Making a Travel Pivot

With the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic in March it became immediately apparent that our travel lifestyle would change. The first decision we made in view of our diminished travel was the addition of a German Shepherd puppy to our family. From a discussion on Monday to finding the litter on Tuesday to bringing her home on Wednesday, March 18, our lives changed dramatically for the better and busier. She is Haven Tide born January 19, 2020 in Oxford, AL. She has been our own personal Haven during all the craziness of Covid and Tide is because she was born in Alabama and our daughter was a senior at the University of Alabama at the time. Our daughter Abi gets the naming credit!

After not having a puppy for 15 years I had forgotten almost everything about training them. She kept us up at night for a week, couldn’t get enough of nipping at our toes, ankles, fingers and anything else she could get her teeth on but her utter cuteness completely won us over and made up for any misbehavior! We read a lot of books and articles on training German Shepherd puppies to ensure we did everything we needed in order to raise her right. She is now almost nine months old and thanks to the trainers from TAO K9 Unleashed she is a behaved, obedient and well adjusted pup.

The two main training methods I wish we had implemented from the time we brought her home were crating her 20 minutes out of every hour and keeping her leashed up to us when she was awake. According to the trainers crate time gives a puppy both mental and physical down time. Keeping her leashed up to us was a definite challenge to start with but got more fun as time went on and we didn’t have to worry about what she was doing because she was never out of sight.

She has taken several road trips with us including drives to Tuscaloosa, AL, Charleston, SC, Hollywood, MD and Lake Wedowee, AL. She loves riding in the truck and tolerates riding in the car. She hasn’t flown yet but has ridden to the airport multiple times to pick up family. She has also taken her first RV vacation with us to Hiawassee, GA. More details about that in the coming weeks!