Welcome to the family

She is finally old enough to come home. The new little lady of the family was delivered to our doorstep last Friday. Meet Jetta, our Australian Shepherd. She was born in Tropic, UT on July 21, 2008 and is home in Boise now.

Brooklyn has shown us that she is responsible (and persistent) enough for a dog. After three years of asking for a dog, her wish came true.

We immediately hired a dog trainer. Not only are we training the puppy, but ourselves too. We have no idea what we are doing or how to train a dog. We opted for private lessons. Funny how we won't pay for private lessons for anything else (Brooklyn's gymnastics, Ian's Karate, Luke's swimming lessons, etc.) but for the dog it's somehow worth it. Dawn, our trainer, meets us at Camel's Back park one block away. It couldn't be more convenient. This week we are practicing walking on a leash, sit, lay down, and fetching a ball. She'll try anything for a puppy treat or we've found she LOVES hotdogs. She is smart and has caught on to "sit" and "down", but leash walking is unpredictable. Sometimes she just won't move and we have to carry her. Brooklyn and her friend Taylor Gropp went to hike Camel's Back with her on and ended up carrying her up the whole hill. 

Brooklyn is such a good owner. She even picks up all the poop.  Well, almost all of it.

I think Jetta has even won Aaron's heart.

He is determined to teach her to be an expert Frisbee catcher. Right now she is too small to hold a Frisbee and every time she holds it in her mouth she ends up stepping on it and tripping over it. Pretty cute.

Speaking of cute, this evening Lucas was coaxing her to follow him downstairs and in his crackly little voice he was saying, "Come on sweetheart. It's OK sweetheart, come on sweetheart."

We've had it easy when it comes to potty training. She is really good about only going outside and has had only one accident. (And to be honest, it was my fault. We had one rough night and I didn't get her outside.) The first two nights home were great. Jetta slept in her kennel in Brooklyn's bedroom. I got up in the night and let her outside, she went potty and came right back in and fell straight back to sleep. No problem. Night three however was a learning experience. I moved her kennel upstairs out of Brooklyn's room. I thought it would be easier if she were by the door. WRONG! She did NOT like being out of Brooklyn's room. She just cried in her kennel and wouldn't sleep. After trying outside, locked in the kennel, and just hanging out in the living room with me on the couch (that's when the accident occured) we decided to try putting the kennel back in Brooklyn's room. Jetta went straight in and didn't make another peep for the rest of the night. She loves Brooklyn I guess.

Here are a few more pictures of our new baby.