James and Bailey

When we first got Bailey (and up to that point since James was a baby)....James was very skittish with dogs to say the least..he recently got better with my sister's golden retriever, and started asking for a puppy...hence getting Bailey.

Got her home, if she was not crated and out playing in the living room....James was up on the couch, watching from the sidelines. Would pet her only if one of us was holding her, and he pet her back, real quick for just a second.....

Well this week has been a HUGE turnaround with him, particularly over this weekend.....as you will see from the pictures below......he gets down on the ground in the back yard and will give her toys....throws the ball and other toys for her to fetch and bring back to us.....we have him feeding her her dinner and telling her to SIT and wait patiently (well patiently for a puppy anyway....he has to move quick for her!) while he pours the food from the cup to her bowl...and tonight even got him to give her a treat from his hand.....I was blown away! He even played with her tonite on the floor in the living room when we play tug of war with her blanket and wrap it over her and she runs around trying to get it off..he was dying laughing! then even though he was in jammies and ready for bed..daddy was gonna go walk her tonite and James INSISTED on going for the walk with them.......told him it was too cold and it was bedtime..he said NO!!! I can put a jacket on Mommy..I will be ok!!! How do you say no to that? HOW SWEET!!!!!

We are SO PROUD of our boy and how well he is doing with his puppy!!!

We spent a few hours on Saturday afternoon building Bailey an outdoor kennel/dog run that she can be in while we are at work........didnt think with her being 5 months old that she could hold it in her kennel inside the house all day long and that we shouldnt expect that from her ....so this was the next best option for us as we dont work close enough to home to say, come home on a lunch break and let her out at noon type deal....so outdoor kennel it was!!!

Freddy and I got it put together in about 4 hours and I must say we did a KICK ASS job!!!! Then I went today and bought her a cool dog house that is shaped similar to her indoor crate.....got a doggie bed/pillow thing to put inside it, and a self waterer thing that adds water to her bowl from an inverted 5 gallon bottle as she drinks from the bowl.........she has taken very well to it today as we put her in there for an hour or so at a time...went in her little outdoor crate/dog house and crashed out like a good girl..we think that what truly did the trick was that Freddy took the shirt he wore yesterday and put it into her dog house outside.....we found her passed out cold with it when we got back from the store.....comforting for her having something from Daddy!!!! tomorrow will be the true test for her while we are at work. Here are some pics of Daddy and James in the kennel pretending to be Bailey!

Then we decided the stinky dog needed a bath today...what a fun one that was!!! HA! managed to get her bathed without her jumping out of our big old bathtub and she is a sweet little fluff ball and smells so good again!!! Managed to get a couple pics of the wet dog...and also a few other cute shots of her outside today....