One Small Step for Man… One Huge Leap for Adelaide
Yesterday was the 50th anniversary of the first moon landing. We couldn’t help but think of the small steps and giant leaps Adelaide has made in just our first few weeks together. This weekend we experienced a lot of firsts. We traveled to meet the grandparents (on mom’s side), Adelaide made her very first real BARK sound, she made exciting progress in potty training, and one more thing to add some humor to this list.
Let’s start with the trip to Brantford. A little bit of a heat wave hit the city and we found Adelaide was reluctant to walk. Oddly it didn’t seem to be because of the heat. We’ve discovered that Adelaide loves to flop herself to the ground to catch the sunshine. We got the first glimpse of this on our balcony in the morning when she asked to go outside (rubbed her nose up against the sliding patio door) and flopped out in the sunshine for a sunbath. We’ve been warned by many iggy owners that we should prepare for the sunshine by applying sun lotion, wearing a sun shirt or even a cooling vest. While Adelaide is still growing we will wait just a little while to get her a vest, but now we know she loves the sun so much we can definitely start using sunscreen.
On our walk to the train taking us out of town, we stopped by a grassy park. Adelaide loved lying in the grass and bathing in the sun. We made sure to keep her hydrated. This proved to be very important when we discovered the air conditioning on the train was going to be a challenge. We luckily found a cool spot after walking up and down the 3 level train. None of this would have been easy if Adelaide weren’t a great traveler. We found that she slept for most of the trip.
Brantford was an exciting visit. The grandparents have a huge backyard filled with grass and it was the perfect opportunity to get her playing outside. We usually play indoors at our apartment and there’s only so far that Adelaide can run and use her lengthy, but quick and agile legs! We noticed that it was sometimes difficult to keep her attention because digging holes became an exciting new venture for her. When we were able to grab her attention with the ball, she successfully ran to retrieve it and sometimes would even bring it back (that is if the weeds didn’t look so darn tempting). We spent a very long time playing until we couldn’t hold her attention anymore. It was a quick trip inside for dinner and cuddles. Adelaide loved meeting her family and felt so at ease with her uncle and grandad that she fell asleep in each of their arms. We are so happy to have mom’s family helping us because Adelaide is going to stay with them while we go on our honeymoon next month.
Today, back in Toronto, we experienced progress in her training that we think may be linked to yesterday’s activities. Adelaide asked to go outside on the balcony and peed on the green faux grass pee patch! She has been very good about peeing on the pee pads indoors (nearly perfect this week!) but she has always avoided the fake grass patch outside. We are training our girl to go outside but we’re also aware of the reality of our lifestyle and the iggy breed. We want her to feel comfortable going inside during the cold winter months when it will be very difficult to get her outside. We want her to know that it is ok to go inside as long as it is our designated area. Iggy’s are known to be sensitive to weather as well as have difficulty potty training. We hope that training her during the summer months is going to be a blessing so that she can learn to go both inside and outside (or on our balcony’s fake green grass patch). So far, so good! The success with the fake grass patch has us very hopeful of the future.
Another exciting first: Adelaide’s first bark. Ryan and Jess have been wondering when Adelaide would find her voice. As mentioned in our first crate training post, Adelaide seems to cry and whine but no traditional “bark” sound. Today while playing, Adelaide hid herself under the living room chair and started growling. Jess decided to goad her on with a rope toy. That’s all it took! A little excitement and bam! Adelaide barked two or three times (the last and quietest one was caught on video on her Instagram story). We are a little nervous about what this means for night time when she sometimes will cry a little in the pen, but we’ll have to wait and see. Our little girl is growing and so excited she’s growing strong and confident. Stay tuned for more evidence of Adelaide’s lament.
Lastly, we’ll talk about the funniest new discovery: humping! Adelaide got extremely excited while playing with her stuffed bear/rope toy and while Ryan was holding it above her head, she latched on and started to move her hips. What a strange and funny thing! Hopefully we don’t have to worry too much about this new venture of ours but it seems we’ve got a little teenager on our hands.