It’s been a month since Ryan and I spontaneously adopted our husky pup Ochi from the Maricopa County animal shelter system, and what a month it’s been!
We know it’ll take Ochi a while to fully settle into his new home — if you’re not familiar with the “3-3-3 rule,” it usually takes dogs three days to adapt to the initial shock of rehoming, three weeks to become comfortable with new owners and three months to become fully adapted to his or her new living situation.
So, while we still have a few more weeks to go until we really get to know Ochi, it’s already been such a fun month getting to know our new pup while he shows off more of his full personality.
Ochi is also already such a troublemaker! He loves to climb and jump, and he’s already escaped once.
It’s a little funny. Ochi was so hesitant to jump on the bed and couch — places he’s allowed — when we first brought him home, but he couldn’t jump on our raised garden bed, our deck and our windowsills fast enough.
He’s starting to feel a bit more comfortable with us, though. He spent the first few nights at our apartment sleeping on our floor, and laying on a specific dog bed in our apartment, but now he jumps on the bed with us before he goes to sleep (though he still spends most of his nights on the floor) and he feels comfortable laying on the couch with us now.
He’s also getting a little bit cuddlier!
Ochi is also so stubborn. Like, SO stubborn. He’s even more stubborn than Yukon was, which I didn’t think was possible.
And… he loves to pout!
He’s also got some adorable little quirks and traits. He does this adorable little head tilt whenever you call his name and he isn’t exactly sure what’s going on.
He’s incredibly vocal, too. He loves to talk and talk and talk.
…and talk.
The first time I took him to doggy daycare, he spent the entire ride home just howling and talking in the back of my Jeep about how badly he wanted to go back.
He also loves doggy daycare.
He loves car rides, too. Yukon loved car rides, but in a totally different way — he was happy to lay down in the backseat of Ryan’s truck and smile. Not a big window seat kinda guy.
Ochi, however, loves to stick his head as far out the window as possible!
We took Ochi for his first checkup within the first week we had him, and the vet let us know that he was a little overweight after a year in the shelter, so we haven’t been giving him too many treats or letting him try too many foods.
So far, though, he seems to love broccoli, cabbage, peanut butter, salmon… and pup cups.
He’s got a bit of separation anxiety still, understandably. We’ve slowly been trying to get him used to spending time home alone while we work, and it hasn’t been going the best. But we’re going to keep working on it!
We’re also working on training. Ochi doesn’t know any commands, so we’re trying to teach him all the basics. Luckily he’s a little more food-motivated than huskies usually are, so we’ve had an OK time using training treats with him for about 20 minutes at a time every day until he loses interest.
We can’t wait to see this pup keep settling into his new home with us. We are so glad we adopted him!
We love you Ochi Bug!
