Faith spent 5 days with my mom and dad due to the fact that Dave was out of town and she was a handful! Hard for me to take care of her, Sam, Alex, Lola, and my house. I needed a little break and thankfully my parents were nice enough to help me out. Here she is at 13 weeks. She weighs just about 30 lbs and is growing fast. She has her moments, but overall is okay. She is still having bladder issues even on her antibiotics. Dr. Randall said the biopsy came back showing signs of E-Coli in the bladder and some scarring. She still has crystals in her bladder but no stones. I just hope the medication clears her up because if she were better, she'd be almost completely potty trained.

Recent picture of Sam - 9 years old

Ahhhh.......the silence.

She's back from the hospital having had her surgery. Everything went well and she is fine. Of course tired and groggy. But the silence in the house is wonderful. I really must care about her more than I think because I was worried today and thought alot about her. I was excited to go pick her up and bring her home. She's so much work and sometimes I think I can't take another day, and that's why on occasion I feel that I don't care as much. But I know I do. In the past I have had to give up so many dogs for different reasons and I didn't want to get too attached to her. I never feel like it's permanent since we always have so much trouble. Dave likes her, I like her, now we just have to work on Alex liking her. Hope he comes around soon. It's hard to split up my time between Faith and Alex. Alex doesn't want to spend his time doing things with her. Faith play bites him most of the time anyway. They stay seperated alot. I hope one day we'll look back on this and Alex and Faith will be the best of friends and this will be funny. He may not even remember that at one point he didn't like her.

I should say something about Sam too. He's doing really well. He's lazy as ever and that's fine with us. He's such a good boy and loves going to camp and laying around watching the world go by. Bunnies are a reason for him to get up and run though. Those three legs move pretty fast for a bunny! Couldn't ask for a better dog than Sam. We are very lucky to have him.

Sam and Faith, for a moment, getting along in the pictures. Most of the time Sam avoids her, which is fine, but then break out a treat, he's all over taking hers away. It's exhausting. Trying to balance my time between the animals and my son is very hard. I never want Alex to think I like the animals more. Faith just needs attention obviously. Have to watch her every move when she's not in the crate. But, it is what it is, and he'll have to deal with it. I keep telling him that when she's bigger, she'll be better and she'll protect us and our home. He really doesn't care. He says he doesn't like her. But I think he will eventually. She's been outside getting in lots of walks and playtime at the dog park. Sometimes she gets tired afterward, sometimes she doesn't :(

She's 12 weeks old now and tomorrow is her spay surgery. In addition, she'll have a biopsy done on her bladder. She is still having some urination problems and only does well with that when she is on antibiotics. We have to find out what is the real cause of all this and get her better. I feel terrible that she's having the surgery, but on the other hand, it'll be a nice and quiet day at home.

As of right this minute, she is such a good girl. She is really doing well and I am very impressed at how much she knows in her short 3 weeks with us. She does drive me crazy at times, but I like having her around.

Faith is now 11 weeks old and weighs 23.3 lbs. Apparently, if you take a puppy's weight at 12 weeks old and triple it, that will tell you the approximate weight full grown. Sounds like she's going to be a BIG girl! She's getting into everything and still has some housetraining issues but getting better. Her biting is improving but seems bored with her toys already. We have to get her into some training classes soon. I think she'll do well in training and obedience classes. She does listen pretty well, we just have to always be consistent. We don't have the best track record with training, so this time around we are determined to do it right.

In two weeks, she has her appointment to be spayed. That will be nice to have it done and over with early. So within the next few weeks, we will get her into training, have her spayed, finish her vaccinations and maybe start to train her on the invisible fence.

She's a ton of work and most times I feel like I'll lose my mind, but I have to remind myself that it won't last forever.