My Princess Daisy *dot* com

The First Month

I figured out how to get a full night of sleep! I figured if Daisy slept on the bed with me, then she'd sleep pretty much the whole night. I gave it a shot and it worked!! Daisy slept the entire night. Right when I woke up, she woke up. It was great!!

As every week went by, Daisy was gaining weight. I'd say she was gaining about 2 to 3 lbs every week for the first couple of months. I was feeding her IAMS Puppy food. The first ingredient in puppy food should be meat. All the other puppy foods I checked had wheat flour as the first ingredient. What the heck is wheat flour? That's gross! So IAMS' first ingredient in their puppy food is meat. Puppies need it. IAMS has it. Nuff said.

Sometime within the first month of having Daisy, she adapted pretty well to crate training. I really didn't have to do much. I did some reading up on it and followed the basic rules. I was constantly reading my copy of The Complete Idiot's Guide To Beagles. Trust me, this book is the most informative book about beagles you can find today. It answered every question I had. I highly recommend buying this book if you are getting a beagle, or if you already have one. Crate training was a cinch with this book by my side. It was as if Daisy just knew it was her place to sleep... when she wasn't sleeping on my bed. That was the thing that worried me. How was I supposed to crate train Daisy while having her sleep with me on my bed at night? Well, I don't know what I did, but Daisy knows not to go potty in her crate and to go potty outside. Daisy is just smart, plain and simple. Ha ha!

I think the big reason why Daisy did so well getting her house trained was because I made sure she went potty outside all the time and that the crate was inside the house. Since the crate was inside the house, I think Daisy figured the inside of my house was just a big crate. The hard part is going to be making her sleep outside eventually. I know most beagle owners let their beagle sleep indoors, but I want a dog that can also sleep outdoors. Don't get me wrong, I love the fact that Daisy sleeps on my bed at night, but she's getting bigger... a lot bigger, and I hate waking up in the middle of the night about to fall off the bed because the little princess is sleeping across the bed. Ha ha ha! I think about it and laugh, but in the middle of the night, nothing is funny.

Every night before bed, Daisy and I spend about 10 minutes learning the basic commands. Sit, Down, Up & Shake. I'm not sure if those are the basic commands, but those were the first that I wanted Daisy to learn. Daisy learned to sit pretty quick. She had that down about the third time we practiced. I moved on to the Up command. Since she likes to jump up so much, this was another easy one she learned fast. The third command she learned was to Shake, her paw that is. This one was a little more difficult. Again, I read up on how to do it in my Complete Idiot's Guide to Beagles. It took Daisy about 3 weeks to get this one pretty consistently. All she needed was to do it once. Now she's a pro at it. Another trick that took her a couple of weeks to get was the Down command. At first I tried to teach her this one on my own, without the help of a book. Well, it turns out I'm not that great of a teacher. So, once again I turned to my book and it told me the easiest way to do this. It worked! Daisy now has the Down command in her brain. She's so smart, it amazes me. And they say it's hard to train a beagle... HA!

Daisy is fine outside. She runs around, plays ball, chews on her toys and all that. She's overall a really good dog. Every once in a while I'll go outside and find that she ripped off a few leaves from a plant, or that she got hold of something she shouldn't have. The only time Daisy is doing something she's not supposed to, is when she is bored. In my opinion, the trick to owning a good beagle is to make sure the beagle is entertained. If not, your beagle will find a way to entertain itself. Daisy entertains herself by chewing. You can read all about chewing in my Chew, Chew, Chew journal entry. She's growing up and there's nothing I can do about it. Every week she looks a little different. Her face is maturing and some of her markings are changing. She is starting to lose that puppy look she had when I first picked her up from the breeder. I'm curious to see what she'll look like when she is full grown.