Life: Puppy Update

A little under four weeks to go until Ursa can be shipped from Sweden.

I went to the bank to wire transfer a deposit to the breeder, but found out that 1) I didn't have enough information for the transfer and 2) the banks are crooks. With a $15 fee plus 10% of the transfer for the shifting of a few electrons representing 1's and 0's is robbery in my books. Unfortunately something like an international funds draft or money order hits the breeder even worse with what is apparently a 33% tax. So now we are trying to find out if we can use another bank to do the wire transfer for cheaper. We are talking with the breeder about just sending the whole price of puppy and transportation as one payment, but we have to wait to see how big Ursa is when she ships.

Yesterday Aerin and I took in the Calgary Pet Expo. It was a relatively small, but busy, affair on the Stampede grounds. There were a lot of booths that we didn't stop at, but there was more than enough dog related stuff to interest us to make it a worthwhile trip. We got a sealed food container and some bio-degradable poop pickup bags for our walks. We also found out some interesting info pet insurance.

The fun find of the day was a group called Urban Mushers. They had some examples of dog scooters (or kick bikes) that Aerin could ride while Ursa pulls. This is something again that will have to wait for Ursa to finish growing, but it means both Aerin and Ursa can come along for some exercise while I'm running. We also hope to make contact with some people about dog drafting too through these guys.

Training options are an ongoing discussion between Aerin and I these days, but I think we've kind of settled on a combination of the purely positive training methods with corrective methods to give us the best results. Both have their pros and cons, but after a lot of research we're pretty confident we can maximize the pros and minimize the cons by taking a mixed approach. We will likely take in a puppy class for the socialization opportunities, but we will forego any additional training classes with the exception of some specialized training (scent tracking, drafting, PALS) that we need certifications or are simply outside our experience.

So there remains some dog gear to acquire for the arrive of puppy. Most of the additional gear will come next year when Ursa is finished growing to allows us to expand our activity choices.

[Edited at the behest of Aerin.]