a snuggle on my bed and then: “time for bed” and he happily entered the pen, I gave some treats and he settled for the night.

Early November: Emmett COULD get out of the pen but mostly did not. I was tired of the pen.

Dog bed, at the foot of my bed and Emmett transitioned with no problem. Hoo-RAH!!

Meanwhile, Auggie and Emmett … so much fun watching them together.

Above is one of my favorites: “Walk this way!”

Tied for second place … Their body language is priceless!

So much fun and JOY this past year.

And I hope for many more.

My boys. My heart and joy. What a year!