Day 5

Famous Last Words indeed....


Bran discovered his voice late last night and decided to object loudly to being put to bed. He eventually settled down but started up again at 1am! I was in a bit of a quandry as to what to do: should I go into him - thus teaching him that barking loud enough for long enough makes me appear, but settling him quickly; or should I ignore him - thus aggravating my neighbours but teaching Bran that barking doesn't get him what he wants?? It was 1 am for goodness sake - my brain was like mush! I ended up doing a bit of both and came downstairs, opened the lounge door and told him to be quiet, then waited outside of the door until he settled down. I was then stuck with the question do I go back to bed normally, or do I tip-toe so as not to disturb him again?!?


To my absolute shame, when I got up this morning, I found that Bran had done a poo in his crate :o( It had been there for some time, so the poor fella must have been telling me that he needed to go with the barking extravaganza. Hindsight is a glorious thing.


That's something for me to investigate today: what am I supposed to do if he tells me that he needs to toilet during the night? He only seems to "tell" me when he is in his crate, he doesn't do it during the day. So do I praise his awareness by letting him out to the garden - whatever time of night it is? Or is there something else I should be doing?

Our friends Wendy, Dolly and Wiggle came by for the afternoon. Bran was *very* excited to meet more labradors and I found it hard to believe that he will ever grow to be as big as Dolly and Wiggle! He did his best to fit in with the big dogs though.....

I don't think that Auntie Wendy liked him very much. I can hardly blame her - he's a particularly smelly and vile brand of poopie ;o)

I was surprised to see just how easily Dolly took to Bran. As an ex-brood bitch I just assumed that she wouldn't like having yet another chocolate baby around her, but she certainly showed me....

There was something very special about seeing 2 chocolate puppy farm rejects who were lucky enough to be rescued by Auntie Fi before being sent on to their new lives snuggling up without a care in the world (for the moment anyway!).

Auntie Fi then came for an overnight visit with 2 of her grown up children in preparation for flying out of Bristol the following morning. Considering Fi had only last seen Bran on Saturday morning, her first words on seeing him were "Oh he's grown!!".

With so many extra people in the house, I opted to sleep on the sofa in the lounge with the dogs and - thankfully - Bran decided not to exercise his voice and to just let everybody sleep peacefully!!