All pupped up with no place to go

Hey All,

     (bonus points if you get the post title reference, it's a parody)

     Hope you had a happy holiday, and are ready to face a new year.
Izzy turned one year old in December 2011. We are looking forward to another long happy, healthy year together. Many more, actually (this is assuming I can keep up with her appetite for chewing solid half inch thick beef bones; yes it's gone already)!

Shortly after Christmas I began dedicating more time to training my hardheaded trouble maker, and she is making good progress. I would like to thank my Aunt for that, as she lent me a copy of The Koehler Method of Dog Training until I can order my own copy from amazon.
They also have a website (here).

I finally finished steaming my carpets, despite the fact that the dog seems to think the steamer is her personal "free flowing water dispenser". I thought maybe she would be afraid of it, like the cats are (since she's afraid of the cats!) but no. Once she determined that "hey that thing is putting water on the floor!" it became her goal in life to try to stick her face under it. So much for thinking she would just lounge on the nice, dry, warm, comfy couch. Apparently she only does that after I clean and febreeze it and plan on plopping down after I take the trash out! Thankfully she's not spoiled, If I want to sit there I'll move her quick. She can sit WITH me but I'll be damned if the dog can just stretch out superman style and steal my couch. nu-uh. Not in MY house pup!

Oh, also thanks to my amazing Aunt and Uncle who got me a car harness for the dog. I got it fitted to the dog, and fitted to the short belt on the back seat bench of my truck and put it to good use yesterday. I took my truck to the manual car wash. I emptied all the trash and junk and use the super duper black hole vacuum cleaner and cleaned all my floors. Polished and cleaned my dash and remounted my phone holder (since it's a droid x I use it like a gps and usually have the map on the screen while I'm driving). Then we drove to the car pool lot, dropped off my truck, and picked up Mikes Expedition. Drove back to the car cleaning place and did the expedition. When I say "We" I mean "I". I climbed all over cleaning, Izzy lounged about in the passengers seat and looked up at the sun roof window like she was at a day spa.

Then we came home and I cleaned some more and she jumped around like a jackrabbit while I vacuumed and I took her out on her 25 foot lead and ran her for awhile. Suffice to say she went right to her kennel for bed, and I didn't hear a peep from her till I woke her up to come out of her kennel this morning. That was nice. I wish she would sleep good all time time. At 4:00 am you can hit the snooze to shut up the alarm, there's nothing you can really do about the dog hearing the alarm, knowing you're supposed to be up, and barking to let you know you're supposed to be up - just in case you didn't notice. silly humans.

Oldee Townee

Hey All.

 Izzy has learned that my truck takes you places. And that these places are NEW places, that have yet to be sniffed. So now every bloody time I take her for a walk she runs to my truck and tries to open the door. Yes Izzy. I like going places too but gas is expensive -.-;

Well, today I gave in. I buckled her up and we drove to the historic district of Fredericksburg.  It didn't take long to park. I had a roll of plastic baggies for cleanup, and a large bottle of water that she can drink from. It's a pretty hilly area, packed full of lovely shops and beautiful buildings.

When we first got there, I heard Bagpipes. I thought that was kind of silly, there are several celtic shops in the area, including one I like to buy jewelry from, but I didn't think I had parked by one? I didn't!
I came around the corner and there was a real live dude in a real live kilt playing real live music!

FOR. THE. WIN.

That right there made the whole trip worthwhile. Izzy sat very politely, and didn't howl like some of the other dogs passing by did. I was very proud of my pup :)

She did very well with people and children. I kept her leash pretty short because she's not acclimated to walking on a leash, and definitely not with so many people around. It was Saturday and the beginning of the holidays so lots of people were out. When little children came over she sat very well and let them pet her, and lots of people told me what a lovely dog I have. She did not do so well with the other dogs. She really needs to be better socialized. When there are other dogs she barks, and jumps, and won't settle, and that's the kind of things that makes me not want to go on organized dog walks and things. Hopefully I can take her out more and socialize her more so that she can get over this overly-anxious behavior.

Most everyone either had a dog, didn't mind dogs, or wanted to pet dogs. All except one crazy man. There is an area that overlooks the river, and a man was standing there taking pictures. Well, I wanted pictures too, but I didn't want to interrupt the man, so I was standing maybe 6 or 8 feet away waiting for him to finish. I'm not sure if the light glintered off her collar tags or what but all of a sudden he whips around and yells

     "A DOG!? whats a dog doing here?!" and I kind of took a step back (Izzy had been sitting quietly, if I stop walking when we are out after a minute or so she just sits, quite nicely), and explained that I just wanted a picture, and that I could wait, and that she wouldn't come near him. He started sweating heavily, exclaimed that he "had to get out of here" and took off at a very chunky jog. I had offered to leave and come back if the dog bothered him but he just kept saying "no, no, no," and backing up.

Jeez. it's public property. It's a nice day. And it's a popular place to walk dogs. WTF? Well the man had upset poor Izzy so much I couldn't get a picture anyway :( what a mean old man. Well I did get a few pictures closer to the river after she had calmed down and we had walked around a bit.

I think next time, I will see if Mike wants to come with us and we can see the battle grounds :) they have the history plaques and monuments and I read online that if you call the park rangers first and clean up after your dog they will let you bring them. That sounds like fun to me.

Till the next truck drive ;)

     -Mandy + Izzy

Rubber Duckies and Stuff

We have been leaving Izzy out of her crate at night because she was bored, even if we left her toys and things, and her whining wasn't letting us get any sleep.  Now, She keeps us up jumping on the bed, jumping off the bed, jumping on the bed jumping off the bed, jumping on the bed with a squeaker toy, trying to decimate the squeaker toy. Ugh.
At first she will lay there, curled up, all innocent and warm looking. But sometime in the night, she will get bored. and instead of going to the living room where her toys are and playing with them on the couch, she drags them into the bed and wakes us up playing.

I know this is my fault. I let her in the bed. But theres no real way at the moment to train her out of it. We can't shut the door because the cats food and water is in here.
So on Friday, I am buying an extra high baby gate, that has a small cat door built in to it. So she can see me when we sleep (so she won't have a spazz attack) but it will keep her off us, and the bed at night, and she can sleep in her kennel (I'll move it out of the bedroom) or she can sleep on the couch. Hopefully that will fix everything :D

When I took Izzy out to go to the bathroom she ran under some funky bushes and got this sappy crap on her. So I decided to give her a bath. I put a towel on the floor in front of the bath tub, ran the water to a good temperature, and filled the tub about a quarter of the way.
I got Izzy in to the bath room, stood by the tub and called her. She came over half-assed with this kind of "I'm not going in there" attitude. So I rolled up my jeans to me knee, and jumped in. Well that got her to at least come to the tub, she still wouldn't get in. I really wanted to like take the time for her to explore the whole "lets take a bath" scenario, but the water was getting cooler so I just picked her up and put her in.
She thrashed around for a minute before discovering that the bath tub is like being inside a huge water bowl. Then she wanted to play in it. splishy splashy turning in circles, I can't complain it let me soap her up good. she didn't like rinsing, but she put up with it. She toweled off pretty easily and dried pretty quickly too. However the whole experience got her real excited. she started doing lightning fast laps around the apartment and rolling all over/licking everything.

Now she smells like cucumber melon. such a pretty puppy <3

the sleepless nights are somehow manageable when you see her laying on the couch chewing on a rawhide bone that's just about as long a she is. (and also on the couch when she's keeping your feet warm. yeah that too.)

Izzy, scourge of the living room floor!

Lessons Learned:

the cuteness of a toy does not have any factor in weather or not you should buy it for your dog.  I purchased the cuestest penguin toy, a turtle squeaker toy and a soft football on a tug of war rope. Also a rubber spikey ball and some tennis balls and some rawhide bones.

Sadly, the turtle was apparently not turtle enough for izzys turtle club as it's now in many many pieces, the penguin is headless, and the football is never leaving the end zone again (the rope is still good though!)

The tennis balls we picked out are Kong air balls, and while they are good for fetching they are just a little too big for her to chew. She hates the orange spiky ball, not sure why, and the rawhides are being devoured. okay. Mandy Vs. Pet Toy Aisle - Round Two - FIGHT!

Also for those of you who believe less is more, Izzy wholeheartedly agrees with you. In fact today I came home to discover my New and Improved Blanket! Now With 50% Less Filling! Forgive me if I'm not sold on the marketing tactic yet. . .