Drum Roll Please...Introducing KONA

Yes, this entry is very slow in coming...but it's here. Back in June, on June 22 to be exact, we had a new addition come to live with us. Tim decided that we just had to get a dog so Kona came to live with us. He was 8 weeks old and about 15 lbs.



Here he is...all snuggled up on MaMa's lap. I'm pretty sure that was his favorite place to curl up and fall asleep. The first 2 weeks were VERY VERY rough. Kona slept in a small kennel in our bedroom. I don't think he slept through the night for about 3 weeks or so. I remember him waking me up at 4am and being so grateful that he slept until 4am. I should probably mention that Tim has never had a dog before, so this was all a new experience. He couldn't believe this little puppy was such a stinker.



Because I have such a great summer job, Kona got to go to work with me at the nursery every day. Most of the time he wandered around with me, but one day, he decided to eat the rat poison, so we had to leave work early, drive to the vet and poor Kona had a very traumatizing experience of vomiting, drinking quarts of liquid charcoal and vomiting again. Thankfully, he's fine and was back hunting for dead mice within a couple of days.





Kona started puppy class in August and has been gradually moving through the levels. He's actually in level 2 class now and is doing awesome. We're hoping to train him to become a therapy dog, but we'll see how that goes. It sort of just depends on his personality. Here is his list of "tricks".

- Sit
- Down (lie down)
- Stay (mostly)
- High five
- Shake
- Loose leash walking
- Potty on command
- Touch
- Touch the bell on the door to go outside
- Drop it
- Speak (I'm pretty sure he has a super cute bark.)

There may be other "tricks" but I can't seem to think of them right now. Potty training him was tough...which is why we have a bell on the door now. He would stand by the door, but not let anyone know he was buy the door...so we have a new rug by the door. He didn't poop inside though...only once when he was sick.



We did have a paper towel incident... I made bacon in the microwave and threw away the greasy paper towels. Kona decided to eat them all. Then, he became a paper towel dispenser for a couple of days. Yep...dogs do not digest paper towels. They come out just like the paper towels in a Wal-mart restroom. Seriously...



Kona loves his DaDa. He always wants to wake Tim in the morning and does this by sticking his wet nose on Tim's neck. He has also learned to fall right over on top of us in bed. He doesn't sleep with us at night. I'm pretty sure a king size bed is for sure definitely not big enough for Tim, me, and Kona. However, in the morning he gets to jump on the bed where we keep our fingers crossed that he might maybe go back to sleep. Usually he just bothers us until we get up to feed him.



So, this is Kona. He's 7 months old (yesterday), 90 lbs, and super fun. We love him and while some days we get highly irritated when he's ringing the bell to go outside and we're in the middle of something like cooking dinner or taking a shower or accomplishing something like writing a blog entry, we still love him. How can you not love a face like this!