Bringing Echo Home

Today is the day that Echo came home with us! We were absolutely excited and felt that we were 100% ready for him (check out my puppy prep list). Of course, you're never truly ready to bring home a new family member. You may THINK you are and you may double and triple check your lists to make sure that you are... but you won't be and there's NOTHING wrong with that. 

After some thorough research, we adopted Echo from Skyler's Siberian's and if you're in the Washington area, or even in a nearby state, Adrianna is DEFINITELY one of the best breeders. Her dogs are beautiful! She worked closely with us, gave us the best advice as we waited for our new puppy to come home. She was so patient and understanding with all of our questions and we highly recommend her. 

At first, when we showed up to get Echo, he was super timid and shy, but it was understandable because he was probably confused about who we were and of course keep in mind that we're taking him away from his mama and littermates. The drive home was an hour or so and he only whined once before passing out and sleeping the rest of the way. The breeder had rubbed a soft blanket on the mama to get her scent, so he slept with the blanket and I think it made a huge difference. 

When we arrived home, we immediately took the travel crate (with Echo inside it, of course) and went to the backyard. We have a cat, Beau, so we wanted to make sure Echo got used to our scent and the backyard before he was introduced to our other furbaby. We slowly opened the crate and didn't touch him, just let him come out of the crate on his own. We didn't want to force him to do anything because we knew he was most likely scared. We have a fairly big yard (which is a MUST for huskies), so we kept him close to us with a couple of toys and made sure that he didn't run off without one of us. For the most part, he stayed close to us, sniffing everything. Eventually we let our neighbor and their kiddos come say hi to him. We needed him to realize that there are other scents surrounding his yard and not to be afraid of them. 

After playing in the backyard, we brought him inside where he could meet Beau. Let me just say... it was hilarious. Beau is a BIG cat (Siberian Cat) and had at least 10 lbs on Echo. At first, we let Echo explore his playpen in the living room where his water was and didn't realize that Beau was sneaking up behind him. I didn't think anything of it, just figured they would touch noses, but since Beau was so much bigger than Echo, he scared the crap out of the poor pup who ended up running away and soaking himself in his water bowl. I felt like a horrible person, but eventually Echo warmed up to Beau and started to see him as a playmate. 

Thankfully we already puppy proofed the whole house, but we underestimated how small he was and that he could squeeze himself into any place. We ended up having to add two more baby gates, one in the living room to guard the cat area and one in the kitchen. The more we tried to redirect him, the more he wanted what we were trying to keep him away from. Huskies are STUBBORN. They think you're playing when you may not be, but they especially don't like the word "no". They see it as a challenge and will keep going after it. Just make sure that everything is tucked away and your puppy proofing is solid. You may have to build a very ridiculous looking barricade until he gets bigger and that's ok! As much as it hurts my OCD brain to see that strange cardboard box blocking underneath the TV stand... it's needed until he gets bigger. 

Echo slept pretty hard because he was pretty stressed and we played with him a lot... but not hard enough to sleep through the night. It's totally expected though and if you don't expect to lose several hours of sleep that first week... you're crazy. We put his scented blanket in the crate that was located right next to our bed. They say that if you're crate training you need to put the crate near where you sleep at night to help with getting up to let them out, etc. At first he didn't want anything to do with the crate, but eventually after talking to him softly and making the "shhhhh" sound, he started to calm down. He woke us up every 2 hours because of course, he needed to potty, which is expected. It was rough trying to get him to go back to sleep, so we stayed up each time for a half hour or so and played with him until he got tired again. Little did we know, he didn't actually need play time. He just needed to go back into his crate and maybe whine a little and then he would just fall back asleep. 

That night we only got about 4 hours total of sleep... be prepared, pet parents.

Until next time!

Jana

(follow us on Instagram for daily pictures! @hearts_4paws)

*All posts by this blog are my personal opinions and experiences. Please consult with a Veterinary or Trainer when it comes to professional advice.