[BagCamAddict]

Good job — it's wonderful to save a life. That's what you did, and what your wife's cousin did (several!).

A couple hints about dogs and puppies:

1. A good dog/puppy is a tired dog/puppy.

That's one of those simple sayings that is easy to gloss over. What it means is: When dogs have excess energy, they can get into mischief. Excess energy can be physical or mental. If you properly exercise and mentally stimulate a dog/puppy, they don't have the energy (mental or physical) to bother with getting into mischief.

2. In the winter, or if you simply haven't had the time to give them the physical exercise they need, you can give them mental stimulation instead. This is a short-term band-aid, not a permanent swap. Mental stimulation might work for 1-3 days, but after that, they will need physical exercise.

For example, if it's stormy for 3 days and your pup has pent-up physical energy, spend some time indoors doing mental exercises like Obedience training, or even Agility training. 10 minutes of Obedience exercises, three times a day, does a world of good to keep the puppy stimulated and keep him out of trouble. You can train some Agility commands indoors too.

Put a Laundry Basket in your hallway, and teach your dog to “Jump” over the basket on command. This will give the pup both mental and physical exercise. There is the high jump and the long jump. With pups, don't overdo certain exercises until their bones are finished developing. So the height or the length of the jump is not important, what is important is teaching them to perform the command on demand.

Lots of other training can be done indoors: Sit, Down, Long Down, Stay, Heel, Come, Retrieve, Retrieve Over a Jump, Hold, Drop-it, Front, Finish, Off, Wait, Stand, Back, toy differentiation, putting toys away, Hide & Seek, Find It, Scent Discrimination, etc.

3. If you haven't already, look into Clicker training. You and your dog will love it.

Obviously I could type about dogs all day.

[Cronos]

1. Yet to get our little one tired is an uphill task. Take today -- I took her for a run from 5:30 am to 6:15 am, then a 45 min walk. Then my wife took her for short "toilet break" walks during the day. Then, a long walk of 30 minutes when I came back and finally from 7 to 8:30 she was playing like mad with her friends. And she's still got energy! well, ok, she's a bit pooped, but not completely!

2. That's a good idea about the obedience exercises and the "jump over the basket command"

3. don't actually need to clicker to encourage her -- she's happy with a doggie treat and obeys just like that!