#SAGApupVolt Is 13 Weeks Old Today

This afternoon he weighed in at 11.4kg which is a whopping 1.7kg gain in the last week!! That is almost double what he's been gaining in the last few weeks! Granted it was after breakfast and lunch, so it may be slightly over-stated...

Last night (Saturday) we headed out to some friends of ours to celebrate a birthday, and Volt went along with us. My friends have a 14 year old Dapple Daschund named Fred, a 5 year old Doberman bitch named Shayla, a Fox Terrier bitch named Tossie and a 6 month old Boerboel pup named Rufus. When I initially said Volt would be coming with us my friends were afraid Rufus may be a little rough on him, but after we introduced the dogs and they established whose territory it was, Volt was unleashed! There was only one occasion shortly after I released him that he came running back to me with Rufus and Shayla chasing him, but after I reassured him for a minute and walked away they were inseperable. Rufus and Volt, who is smaller, played all night long! They wrestled and chased and pounced and rolled! It was fabulous to watch and I am so pleased with Volt's socialisation ability. I am really sorry I didn't take my camera with me.
Naturally there were lots of questions from the party guests about how one raises a guide-dog and how are we going to give him up and it was really cool to be able to tell more people about it. And we got to show off his puppy-in-training vest!
Volt also impressed the guests with how well behaved he is and how well he listens, and they were so impressed with how he drops something or spits something out when told to "leave it".
The party was also an awesome opportunity for Volt to interact with more children and I think he did really well. There was a little boy of 2 who was nervous when Volt came towards him 'coz they were just about eye to eye, but Volt didn't snap or pounce so I was well pleased.

We left there well after 11pm and considering Volt is usually lights out by 10pm I figured he may sleep late this morning, which he did! In fact he only came out of his crate at 8am, had his breakfast and went back to sleep shortly afterwards!
The last few days have in fact seen him sleeping later and later in the morning, which I am hoping will be a continuing trend.

His scratching seems to have eased so I think the salmon oil capsules in his food are working. He's had one with breakfast and one with supper for the last week and today it was increased to 2 capsules with breakfast. The one capsule at supper will stay the same. I have had to increase the dose slowly because he is still physically small, but also because giving him a full dose immediately could upset his tummy badly.

He is happier about getting into the car now, and we've taken to eating one meal a day on the back seat where he sits. I also don't feed him if I know we're going to be driving to avoid nausea and his associating the car with that bit of unpleasantness.

What he has started doing is gulping his food down so fast that he throws up a few minutes later! I now pour his food out on the floor of his crate and his having to look for it as he eats slows him down tremendously, so we have't had any throwing up in a few days.

The last week was a very busy work week for me too, and I am very pleased that I was able to fit in his daily training sessions AND get all my work done!

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Don't forget to check out the Twitter hash-tag #SAGApupVolt to see regular updates on my puppy raising adventure!