Zuzu and Agility?

Zuzu's brother Kodi is doing agility training and apparently enjoying it a lot.  Ron told me I should try it for Zuzu and here is what I responded with:


Hmmm... Zuzu and agility... I'm not sure those two words go together!

Here are some examples of how NOT agile Zuzu is

-  She won't push her way through the door on the screened in porch. There's no latch, it just swings open, but she'll push her nose against it and then stand back as it gently swings back toward her, then bark like crazy and push it again.  I even put a plate full of STEAK on the ground on the other side, and she was too afraid to go through it!

-  While playing fetch today, she tripped over a rock.  Not a big rock - a little rock.  She yelped, limped around for a minute, then went back to running.

-  When chasing water spray in the air, she decided to do a twisty jump like one of those frisbee catching dogs and landed on her back. Yup.  Her back.  I think our cat needs to give her some lessons on how to land on her feet.

-  Hard wood floors still baffle her.  At least once a week she turns a corner too quickly and just slides, sprawled out across the floor.

-  Stairs work for her...if she's paying attention.  If not, she's got a 50/50 shot of landing on her feet at the bottom vs. her chin.

Do they have agility clowns, like they have rodeo clowns?  Maybe Zuzu could be one of those, sort of as the comic relief between actual competitors!

Charlie Bit Me

It wasn't Charlie, it was Zuzu.  But if you haven't seen the YouTube video, go Google "Charlie Bit Me", then watch it, then come right back to this blog.

Now that you know my reference, I will continue.

Last night, I stuck my finger in my dog's mouth.  She was chewing on something and I didn't know what it was, so I went in after it.  As it turns out, it was a small piece of one of her rawhides and she was NOT pleased that I was taking it from her and she bit my hand.  And (said with a little kid's Brittish accent), it really hurt!

She never likes when I take stuff from her, but normally she just sort of tries to hold on, then reluctantly lets me win, then she sulks.  Not last night!  She was one pissed off pooch!

Well, it made me angry too, and it hurt my feelings.  I corrected immediately.  Then decided to try again.  (I am the actual runt of the litter, which means I didn't get my fair share of smarts either.)  So, I gave it back to her and took it again.  And I got bit again.  And I corrected again.  And we did it again.  (Okay, maybe the alcohol in college stunted my intelligence even further.)  Yup - Bite!  I smacked her on her nose!  She flinched and looked at me with utter confusion.  I saw a brief glimpse of her contemplating a response of, "Game ON, biatch!" But, she reconsidered, and just sat back.  I said, "Drop it!"  She did.  I gave it back.  I said, "Drop it!" She did.  "Good Drop It."  I gave it back.

I left her alone for a bit.

I found her again later.  I said, "Drop It!"  She just looked at me and lowered her head.  I said, "Drop It!" and squeezed her mouth to get it open and took it.  She snapped my direction, but didn't bite.  I threw away the rawhide and replaced it with a treat and went to whine to my husband, who had been quietly pretending not to watch the entire episode.

"She bit me, AGAIN."  "Did she bite you that time, or just snap near you?"  "She snapped."  "There's a big difference between a bite and a snap."  Thank you again, Mr. Rational. (Don't worry, I'm smiling as I type that.  I actually love the balance of his calm with my storm.)

"Plus, if she really wanted to bite you, she could have broken your fingers.  She wasn't happy that you were taking something that is rightfully hers.  She was letting you know.  You let her know that it wasn't okay.  You corrected her.  She stopped.  I think it's fine."

Hmmm.  Maybe, but I was still sad.  I don't like fighting.

Once in bed, she just laid on the floor and looked up at me, with her big brown eyes.  So, I crawled out of bed and slept with her on the floor for a little bit, as she licked my fingers.  Then we were happy again.

Funny thing - I was still sticking my fingers in Charlie's, I mean Zuzu's mouth.  Only luckily, Zuzu wasn't biting.

After the Groomer

We found out on the way home from the groomer today that Zuzu's dog show this weekend is cancelled due to the hurricane coming in.

So, why not go play in the yard all clean?  :)

That's one happy dog!

Zuzu's First Earthquake

Zuzu's first several months were spent in Northern California.  So, where's her first earthquake?  Virginia!

I wasn't home with her, but Tressa was.  Just like all of the stories, Tressa said that Zuzu felt it long before she did, and began running around and barking like a crazy dog.

Tressa tried to calm her down and then the house began to shake.  She said the walls were shaking and the little chandelier in the dining room and the pot rack in the kitchen were swinging, and it was loud. Tressa was scared.

But, Tressa spent a year doing earthquake drills in California, so unlike the rest of Virginia that immediately ran outside, she knew what to do.  Unlike most people though, rather than get herself to a doorway, she was worried about the animals and decided that they should be in doorways too. Tressa was able to catch Zu, but not Koshka.  She held Zuzu under a doorway until the shakes stopped, and could hear Koshka crying and running into things upstairs.

When it all calmed down, she comforted the animals and waited for me to come home.  She said even Koshka let herself be held, which shows how frightened she was.  Koshka never lets Tressa hold her!

I never felt a thing, but heard about it on the radio on the way home from the grocery store.  When I got home, there were a few things on the ground, but nothing broken, and after some hugs around the house, everything was back to normal.

Now, time to prepare for the hurricane this weekend?!

Smart Dog

Every once in a while.....ok, once in a great while, Zuzu lets it show how really smart and trainable she is.

Our mornings and walks have a pattern. I had more than normal to do this morning before our walk, which displeased her.  But, when we got outside, she had her best young lady behavior on ever.

After she poops, we head to the trash can by the basketball court, then we usually do some training there. Today, she turned straight for the court on her own, went into a heal, and when I stopped, dropped straight into a sit without even a tug on the leash or verbal command.  First time ever!

She jogged next to me in circles and only bit at my shirt once, slowed down when I did, stopped when I did, and did an amazing long down stay, followed by a come & sit. She did a pretty good sit stay, but pivoted her butt to watch a jogger go by. But hey, she stayed sitting.

So I decided to go a little crazy. One thing we learned at her last school was to have our dog come to us, sit in front of us, then you say heel and step towards them and they spin around to the side into a perfect heel position, then sit. The lady that demonstrated it merely made a little circle with her hand and her German Shepherd gleefully obeyed, and looked up at her with adoring eyes. The rest of us rolled ours.

We all actually got it down pretty well, by saying, "heel," physically walking into our dogs, while tugging them with the leash into a heel, then sit. Zuzu never liked it, but followed the leash most of the time anyway.

This morning, as she sat happily in front of me, I relaxed the leash, made the circle move with my hand and began to step, and I'll be damned if that furry little wonderful beast of a princess puppy didn't circle around next to me into a heel, and then sit!!!!

Next.....we went straight home, because I was not going to press my luck any farther.

Crate, collar, house, vet, not in heat

It's been too long - I have too much!  Where to start, where to start....


The Crate:  It's going okay.  Our kitchen table was finally delivered, so the crate is now in the living room next to my computer.  She does not like it one bit!  She'll still eat out of it, but she's mad that the table is in "her room" and she doesn't understand why we eat there and she won't leave us alone.  I still have one door completely off the crate, and we now call it "crate", not "home".  So, when she goes into it for a treat it's "good crate", not "go home".  She is still doing fine with being left home alone with no supervision, fingers still crossed!


The Vet:  She had her first vet visit in Virginia last Thursday and she was a wreck.  She threw up both ways in the van.  She fought me tooth and nail getting weighed.  She hid behind Tressa in the exam room.  She sat on the thermometer.  She was rotten!  The vet said she looks fine though, and she's not in heat.  Yay - I still have that to look forward to!!

Once the exam was over, she was fine.  She let me weigh her (about 78 lbs), and she wandered nicely around the store with us.  She even fell asleep on the way home and didn't wake up to puke again until we were in the garage.  I think that one surprised even her.

This was our last visit under the Banfield puppy plan that I paid for when she was little, so I'll be searching for a new vet now.  I'm thinking the one we can walk to!

The House:  Zuzu is thoroughly enjoying helping us with the housework and yard work.  She didn't like when I cleaned up the back yard, but she loved gathering the big sticks out of my neat pile and redistributing them.  Her favorite improvement so far is under our back deck.  I had it all blocked off before, because I was convinced that scary critters were hiding amongst the wood, bricks, leaves, and whatnot that the prior residents had stored under the deck.  We cleaned the whole thing out and relayed the bricks, and now it's her favorite new cool napping spot.  She liked helping me spread the sand between the bricks.  Her help was to lay on the pile of sand that I was trying to spread out, perhaps flattening it for me?  Luckily, there were no snakes or spiders under the debris, only a million crickets, some worms, and one really cute frog!

Before we moved in - May 2011

After much work - August 2011

Soccer, anyone?  (See my log that I won't let Mommy throw away?)

I couldn't do this when I was a baby!

The collar:  While at PetSmart, I made the investment on a citronella collar, but I got the manually operated one, not the bark operated one.  I don't want her to be afraid to bark, I just want her to stop when the threat is gone.  So far, it has worked super well!  We put her "outside" collar on when she goes into the back yard, but after the first day, she has rarely let loose with her crazy non-stop bark.  She will bark once or twice, then stop.  This morning she got a little crazy when a neighbor dog started barking, but one spray on the lowest setting had her back to occasional barks again.  As with all Zuzu training, just because it's working now does not mean it will work later.  Only time will tell.


Next week we have our first big dog show.  I can't wait!

So Far, So Good

The crate is back to being okay again.  At least in the world of Zuzu.

Of course she hasn't been locked up in it, so that's probably why!

The week of no doors, but food in the crate, went wonderfully.  She even progressed from sticking just her head in the crate to eat, to having her whole body in the crate while she was eating.

Yesterday, we added one door.  She still went all of the way into the crate to eat!

The even better news is that she has not yet destroyed anything when we leave her alone without being locked up.  We lost one piece of a window blind, but I think that got bitten off while we were out doing yard work and the kids were inside with her.

Her nose is even starting to look a little bit better, though I am beginning to wonder if fur will ever grow back where her scabs are now.

So, "Zuzu-Life" is pretty cool for now.  We discovered the laser pointer this week - too fun!!

And she's getting a few more visitors than normal sniffing around the yard, which she enjoys and loves to bark at through the windows.  I'm glad she was sound asleep when the stray German Shepherd was patrolling our back fence this morning, or she would have gone crazy.  She definitely misses play time at the dog park, but we'll wait until after Labor Day to head back there; both for the weather and to avoid any potential boyfriends.  Think we could figure out something similar for Darby?

Happiness is...

A "dog-pile" on the bed

A ping pong ball to chase

Knocking Mama over onto the floor for a cuddle

And a thunderstorm that knocks down big branches to play with!

The Crate Saga Continues

No one ever said this was going to be easy.  Easy would have been fish, or a pet rock.  I didn't want easy.

Now that we got that out of the way.....

Houdinizu continued to escape from her new crate, but I finally got to witness how she did it.  It took all of about two minutes for her to repeatedly bang her nose up against the door and simply pop it open.  It was that easy!  Then she would happily prance out, and lay down on the cool tile.

Jim took a look at the crate and knew that he could put an end to that.  He would make that crate puppy proof so that no dog could ever escape.  Off to Home Depot we went!

We came home with a nice long chunk of metal that fit right through the holes in the front and definitely stopped the gate from opening.  It worked perfectly!

Then, Sunday came, and we went to church.  We were gone for just over an hour, and this is what we came home to, but with Zuzu still in it:

I took this after we let her out and cleaned her up.  Can you see the pieces of plastic along the top?  Those jagged edges used to be smooth plastic and they were now covered with puppy blood.  I now believe the story that wolves will gnaw their own legs off to get out of a trap.  Her nose looks a little better today, but I was way too upset to take another picture of her cuts.  My poor baby!

The kicker though, was that after I let her out of the crate and cleaned her up, she went right back inside to eat the chicken that she had ignored while I was gone.  If it sucks that bad to be in it, why go back?  She's having self mutilating temper tantrums, all because we're locking her up and leaving her!

I was so upset.  I sat down and e-mailed Cindy, the breeder, and forwarded my message to Ron, Kodi's dad, in a desperate plea for help.

The rest of the day was filled with informative and sometimes hilarious e-mails!  Some ideas were no crate, forced crate, crate in the area but not used, complete house freedom including the yard, and the possibility of legalizing medical marijuana for dogs!  I almost wet my pants reading that part of the conversation I was laughing so loudly.

It was such a blessing having a supportive Estrela puppy network to talk to, and to know that I'm not alone.  Not all dogs love their crates, but most dogs need them.

The solution we came up with is this (for now):

Yup, that's a crate with no doors with a cushy bed and food right by the door.  The goal is to get her to go in it again, slowly, and on her own.  I have the luxury of not working right now, so I have time to try the pleasant retraining.  For now, she will not be put in it.  

When we put the crate back up, she immediately started barking at it.  She had no problem eating dinner in front of it though, and she ate most of her breakfast (which is better than the last two days).  When she gets used to that, the food will go inside of the crate, and it will be up to her to go in on her own and eat. I don't foresee any problem with that, as long as we're home.  Eventually, the back door will go back on, then the front, and all treats will be given in the crate.

We had Snickers out of the crate by this time, only because after we moved to Omaha from NY, we forgot to put him in the crate when we left the house and he was fine.  So we figured, why bother?  He never went in the crate again other than occasional naps on his own.  Zuzu already sleeps outside of the crate, and did fine when she escaped from the new crate, so if she continues good behavior (fingers and toes crossed here), we won't use the crate unless we travel or for shows.  We'll see.

In the meantime, I'm just glad she didn't have the weekend that her brothers did.  There was no cat poop or old tin cans dragged around the house.  There were no big holes eaten out of the back yard.  There were no Wii remotes eaten.  I didn't wake up to shredded toilet paper covering my living room floor.  My shampoos, soaps, and razors all stayed on the bath tub shelves.  And, she didn't get her head stuck under my bed in the middle of the night and then thrash around like a lunatic.

So, life is good!