![\"bernese](\"http:\/\/blog.usa.gov\/roller\/govgab\/resource\/uschi.jpg\")
Christmas came early at my house this year. Instead of buying the girls yet another mountain of plastic toys, we got a puppy.<\/p>\nChristmas came early at my house this year. Instead of buying the girls yet another mountain of plastic toys, we got a puppy.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s hard for me to believe, but this is my first dog. It wasn\u2019t because I didn\u2019t want one, but I guess there were always factors in my life that made me feel like I wouldn\u2019t be the best dog owner ever. Until now.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve heard about the health benefits<\/a> of having pets, and I\u2019m a believer that they have an incredible ability to lower blood pressure and reduce stress. Since we\u2019re still working on potty training, we take lots of walkies. Just yesterday I was walking her and thinking how nice it is to get outside more\u2026even if it is freezing cold. One thing that I didn\u2019t expect, but I\u2019m very happy about, is that my 8 year old is really stepping up and taking responsibility for her puppy. What a rewarding learning experience for her! I wish all responsibilities were as fun as puppies.<\/p>\n Of course I\u2019m learning a lot about caring for a dog<\/a>, and making sure that my home will be a safe and comfortable place for her. So far, she thinks my bed is just fine. With the holidays approaching, I\u2019ve been thinking about holiday plants and I want to be sure that I\u2019m not bringing any toxic plants<\/a> into the house. I was especially concerned about poinsettia plants, so I looked it up and was really happy to learn that the story of poinsettias being so toxic<\/a> is a rumor, and they\u2019re not going to cause anyone any terrible harm unless you eat lots and lots of them. I\u2019ll be sure to not let that happen.<\/p>\n So since I\u2019m a new dog owner, I need your help \u2013 what\u2019s a good dog training book?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Christmas came early at my house this year. Instead of buying the girls yet another mountain of plastic toys, we got a puppy. It\u2019s hard for me to believe, but this is my first dog. It wasn\u2019t because I didn\u2019t want one, but I guess there were always factors in my life that made me […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4153,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-218475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4153"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=218475"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218475\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}