My Sweetie

Cuteness personified!  

First, in her daily attempt to make friends with Koshka, she actually brought her her favorite inside toy (her stuffed froggy) and dropped it at the feet of the chair that Koshka was sitting on and just sat back, wagging her tail.  She looked from Koshka to the froggy and back, and nugged the froggy for Koshka and hopped back, wagging her tail.  Koshka just looked at her with her wide, yellow eyes, like, “What the heck, dog?!”

Later, I headed outside to do my morning Bible reading and drink my coffee.  I sat down on the porch furniture and gave a little whistle and Zuzu came bounding around the corner of the house and jumped into my lap on the chair and cuddled with me (and chewed my arm some) while I read.

Then, we played fetch, then she spent some time barking at the hosta that’s coming back up in the flower garden, right in her favorite afternoon napping spot.  She spent so much time clearing out the flower garden just like she wanted it, and now that evil hosta is popping right back up in the middle of it and it needs to be stopped! 

Cuddle Time

But I don't WANT to let go!

Oh Boy Oh Boy Oh Boy!!

You will NEVER catch me!

The Evil Hosta

Mine mine mine Om nom nom!

Training Sans Treats

Zuzu is definitely a treat oriented pooch.  Training without treats is HARD!  It’s actual work!  Sigh.

We didn’t practice as much as we normally do between classes since we were on Spring Break last week.  There were lots of walks, but way more play time and exploring than training.

Last Monday’s class was going fine for the first 15 minutes.  Then I showed up with Tressa and all heck broke loose.  She got one glimpse of Tressa and went crazy, trying to jump out of the training ring to get to her.  Jim finally brought her over to say hi to us, hoping that it would calm her down, but it didn’t.  Poor Tressa decided to go read a book in the van in the parking lot so that we could continue with training.

That stopped Zuzu from trying to run away, but all hope of a good training session was pretty much lost.  We learned a lot of the same stuff as last week, and added ‘come’, ‘sit after the come’, and ‘heel from the front sit’ (which is just getting them to swing their butt around from sitting in front of you to sitting next to you.)  It was challenging.

At the end of the class, one of the trainers brought her German Shepherd out and demonstrated everything we had learned, but with no leash and only hand signals.  And no treats.  Really?  How bad do you want to make me feel?!  Then she promised that all of our dogs would be behaving by the end of the seven week session just like hers, but still on a leash.  Hmmmm.  

The training program has us using choke chains and snapping them.  We have stopped using it. First, it was actually cutting the hair off around her neck, making it only about an inch long where the chain snapped!  Second, it only seemed to truly irritate her instead of getting her to do anything. 

We practiced A LOT this week.  We took her out to Cuesta Park and Bubb School and anywhere where there were at least small distractions and went over and over the training.  Jim was out of town for three days, so I even had Darby and Tressa coming with me and taking their turns.  The first few days, I couldn’t even get her to sit!  It was so frustrating!  If I stopped walking and asked her to sit, she would just stand there and ignore me, sometimes completely turning away from me.

I learned by accident, that rather than snap the chain with your right hand and put your left on her side to prevent her from turning while sitting, if I placed my left hand gently on her face and had her look up at me while I said sit, her butt immediately hits the ground.  It’s like she was telling me that all I had to do was say, “Please.”

By Thursday, I could get her to do all of the commands for about five minutes, before her LOTADD set in.  (Lack of Treat Attention Deficit Disorder)  Then she would decide that it was time to play.  If I wanted her to sit, she would...but backwards!  If I tried to turn her around, she would chew my fingers and the leash and jump up on me!  We actually got into a wrestling match in the middle of the park!  I’m sure all of the walkers and joggers were thoroughly amused.  I know Zuzu was!  I. Was. Not.  We made it home, and we rested.

On Friday, I decided to try something different.  I had boiled some chicken for her dinner and brought out a handful of it to the backyard.  She could smell it and got all puppy wiggly and spinny, just waiting to have some.  I made her earn it.  I’ll be darned if that silly little dog didn’t obey every command that I threw at her, without a leash, to get that chicken!  She would heel - no matter how fast or slowly I was walking or jogging- stop on her own and sit when I stopped, lay down, stay, come, and sit.  She still doesn’t quite get the heel from a sit command, but for everything else she was as good as that German Shepherd.

This weekend we made sure that we brought treats everywhere we went.  We only gave them sparingly, still trying the training without them, but she definitely responds better when she knows they’re there.

Tomorrow, I have someone else driving Tressa to lacrosse.  Jim and I will both be at the training from beginning to end with no interruptions.  And, I am going to sneak in some treats in my pockets!

Lacrosse

 

Zuzu finally got to come with us to her first lacrosse game!

We figured she would finally be able to sit with us and watch, and not be overwhelmed by all of the noises and people and kids, and she did fine.

It was an hour and a half away, and she seemed to forget all of the peaceful drives we had at Yosemite, so she panted and failed to relax for the trip to Petaluma, CA.  As soon as we pulled into the parking lot, she lost part of her breakfast.  It landed on towels (we still don't travel without them) so it was an easy fix, but I always feel bad when she throws up.

We fed her lunch to her one piece at a time throughout the first game, so her tummy was fine for the rest of the day.  Again though, she would not go to the bathroom anywhere in Petaluma.  Apparently Mountain View, CA, is the only approved puppy toilet for Zuzu.

I'm not sure she even noticed that the lacrosse game was going on.  I know she didn't know that Tressa was on the field, or there would have been whining.  When Tressa came up to us after the 2nd game, Zuzu went insane!  She was so excited to see her that she just couldn't control the jumpy puppy spins and aerobatics.  We couldn't even get her to walk back to the car until Jim laid her on the ground to calm her down for a minute.   She does love her Tressa!

She slept the whole way home with her head on Tressa's lap, and jumped out and peed in our front yard as soon as her feet hit the ground.  I sure hope Nebraska, Florida, and Virginia dirt will be okay with her as well, or it's going to be a really difficult summer!

I'm BAAACK!!

I figured out why Zuzu was so well behaved on vacation.  She was just storing up all of her antics to use at home.

LOOK MOM!!  Look how far the toilet paper can reach across the house if I grab it with my teeth!

This garden hose?  This is the one you don’t want me to chew on?  Or drag across the yard?  Oops.

BARK BARK....BIRDS!   BARK BARK....KIDS!!  BARK BARK....CAT!!!  BARK BARK....AIR!!!!

Fingers and toes and shirts are YUMMY!

Mom, if you don’t want the laundry all over the house, why did you leave it for me in one convenient location in a laundry bin with no lid?

HA!  Soda bottles fly REALLY high into the air when I grab them and throw them!

Flower garden?  What flower garden?  I killed that off weeks ago....why can’t I dig and throw dirt all over the patio?

Yosemite

Last week was Zuzu’s first vacation and she did great!

I was prepared for the trip.  Towels, toys, treats, food, garbage bags, paper towels, “Resolve for Pets”, a sponge, giant raw hides, you name it.  But, my puppy, who is not so fond of riding in the car, actually settled down and slept!  And as we were driving around the park, she would either nap, cuddle, or just sit up and look out the window.  It was so much better than the crying, pacing, throwing up, and peeing that we’ve had in the past.  SOOO much better!

The hotel went great too.  It was like she left all of her puppy-ness at home.  We brought her crate for when we went down to the swimming pool, but the rest of the time she was with us.  In the hotel, she would just lay down and watch what was going on, or take a nap.  There was no eating of bedspreads or furniture, running, jumping, nipping, or any naughtiness whatsoever.  The only misbehavior was a scary shadow (her own) that had to be put in its place with lots of barking!

She did slow us down while walking around the park though.  Not by her pace, by the attention she drew.  I think Zuzu got more attention from the other people in the park than the waterfalls did!  Every 20 feet or so, we were stopped by people wanting to admire, pet, and learn all about our beautiful puppy!  It was funny listening to Jim give the same explanation over and over and over again.  I wish I had little information cards with the EMDAA website on it to pass out, so people could just look them up on their own.  I’m not even sure how many times I spelled Estrela.  “No, Estrela....E-S-T-R-E-L-A.”

And Zuzu decided that she loves climbing, and she loves fresh, cold, mountain stream water.  If there was a stream that was flowing slowly enough and was shallow, Jim would let her drink from it and she would lap up gallons!  The water we brought for her and poured into her bowl, she would ignore.

The only weird thing that we learned about Zuzu and traveling, is she does not like to go to the bathroom in unfamiliar places.  We could not get her to go at the rest area, and it took about four walks and a couple of hours to get her to pee at the hotel.  She went from about 9:30 am until about 4:30 pm the first day, without doing anything!  On the other days, other than first thing in the morning, each walk was a challenge.  And she never went in the park, only at the hotel.  I’m hoping she gets over that before our cross country trip this summer!  I just can’t imagine how that could be comfortable for her at all.

Overall though, it was such a successful trip that I can’t wait to bring her everywhere we go from now on.  I hope my family doesn’t mind big dogs in their homes when I visit!

      

1st Day at the New School

Class went, well....ok, on Monday night.  There were about a dozen dogs in the class and four trainers.  We did so much in one hour!  Zuzu never would have kept up six weeks ago when we began her first puppy class.  We learned heel, sit, stay, and down.  Sort of.

Only one person was allowed in the ring with each dog at a time, so Jim and I took turns with her.  Jim began with walking her and learning where she should be in a ‘heel’, and then they worked on sit.  She was pretty distracted, but did okay.  She was even starting to sit for him each time he stopped walking.

Then it was my turn.  The walking was going great, and she even sat for me.  Then it was time to learn down.  They gave us two ways to do down after a sit, with our dog next to us.  One was to pull her down with her collar, and the other way was to have her in a sit, hold her collar with your left hand, and scoop her front legs out from under her gently while saying, “Down.”  Zuzu has been laying down on command for two or three weeks now, but I figured I’d try the second method.  

Now, if any of you have a pre-teenage girl, you’ll understand exactly what I mean when I say that as soon as I scooped Zu’s legs and said, "down", she looked at me with that, “Oh NO, you DI...INT!!!!” expression on her face.  Yeah.  I pissed her off something fierce!

She sat right back up and locked both of her knees.  Locked them so tightly that they bent backwards and looked at me with “I dare you,” written all over her face.  Then looked away with her nose sticking up in the air.  I still have not gotten her to lay down again, unless I have a treat.  She just locks those little stubborn little knees and sits.

The rest of the class went okay.  Jim took over in a little bit, and though she wouldn’t lay down for him either, she did all of the sit-stay drills really well.

We’ve been practicing pretty consistently since that class, and Jim has managed to get her to lay down without a treat once.  I still have not.  I apparently crossed the Zuzu-line and I have a lot of making up to do before she forgives me!

More Play Time - this time with Friends!

 Zuzu loves Saturday mornings, when we go for walks and stop by the field to see if any of her friends are there.  I think she has a small puppy crush on Mogul, the giant Yugoslavian Shepherd who just had his first birthday last weekend.

They play and play and he lets her jump all over him, while he wiggles and wags his tail and slobbers all over her.

Look, ma!  I have a FRIEND!!

Benny, the Bernese joins in the fun.  Benny is three.  Monty, in the background, is eight years old and just kind of hangs out and watches all of the craziness from a distance.

Time to go home, get a quick wash, and take a nap!