Milo's Firsts

We decided to put up our Christmas decorations the day we got home from Nampa. Well, we put most of them up. I have been wanting to hang lights up outside but the weather has not allowed us to do that. It's unusually wet this year and sometimes very windy. It likely won't happen since Christmas is now less than two weeks away. Oh well, we can at least see our Christmas tree through the big window in front and our village in the family room windows downstairs and that will have to do. 

The tree is not perfectly centered because we don't want to cover the air vent. Milo is happy to be home and loves his bed.

Coco getting cozy under the tree. We slid Milo over on his bed so they could be close.

We have since moved those low hanging ornaments up higher.

We hung up our diamond painting that we had done a couple of years ago.

We rearranged our living room for the tree and we love it. It feels cozy. No real fire this year but it's fun to have it on our tv screen thanks to Youtube. Sometimes with just the crackling sound of fire and sometimes with Christmas music.

Found a good spot for Milo and his bed.

With having a puppy we are having fun experiencing some firsts with Milo. This will be his first Christmas. I also took him to his first actual veterinarian appointment since we have owned him. He's been to one before we got him. His 2nd round of shots was at Petco, so that doesn't count. He was very nervous going in but once we got him in the room, he was able to settle down and even fell asleep on the floor while we waited. He did really good. This appointment was on the 30th and he weighed in at 25.6 lbs. He's growing fast!

That very same night Milo also experienced his first snow as we received our first snow fall of the year. He loved it! Curtis and the girls would roll up snowballs and throw them for him. Sometimes he was able to pick them up in his mouth and carry it around but sometimes it fell apart in his mouth. He would get so excited and jump around in circles when he did get one in his mouth. It was so fun to watch. I only got one picture of him and he happened to squat to go potty right when I took it. 😂 The rest are videos. So I won't be posting any pics of that event on here. Ha ha  I was able to play with him in it the next morning but it all melted by the time the girls got home from school.

It snowed a bunch more in the morning but melted by the afternoon.

I'm thankful I didn't have to drive in it but it's so pretty.

You can see the reflection of our Christmas tree lights in the window.

Things are going really well with Milo. He's really good at "sit", "stay", "come", "shake", "leave it" and now "lay". We couldn't get him to lay down with the command of "lay down". Charlotte said we should just say "lay" and it worked like a charm. He's also learning the words "down", "bed" and "kennel" and going in the kennel on his bed on command. Milo learned how to use the potty bells at one of the houses he stayed at while we were gone for Thanksgiving. I got some ordered and hung one on the sliding door upstairs and one on the doorknob in the family room downstairs that leads to the garage. He'll bump the bell when he needs to go out. We're trying to train him to just bump it when he needs to go potty, not just when he wants to go outside. For the most part, he's been doing well at it. He's also gotten better at not coming in the kitchen or the bedroom when our door is left open, although sometimes he still tries. Milo is such a good dog and so cute! I'm glad we have him and that I didn't give up on him in the first couple of weeks. He is really good at not chewing on things that we don't want him to because we'll say "leave it" and then give him his bone or something else to chew on.  This morning it was so cute to watch him after I took him potty first thing, he ran into his kennel and grabbed his bone and then ran upstairs with it in his mouth. Something we also started doing this last week is to cover his crate at night. He has been sleeping better because of it and whining less when he goes in. I think it feels more secure. He can't see us walking around and it helps keep it warm in there also. I also started playing a sound machine with the sound of rain to help him sleep through our noises instead of the fan. It was just too cold to have the fan on down there. Maybe during the summer he'll need it.

Milo discovered the cat toy that now only has one ball in it that rolls around when they try to get at it. I figure since the cats don't play with it, that he can. I just have to watch him because he has gotten the ball out once and started chewing on it.

As you can tell, this post has been all about Milo. He's been fun to have and things are getting easier. Even Jack has played with him a few times. We love him!