The sound of heaving in the middle of the night

Yeah, Bayou woke me up heaving. I fed her too much food and treats yesterday and she threw up some of that food. No blood, no behavior issues (lethargy) and she was able to pee and poop when I took her outside. She does have diarrhea though. I really need to watch the treats in addition to her  1 1/2 cups of food per day. Maybe I'll cut her back to 1 cup for now. I'll give her 1/3 of a cup 3 times per day. I will limit her treats to 1/4 of a cup per day max. I need to be using her kibble for training and playing, not treats. Treats should be for the new behaviors or the ones she's having difficulties learning. I also have her a lot of cream cheese yesterday in the Kongs. I put just the 1/2 cup of kibble in the Kongs but I sealed each Kong with a dollop of cream cheese. That probably didn't help any.

I feel like a bad mom for doing this. It's one thing if I want to make myself overeat but it's a total different thing to make my puppy overeat because I'm not being careful enough with her portions. I need to ration out the food each day and only use that much, no more. I'm going to avoid using treats throughout the day and stick with kibble for motivation. Treats will be for puppy classes and training new behaviors and issues. I don't want my dog to become fat. Being fat, whether it's a dog or a human, makes life difficult and unhealthy.

I guess I can look at one good thing though - I heard her heaving and woke up right away to change out her kennel and to bring her out to pee and poop.

I was watching some videos on Youtube last night about teaching a puppy not to bite, to come, etc. I had almost forgot about the vast number of videos out there that can help me with training Bayou. But before I can implement behaviors I have to get Bayou and me on a schedule. I need to feed,potty train, play, exercise, and teach her new behaviors at the same times each day. I want her to look forward to things and know what's coming and when. I believe that dogs like routine. It would be good for me too. I have no schedule at all. I eat whatever, whenever and I know it's having an ill effect on me. I don't want to drag my puppy into that kind of world. She deserves better than that.

The info I got from the videos on teaching a puppy not to bite was very helpful. We need to tell her "no" in a stern voice and remove ourselves from her. Right now we're saying "no" and then letting her do it again with no consequence. She gets to stay with us for the most part. I put her in her kennel sometimes when she bites but not consistently. She gets so excited when she's with David and she lunges at him to bite and bites on his chest and belly, through his shirt of course. Sometimes though she'll start kissing him on the face and then she ends up biting him if she gets too excited. We need to make sure that until we can trust her that her mouth is no where near our faces. And we have to be absolutely consistent on the consequences for biting. If we're not both doing it, it won't work. I feel dread when I think about a dog biting me like Harley/Watson did. He doesn't do that anymore though so I know we can work with Bayou so that she doesn't even start doing it.

Anyway, thankfully Bayou is settled down again in bed. I'll check her bed again in the morning to make sure she didn't get sick again. I'll wash both beds just to be safe. The wash and dry nicely. And tomorrow I'll work out portioning out her food and treats in plastic zip bags so all I have to do is reach for a bag and dig out the 1/3 cup of kibble. I'll put treats in other bags. Once the food and treats is used up for the day, she is done. I know I give her too many treats and I will stop that immediately. I just hadn't though completely about how much treats adds to her daily ration of kibble. In total she was getting too much for her little self. I have it under control now though. I need to get some smaller bowls for her. The ones we have are gigantic so it makes whatever I give her look like a small amount. I need appropriate size bowls so I can gauge better what she is eating.

I really shouldn't be up in the middle of the night tonight because I have to drive a friend to the airport in the morning. I don't have to pick her up until 9am so it's not like I have to get up real early but I want to be fully awake on the drive to and from the airport. I will probably bring Bayou with me on the drive. I don't know that I'd want to leave her home alone for an hour yet. I have some errands to run at Wal-mart but I won't get to those until David gets home and can watch Bayou. I don't want her to dislike being alone while at the same time I want her to be comfortable being alone. Leaving her with a portioned "treat" will help with that. (By "treat" I mean kibble in a Kong.). I can look for the new dog bowls while I'm at Wal-mart.

I also want to take video of Bayou and me doing training, playing and exercising. I don't want to miss out on being able to look back and see how much she has grown. My digital camera will work just fine for that purpose but I will need a tripod to get the angles I want. I'll just get a small table top model. I can probably pick one up on Craigslist. If not, I'm sure Wal-mart has them. I want to post the video so everyone can see how the training is going and how cute she is when we are training. She runs around a lot and it's cute. I did work quite a bit with her yesterday on recognizing her name and learning to "come" when called. David sits in his chair and I go across the room and we call her to us so she has to go back and forth, hearing her name and the "come" command. She did really well doing that for the first time.

Something else that I need to do is have a plan of training, playing and exercising. I need to keep things interesting for her. If she gets bored, she won't want to learn anything. So far that is not the case, but I could see where it could get that way. So I need to add in at least one different thing each day. I can add in work on a new trick, on an agility skill and a new behavior. I need her to want to be close to me. Right now she hesitates to come to me. I think it's because I'm the one who is always putting her in her pen and kennel. I need to get David to help out with those things. I need to also do calming work with her so that she learns to settle down and that she trusts that it's not a bad thing. She can't be bouncing off the walls all the time that she is awake.

Well, it's 1:15am and I should head back to bed. I think then when I get home from dropping my friend off at the airport I will need a nap. Hopefully Bayou will be up for a nap too. I'm hoping (is that the right word LOL) that the snow melts in the yard so I can clean the yard up. It really needs it. It should be melted by the end of the weekend. I have poop bags so I can take one out every time I bring her out and keep on top of cleaning up the yard. I didn't keep up with the other dogs and either killed myself doing it all in one day or paying someone to do it once a week. Neither is a good plan. I will keep up with it daily so she's not tempted and I don't have to worry about where I walk out there.

Okay, off to bed I go. I'm sure Bayou will be waking me up in a few hours since she has a stomach issue. Poor baby! I love her and really want to do right by her. I want to live up to her expectations of me.