Now You Owe Me....

Mandatory cute puppy pictures!

Now on to the real story.  Dhali is going through a HUGE GINORMOUS EXTREME chewing phase.  He has chewed up so, so, so many toys.  A mountain of toys.  The toy box is getting emptied.  I would not be able to fit all the destroyed toys into one picture.  Right now he is really into squeaky plastic/rubber toys.  He ate the feet off of a bad cuz.  I did not know that it was possible to kill a cuz with too much squeaking.  He haz killed a cuz.  2 hollee rollers, pear ball, ice cream squeaky, green pepper squeaky, 2 wooly dog tugs, green frog's eyes, big blue and orange ball, orange 8 tug, sheep skin tug (expensive piece of junk, ripped apart when we were tugging), his bear baby blanket and more.

However the most expensive thing he has destroyed!!!

This Chris Christensen wooden pin brush. Thirty-five dollars.  $35.  Yes, for a dog brush.  Yes, for a dog brush made out of WOOD.  It works worked so well and I loved it.  Now I have to buy a new one. 

In other news, I have been doing some thinking since last week's puppy class.  Thanks for all the great encouraging comments!  I really appreciated it!  I'm not going to give up.  I realized that I had been lazy with Dhali's training for a few weeks.  I have a hard time choosing what I want to teach him.  There seem to be SO many things that I want him to learn, that I just end up not doing anything, because I can't decided on what we should start with.  I decided to make a dry erase chart with some things I want him to learn.  There are 1000 other things I would like to add to the list, but we have to start somewhere.  It also keeps me honest with how much we have actually trained.  Some times I think we have done so much training, but really we haven't.  Now I have a check list!  

My goal isn't to work on every single thing every single day.  But now I know what we have worked on and when we have worked on it.  We are still doing lots of playing and running around and other tricks.  But now Dhali is back to working for his dinner and I hope we can work on his ADD-ness.  Just a stage, but seriously little guy!  The puppy that wanted to work for an hour, now can only do 3 seconds, before he is running off to do something else.  He can't even concentrate on a kong stuffed with Primal Raw nuggets for more than 30 seconds, before he's off annoying the cat, wanting to go outside or tearing apart another toy.

He still is a little sweet heart though.  He will slow down long enough for a belly rub and petting.  He likes to follow me into the bathroom in the morning and sleep snuggled up next to the shower, while I get ready for work.

Cute little bugger.

I printed out a chart from Word and ran it through the $16 laminater (word? machine for lamination) that I bought on Amazon.

Snowballs

The pups day - in and out into the snow and then they took breaks to melt their snowballs onto the floor.  Thank goodness for heated floors - I'm sure that's what the dogs were thinking LOL!

My floors are now very clean!  And I have lots of wet towels to wash.

Dhali was really busy today.  Cabin fever?  He unrolled the toilet paper not once, but twice!  He's only done this once before when he was a little baby and my Mom was watching him.  I realized today that he doesn't really care if I get after him - uh oh!  He's like, "What?!?  Did you want to unroll it too?  Let's play!"  He also chewed up one of my shoes!  Sad, because I liked those shoes and they were only a couple months old.  Also sad because I didn't think he would chew up my shoes!

Good reminder that he is still a little baby puppy :)

Happy Bones

The big excitement this week?  The bones my Dad brought back from the 2 deer he shot.  He was up north visiting my uncle.  He also brought back some antlers, but I think they may be a little too hard for my pups to chew on.  He cut up the bones and antlers into smaller pieces for me, but I think if he could split the antlers the dogs might like them better.  

I keep the bones in the freezer and the dogs get to chew on them when they are in their crates.  I have started making them go into their crates when I eat dinner or have people come over.  Tibby is such a beggar with other people.  With me she knows it doesn't work, BUT Dhali is a super big beggar to me, so into the crates with raw, meaty bones.  I haven't heard too many complaints.  Except Dhali who, at first, whines and paces around his crate with the bone in his mouth.  Then he settles down and chews it.

Right now Dhali is sleeping on the back of the couch, with his head on my shoulder, breathing onto my neck. Sweet puppy!

I feed them both dinner in their crates too.  Dhali tends to steal Tibby's food.  He has a funny habit where he with 'bury' his food.  If there are toys or bedding in the crate he will pile them on top of his bowl, until the bowl is covered.  It's very cute and funny to watch.  I'm not sure if he is saving it for later or telling me that he is done eating?  But it's cute.

Tibby stayed in her crate (her's is actually the one on the right) for FOUR hours while I was AT WORK.  WOW!  That's the longest she has ever stayed in a crate.  It was on Wed.  I came home from work for lunch and after going potty she went into her crate, so I gave her a frozen bone to chew on.  When it was time for me to go back to work, she wouldn't get out of the crate or trade me for the bone, so I had to leave her in the crate.  I couldn't let her walk around the house with a big raw bone.  She likes to sleep in my bed - eww.

When I came home I parked in the driveway and listened to see if I could hear any barking.  Nope.  All was quiet.  She was a little stressed when she got out of the crate, but not too bad.  I wish I could watch a video of it to see what she did. 

Dhali lost another tooth - woohoo!  Now it will only cost me $50 to get the other 2 removed!  We were playing and he was tugging on a toy, running through the tunnel, etc.  I noticed some blood smeared on the tunnel's tag and some on his foot.  Checked his mouth - yup, tooth on the bottom was gone.  The next day I found the tooth - white carpet, white tooth - really hard to find it!  It was jagged, like it had snapped off, but the hole in his mouth where it used to be looks ok, so I guess it came out the right way.

This above picture is what happens when you say you don't want to eat a frozen chicken wing, but your little brother loves chomping on frozen chicken wings.  You get to watch him eat his chicken wing.

This week I have been playing phone tag with the Veterinary Behavioral Science dept. at the U of M.  Tibby got a referral and  I wanted to make an appt.  The first message they left me said they were booked until the end of Feb.  When I finally got someone to call me back again, because they were either busy or it wasn't their business hours (I even got up early and called them once at 7am, because a receptionist told me that was a good time to find them) they had booked all of Feb. and the first appt. was March 13th.  Lucky 13?  

So I filled out and emailed back all the paper work.  I had to pick Tibby's 3 issues.  Barking/screaming/lunging at people and dogs is #1.  Tibby now has the reputation as the 'mean dog' in the neighborhood.  Fear of new things and men was #2 and restlessness at night was #3.

 The hardest part to write was the what are your goals for this visit: What questions would you liked answered - How can I make Tibby happy?

Possibly because we finally got our appt. time Tibby decided that she wanted to play today and do agility.  See below for proof (also cute Dhali)

Come To Order

"The Meeting of the Bully Stick League will now come to order!"

Meeting business: Chew bully sticks.  Aaaand go!

Another successful meeting of the Bully Stick League.

Although they only last about 5 seconds before one of them tries to steal the other's stick and then it is game on!  Much chasing, barking (Dhali), growling (Dhali), squealing (Tibby!)  and paw pushing/smacking (Tibby).

Faster Fetching Foster

Ellie likes to fetch!  Every time we play, she gets better at bringing it back.  When I picked her up yesterday I asked, "So what kind of toys does Ellie like?"  And I was told, "Oh, she doesn't really like toys.  Yeah it's too bad she doesn't have any toy drive.  We had a flyball home looking at her, but she just isn't interested in balls.  Yeah, too bad."

LOL!!  I think she likes balls just fine! 

Tibby likes having her own personal dog to chase ;)  Although she was lagging waaaay behind when we went out again tonight.  She even sat down and just watched Ellie run after the ball.  Maybe she's a little sore???

We also went for a walk today.  I would have taken pictures, but juggling two leashes, two full poop bags AND a camera would have been too much for me.  They walked together very nicely.  Tibby was completely relaxed - zero reactive episodes or even coming close to having one.  She looked at a jogger that was running up behind us, but wagged her tail at HIM (!!) and was relaxed and happy.  Ellie is cute - whenever we stopped (Tibby sniffing, me changing hands with the leashes), she would sit down and wait for us.

I definitely see the border collie in her and the Australian Shepard.....not so much the lab.  Except she likes water a lot - to walk through and maybe swim???

The only 'issue' has been chewing.  I gave her a Kong and she chewed it in half in 2 seconds.  I gave her a bully stick and she ate it in 5 mins.  I gave her an antler and she isn't chewing it.  So somewhere between antler and bully stick I need to find the perfect chew for her.

I'm just waiting for her to feel comfortable....for the honeymoon to end!  She has been an angel in the crate.  She didn't say ANYTHING for the first 24 hours.....now she's doing a little pouting - Why does Tibby get to walk around?  Not fair!  Hey Tibby doesn't chew kongs in half, baby.

Not Touching

"Don't worry Mom.  It's not touching the carpet.  I know the rule!"

Unofficial Bone Test

I ordered a few things from Clean Run.  One thing was the cute coat Tibby is wearing.  Also, I ordered an antler, a steer stick, a wolverine and a Himalayan dog chew.  I let Tibby chose her favorite.  There was an obvious winner.

Even Catty knows which one is yummy.

"Hmmmmm, what a selection."

"*sniff* Well, don't mine if I do!"

"See ya suckers!"

"nom,nom,nom,nom"

"Mine."

"No really.  I licked it already.  It's mine!"

I am very happy with these 'steer sticks' (aka pizzle sticks, bully sticks) it kept Tibby busy for 30 mins straight!  Miracle!

Not a Great Day

Yesterday was not a great day.  It was a great day until it started to snow around 3 o'clock.  Earlier in the day, Tibby and I went for a slushy hike.  That was fun.  We saw 2 deer and heard a bunch of coyotes (not so much fun).  

Then it started to snow.  I wanted to clean out my garage, so I could get my car inside before the big storm.  There was a bunch of recycling I needed to drop off, so I drove the 2 blocks to the recycling center.  On the way home I ran into a light pole!

Actually, I slid into a light pole.  We got 6.5 inches of snow and none of the roads were plowed.  Thankfully, I wasn't going very fast.  I hit the pole with the very center of the front of my car.  The pole shook a little, but there wasn't any visible damage to my car.  

The 2nd not so great (bad) thing that happened:  Tibby chewed on my Mom's glasses.  Ooops!  My Mom set them down for a second and Tibby stole them and chewed on the lenses.  The only thing I could say was sorry and I owe you a new pair of glasses.

As the above picture demonstrates, Tibby loves anything silver and my Mom's glass just happen to be silver. 

These Paws Are Mine

I love the way Tibby uses her paws.

She reminds me of an otter sometimes.

"Hmmmm, is this an ear of corn?"