Clean dog

Dog shampoo has never been a good thing for me. Over the years I’ve tried several brands and types, every one makes me sneeze and itch. When we got cupcake I went and purchased an all natural avocado “anti allergy” shampoo and tried to use it, until the smell wore off I sneezed every time she came near me. I had to scrub my hands in lemon juice to get the smell off enough that I could stand to have them near my face. Since then I haven’t washed her, she’s been to the groomer (holy cow expensive) but that’s about it.

Finally I decided that while I cannot afford to have a groomer wash her once a month stinky dog smell isn’t all that grate either so I had to try again. I did some Google searching but couldn’t find anything discussing people allergies to dog shampoo, maybe I’m the only one with this problem?

I ended up trying earthbath, it is supposed to smell like cherries and has about four ingredients in it. It soaped up nicely, and smelled good (a very light scent), even better it rinsed clean easily, and didn’t leave my hands itching or smelling like anything! Her coat is far cleaner then it was before, and I’m keeping this shampoo on my list of doggie must haves.

Waiting

In the mornings Cupcake usually wakes up somewhere between 7:30 and 8:30. the Kiddo is almost always up around 8, but on those days when he’s not… well she gets a little restless.

She really doesn’t like it when he gets up late. Yeah she likes her alone morning time, we go out then she plays for a few minutes, eats breakfast, plays for a few more, and then starts her pacing. She takes toys to the front of his door and plays with them there, she comes to ‘get me’ and takes me to his door, she whines and paces.

She isn’t trained yet to alert to him being sick but she does notice when he’s not himself so the first time she did this I got a little scared, but now I know she just wants her playmate up to be with her. When he finally does get up we go through about 10 minutes of morning wrestling, and it’s on with our day.

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inch by inch

Since we last checked back in October (15th) the kiddo has grown almost an inch. He’s pretty happy with himself.

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As you can see miss CC was being pathetic in the second picture. I wanted a picture her in it next to him to show how much she’s grown too, but he didn’t smile the first go round so we had to try again. Second go round when I told her to stay she plopped herself down and sulked. She thinks camera’s are full of silliness… she wanted to play!

That’s the store of the two pictures to show his growing (vs the usual one). In the end her sulking caused him to laugh and that gave me the shiny smile I was looking for. See dogs do come in handy!

Four Feet / One Foot

I posted about a month ago about our first snow fall of the year. It’s always a bit of an event for me because I love snow, the fluffy white stuff is what makes the cold of winter worthwhile.

Cupcake seems to agree for the most part. She loves to run and play in it… pouncing around like a rabbit on speed,making and throwing her own snowballs with her nose, tunneling through and popping up a few feet further then where she dove in…

What she doesn’t like is using the bathroom out in it. She hates it, in fact she has, so far, refused to do it. “First snow” back a month ago and we were able to find somewhat clear spaces under trees for her to use. Last night we got approximately a foot of it (up to the top of her back in most places and above her head in others). She can’t find any place she’s willing to try, she wont even go on the sidewalk!! I hope she figures it out quick because it’s going to be a miserable bunch of days until she does.

Meanwhile I have pretty things to look at, all covered in white, and I may just manage to pull some holiday spirit out of things yet.

Five weeks…

Every day the Kiddo writes his alphabet, lower case, twice. Then at the bottom of the paper he writes a sentence. This week one of his sentences was “only six more weeks until Santa is here.” Then on the back of the paper he draws a picture to represent his sentence. (btw the numbers up were him showing how tall the sleigh is, and yes his 7 is backwards).

I realized, as I looked at his drawing, that Christmas is getting awfully darn close and I better get on top of a few things quick. The Man tends to do weird things to his head when December “family picture” time rolls around, I think he likes to test my patience.. Anyway I plan on trying to do the family picture earlier then usual this year in the hopes that I can get them done while we all look normal. My thought for this year is to have the Man in black, me in a red shirt, and the Kiddo in green.

Of course this year we also have CC… when I asked the Kiddo what she should wear he said she needed to be an elf. Hmmm….

How about a $2.50 doggie elf costume (love Target). She looks so miserable, but she actually tolerates it pretty well. The Kiddo is over the moon excited that we have it for her to wear. He says she is the most perfect dog in the whole world. I think the cost is more then worth the smile we get every time he sees the picture.

funny... dogs... gotta link it

A blog I found by following a link via another blog I read occasionally (head scratch heh)... I really don't know yet if the actual blog is worth reading, but this post is definitely worth taking a look at. If you have dogs, then you know and you'll laugh... Trust me.

training progress updates

Cupcake is doing really well with her training. I took a video a couple days ago so I could show her progress, but I can't seem to get it to publish to blogger (typical, but I'll keep trying). The problem is that while she does extremely well inside (doing the command every single time) she doesn't listen outside. As long as I have her on lead I can get her to come every time, out there, and sit about 80% (working on it)... but if I try a down command outdoors she flat out refuses. I'm really not sure what that's all about (possibly she's to intent on distractions?). I suppose she just needs more time and I need more patience while she works on realizing that a command is to be followed no matter where we are, not just where she chooses.

On the plus side though her leash walking is pretty much up to 100% perfect. She will now walk on the sidewalk next to a busy street without worrying about the passing cars. She will also walk past people without having to say hi. A large group of kids is a challenge for her (she really really wants to play) but we'll keep practicing.

And in the house, with all this training and work... nipping is virtually non existent, jumping is almost gone, peace is finally here...

Weekends are good for

Raking Leaves….

And teaching your dog to walk on leash…

Growth and puppyhood

Cupcake turned four months old this past Tuesday (the 2nd). She is now 9lbs 7oz. She knows come, sit, lay down, and leash. She is working on stay and trying very hard to learn not to nibble on humans. I am excited at her progress and feel that by the end of this month the Kiddo will be walking her, easily, by himself! Equally important is our observations that she is, even now, incredibly in tune with how he is feeling... I can only imagine how she’ll be once we get a little medical alert training into her.

It’s no secret that we let him choose her (vs choosing for him and then convincing him it was his choice) and that doing so has caused a few problems. In the end we did what was right for him and I know this way he has a much stronger connection with her then he would have… he has never questioned her place in this family, or that she is his. He has never question her love for him (or his for her). It is an amazing thing and well worth it all. Plus I think once she gets that puppy nibbling thing under control she’ll be quite amazing…

So, here’s to the optimistic goal that by this time next month we’ll be able to place her and have her stay till released regardless of what is going on. That she’ll be able to walk OFF leash without running away so that if the Kiddo accidentally drops the leash she stays right by his side. Here’s to a young dog that plays and cuddles without mouthing. And here’s to her learning drop so that when she brings back that fetch toy we can actually throw it again without having to wait for her to remember to drop it.

Here’s to another month of growth, and learning... Earn that vest little girl.

Medical Allert

This is what we're hoping for, not just a companion but a medical alert dog as well... though since we are training ourselves we aren't sure if we can actually do it, but hey it's worth a try right?

Sitting Pretty

Cupcake is learning quickly. She turned 10 weeks old this past Tuesday (28th), and she is about 95% potty trained. I say that because she has not had a single accident since last Friday, and she's consistent in asking to go out when she needs to poop... still she IS only 10 weeks so I expect a few more weeks of extra positive reinforcement are in order before I can count her 100% trained.

Usually she gets her food and water picked up at 7pm, and she gets a last potty break/walk at 8:30. She goes to bed as soon as she's in from that trip. Then she sleeps through the night in her crate with no accidents, waking around 7:30am for her morning walk/potty trip.

The most exciting thing is that she's finally gone from the baby mental state to that of a toddler. What I mean by that is that she's now teachable! She has begun learning come, and sit, and is doing great with them. She is also learning "out" (as in get out of my kitchen) and of course the big one "no bite".

The big problem with our little girl is that she is a dominant dog. More then that she is hyper alert and gets distracted very easily. The commands we are working on she does very well with indoors but does awful outdoors where any little sound can cause her to flip around to figure out what it is. I think patience and consistancy will be key with it all, she IS still very young and with a little luck we can train her to focus. I'm hopeful that doing so will not be too difficult, but unfortunatly it's a personality trait vs a learned behavior so it will take a lot of work.

The other day the Kiddo received a card in the mail from his Great Grandma C. It was a pleasant surprise. In it she wrote how proud she was of him for how he's grown and how brave he is for taking his shots every day to help with it. His grin was ear to ear as I read that to him. She also sent a check and said that he could spend it on himself or his puppy. He said to me "mommy, can we buy Cupcake a shirt?"

Not a bad idea kiddo!! She IS permitted by law to go places most dogs aren't (service dog privilages) and the more places we take her the calmer she'll be with new situations. Last week we took her with us to our nephews football game. Normally posted as a "no dogs" area, Cupcake is aloud to be there. She did amazing. She curled up between our chairs and calmly laid there playing with her chew toy regardless of the cheering and noise. Still, to avoid getting harassed about it (and to save us having to explain) it would be a good idea to get a "working dog in training please ask to pet) vest for her (a "shirt"). I did some research, found a relatively inexpensive place to buy one and let the Kiddo pick the color. He is very excited that we are getting her exactly what he wanted, and I am happy that it will have the information written on it that we need displayed. Not to mention an attached medic alert tag with his information.

Two birds, one stone... and one very cute dog who is learning fast.

doctors and dogs

The Kiddo took Cupcake to her first vet visit yesterday. As usual she was an instant hit with everybody. I gather a Beagle/Shih-tzu mix is not a common thing, and she has a very unique look because of it. The doctor said she is extremely healthy, he did an entire check eye, nose, mouth, teeth, heart, ribs, knees, etc etc etc and it was almost like he was surprised at how well everything checked out. Maybe he was just trying to impress us with how happy he was with her but he really did go on and on about her good health and behavior.

(9 weeks old, 5lbs 7oz)

At any rate I do like the place, it was clean and the staff was nice. The people coming in and out with their dogs seemed happy, and the animals didn't appear to be too freaked out by being there. It doesn't hurt that they are 5 minutes from our apartment either.

I should add that as proud as the Kiddo is of his recent growth and the things he can do with it (he tells complete strangers about how he can now reach the potty to pee without using his stepstool)... he is equally proud of the pound that Cupcake has gained in the last three weeks, and brags about her to anybody who will listen. I think he has definitely made the connection with her that we were hoping he'd make. Score one for the parents!

The best medicine

This is one of the videos I took yesterday... the one where he's reading to his new puppy. He did that quite a bit yesterday.

Today the Kiddo laughed more then I have heard him laugh in a long long time. Not that he's a quiet unhappy boy, but usually he's just very mellow. Today he laughed all day long, at everything. He laughed randomly remembering something she did from earlier (as she napped) and he really laughed while they played. They did a little more reading...

Then we took her to visit the inlaws and they had a three way play date, him, cupcake, and their little dog Sophie. When we got home she took a very long nap, and then we took her outside to play chase. She's learning leash very well and he loves to run and have her chase him.

She ran around the "track" with him maybe every third time, he went around at least 8 times... she was so tired by the time she went around the third time that her legs were shaking!! But she wouldn't let me hold her back so I had to tell him to stop the game. They flopped on the grass for a break.
and we all trooped inside to rest...
She did a lot of napping today (the long exhausted type from playing so hard) so I am a bit worried about her sleeping tonight. I tried to plan for it though, we took a 15 minute potty and play session outside at 7:30ish. Then I pulled her water and food at 8. I'll take her outside for a quick (lord willing) potty break at 10 and then if I'm lucky she'll sleep a good long time.

Big Day... small puppy

Today was a rather big day in our house. The Kiddo finally got his dog. She's a Shih-Tzu Beagle mix, and (obviously) a puppy. She looks like she's going to have long hair like her daddy (which will be great for my allergies), and so far she has an amazingly sweet temperament.







I wish the man could have been here for it because I had forgotten how much work a puppy can be and I can feel myself starting to twitch (mommy needs a time out). When we put her in the bathroom and baby gate her in and she criiiies and cries. We tried putting her in a crate in the livingroom (so she was with us) and she still cried.






I think maybe all the fuss was because she was over excited and tired though because finally she settled down, and the kiddo read her bedtime stories until she was fast asleep.

We left her there and took a quick trip to the store, came back about an hour later and she was quiet. She looked at us as we came in the door, then put her head down and went back to snoozing. I think that bodes well for her not being a barker (*fingers crossed*).

I had a couple video's to post here with this but for some reason Blogger isn't uploading them right so y'all will have to make due with pictures for now.

Snuggle Puppy

Days like today I really, really, miss Cali. She'd be just shy of two years old now and I know she'd love today. Not to mention I'd have a motivating reason to get some excercize for my ever expanding behind...

Chance at least has a 'substitute' that he loves almost as much