No Fair

Since when did this become the norm in my house?

Zuzu's Lunch:  A scoop of dry food with a chopped up hard boiled egg, shredded grilled salmon, and goat's milk

My Lunch:  A cold leftover piece of pepperoni pizza

Maybe that's why she's so much prettier than me and has so much more energy too!  :)

Puppy PT

This was really cute when she was eight weeks old.  It's making PT more challenging at four months.  I can't wait to see how many sit ups and push ups Jim can do when she's full grown!!

Puppy Push Ups

Puppy Sit Ups

Puppy weight training with kisses

Puppy Evaluation

Lacrosse practice was moved for one night to the middle of the Stanford campus, so I knew there was no way I was going to get the kids home and get to Rengsdorf Park by 7pm, so Jim took her earlier on his own.

He said she was a maniac! There were tons of dogs, people, kids, music, ice cream cart bells, and even the CalTrain going by.  She wouldn't even take a treat!  When she met the head trainer it was no better.  He called and asked me to stop by the park and meet with the head trainer too and watch part of a class with him.

Tressa and I stopped on the way home from lacrosse. The park is big and pretty and was full of people. There were three dog training classes going on - one beginning and two ‘open’ classes (advanced classes for show dogs, I think). The dogs were amazing!

The beginning class had about a dozen dogs, with one head instructor and three helpers, and the dogs were all walking right next to their owners, stopping when they stopped, slowing down, speeding up, turning left and right, and sitting, all when they were supposed to, without treats!  It was pretty impressive and exactly where I’d like Zuzu to be while walking.

Then I met Rosalie, the head trainer. What a fascinating woman! She grew up on a farm and was training farm animals to do tricks when she was a little girl.  She began training dogs when she was a young mother in the 50's, and didn’t agree with the way a trainer was telling her to train her Doberman pup.  He pinched its ear and hit it to get it to pick up a dumbbell. She hollered at him to never hit her dog and he replied, “Fine.  You try to train her.”  She took the Doberman home, trained it to fetch the dumbbell, and brought her back to the dog trainer a week later to show him.  Since then, she has trained police and narcotics dogs in addition to family pets and show dogs.  She and her husband, a retired fireman, run the program.  The program’s website is at http://dpdtc.org/index.htm, if anyone wants to check it out.

Jim and I have mixed emotions about their training methods, only because it’s different from how we have been training Zuzu.  Rosalie told Jim that Zuzu has basically learned nothing and needs to start over.  She said we have been bribing her to behave, which doesn’t work if she’s distracted.  That irritated Jim quite a bit, since we have worked with Zuzu so much on our own and have seen so much growth from her.  Plus, we think she’s super-awesome-amazing, even if she wouldn’t behave in a new park with all new distractions.  But, Rosalie did have a point.  Our biggest problem is that while Zuzu was always the star of her last class, the park can be a challenge.

So, we are going with the beginning class.  Jim will take her, and I will join them with Tressa after lax practice as soon as we can get there.  Our first class is next Monday night at 6:30.

We won’t get home until about 8pm....anyone have any good crock pot recipes?!  :)

My Graduate

Isn't it funny how, no matter how much true puppy mischief Zuzu has in her, she always manages to be on her very best behavior in class?  Jim says she should wear a sign around her neck that says 'Will Work for Food."

All we had to do for the final class was demonstrate everything that our dog had learned then show one trick, if we had one.  Zuzu did everything amazingly, and was the only dog with a trick to show. I picked "shake" to work on this week, because any time she gets impatient, she paws at me, so it was an easy transition.  And she did it easily for Jim as he was demonstrating.   Then, Helena showed me how to get her to "sit pretty" (up on her hind legs) and "roll over".  It was fun!

At the end of class, we had to trade dogs and walk around the store for 10 minutes, working on everything we had learned, then report to the class how the puppy performed.

We got a crazy, adorable little lab puppy named Jax. I have never seen a puppy wiggle as much as he did! Even when he was sitting, his little body just shook with happiness! He did really well. 

Budha's owner had Zuzu. Budha is a cute little pug and his owner is a big, strong, young guy. They kind of don't match, but they work well together.  When he got back and Helena asked what it was like having Zuzu for a few minutes, he answered, "Oh my goodness - she is amazing! She walked fine, sat, laid down, even rolled over and sat up for me!"

(I behaved. I didn't holler at him that she is ours and he can NOT have her. But, I wanted to!)

Tonight she is being tested for a new class. I am as nervous as I would imagine a parent would be, trying to get a child into a prestigious preschool!  This class was started by a local trainer, who used to be a police dog trainer and has been recommended to me by most of the doggy parents that I have met that have amazingly well-behaved big dogs.  They also run the class in a public park, so there should be lots more dogs and distractions, which Zuzu really needs.

I am trying to get Zuzu into their intermediate class.  This is for two reasons... first because I don't want her to have to repeat stuff she has already learned, and second, because Tressa's lacrosse practice is at the same time as the beginner class. The hard part is, this group of trainers won't even let puppies sign up for the beginner class until they're four months old, and to get into the intermediate class you have to have passed THEIR beginner class. They have agreed to look at Zuzu and consider an exception to their rules.

If it doesn't work, it will be back to PetSmart and Helena for intermediate training!  Either way is okay, but I will be praying hard that tonight goes okay. God's Will will prevail.  And probably a little of Zuzu's will as well! :)

Extra Tall Gate with Cat Door

Well, we thought the new gate would work really well.  Apparently we need a "CATZ ONLY - No DAWGS Allowed" sign by the door.

More Antics

Yesterday, Jim and I decided to drop Zuzu off after the first mile and do a second mile on our own.  We asked the kids to watch her, and luckily, they were watching well.

First, Darby and her friend played with Zuzu outside in the backyard, then decided to let her in with Tressa.  Zuzu started running around the family room, and jumped up on the kitchen counter and knocked a glass off the counter!  Luckily, she knocked it off away from her, into the kitchen rather than into the family room where she was standing.

The kids immediately grabbed her, crated her, and vacuumed up the glass, but left her crated until I got home to check the floor.  They missed quite a few pieces that I cleaned up, but I was so thankful that they reacted that quickly!

It was so much better than when Koshka was a kitten and broke a glass decanter.  After she broke it, she continued to jump on the broken glass, tearing her tendon.  Not only did she bleed all over the house, she cost us several hundred dollars at the vet.  

One glass is a small price to pay!

Of course today, Tressa comes up to me with this mess...

and says, "Mommy, I have now learned to never EVER leave one of my books unattended near Zuzu!"

Dog Days of Spring?

I'm an East Coast girl at heart, but that doesn't mean I don't feel blessed to be in California this year.

Zuzu, on the other hand, would really rather be back in the cold. She loves nice cool weather. She has energy; she can run, play, and frolic for hours!

And, when she can do that all day, she stays a little more balanced.

In this California 'heat', and I use that term loosely, because there's 0% humidity, so it's not really that hot, she is nothing but a lump in the shade. She gets SO lazy! Even walks are a chore for her. I'm not sure how she's going to survive Virginia this summer!

What's even worse than the laziness though, is what the laziness creates. It creates a CRAZY DOG! As soon as it starts to cool down, she has to get a full day's worth of energy and mischief out! Hoses and gardens BEWARE! Fingers and bottoms BEWARE! Clothing and TV remotes BEWARE!  And don't even think you can take her on a relaxing walk. Pull pull tug tug sniff sniff RUN! And train? Forget about it. What's a sit good for anyway?

So now, as she lazily naps in the shade, waking up occasionally to go lap up some cool water, I am resting right along with her. Maybe then I'll have the energy to keep up with her as the sun starts to go down!