[003] You're only a day away!

I seriously must've woken up at least 10 times this morning beween 5AM and 7AM. A few of those times (silly me) I bolted up in a panic thinking I had to take Rufus out to go potty. The rest of them, I woke up super excited thinking that today was the day we were bringing him home.

Clearly, I'm beyond excited for this little fur baby to come home!

That's part of the reason why I waited so long to go out and buy supplies for him. Setting up last night got me so much more excited than I was - Mike thought I was cute, but I couldn't help but to feel a little bit crazy at how hyper I was.

So right now, Rufus has the life! His crate is in our room, on my side of the bed and it's stocked with two super worn in comfy towels, a fleece liner, and a fleece blanket I have. We covered the crate with another fleece blanket to give it a "den-like" feel for him, and I snuck in a few plushie toys for him to snuggle with.

His leash, and treats are right by the door we'll be bringing him out of to do his business. I'm anticipating some late night/early morning wakeups where I'll be groggy, so having everything right by the door, ready to go is the route I'm going. His food and water bowls are also by that door, as our kitchen floor never is clean! No matter how hard I try, since its the room right when you come in the front door, dirt, mud, leaves, etc ends up all over that floor no matter how often I clean it. I might end up moving them away from there though, because when he goes for the door I might not know if he's going for food or to go out! I've read on here that some people feed their puppies in their crates, so maybe we'll experiment a little with that too

Similar to the 365 project, and because I hear they grow so fast, I'm going to try to take at least one picture a day of Rufus for his first year. It'll be fun to look back at the end of the year at a slideshow and watch him transform from a little puppy to a full-sized corgi

The hunt is on for an x-pen now. I've gotten a few good suggestions from members on here as well as friends, so we're going to see how the weather holds up (snow and sleet predicted for this weekend! Yikes!) for the rest of the winter I think before we find any kind of solution for having Rufus outside. Obviously, we will still be walking him every day in addition to potty time, and we have a room set up for him to play in without a leash on - but I'm sure it doesn't compare to being outside with no leash at all!

Also, after more great suggestions, I think until Rufus gets his second set of shots, most behaviorial training classes won't admit him, so I'm going to try to train him at home from day one to do the simple commands - sit, stay, lay down, come. My boss, who raised a golden retriever puppy, told me how he used to tell her to sit, lay down, give paw after she came in from doing her business and then he would give her another treat. That seems like a good idea, especially since we're going to be going out in some muddy patches with spring coming up, so having Rufus sit so I can clean off his paws before he comes in the house would be a huge plus!

There are so many things I'm looking forward to with having Rufus home with us! Of course, playing with him the instant we get home, and watching him explore his surroundings is top of my list right now. I'm sure nothing is going to beat the feeling of coming home after a long tiring day and having my little buddy to snuggle with (aside from Mike of course!!)

So tomorrow is the day!