Puppy tricks
Deogi’s getting better. It’s an awfully slow process to combat a dog’s unexplained separation anxiety that he’s had since he was born. As long as he’s with you, and no one new walks in, he’s fine. A calm, sweet puppy who loves nothing more then to cuddle with whoever is closest.
He LOVES people. Loves them. So when someone new walks in – it’s chaos. – HI HI HI! LOOKIT ME! HI! LOVE ME! YOU SMELL GOOD! HI! – He’s getting better there, calming down faster, and it’s a rarity now that it ends up in my having to assert dominance and PLACE him DOWN. He has his own version of puppy please – which is to put his front paws on the half wall by the door so you can pet him and say hi without his paws in your chest. He’s learning to move ‘back’ at the command.
Last summer, even as a puppy, he was uncomfortable being outside. He couldn’t see us, and that meant Something Wasn’t Right! So it was outside, do business, inside fast to make sure everyone was ok. This year, he’s hooked to the lead, and will actually run and play and stay outside on his own. Until he gets tangled. then it’s HELP ME SAVE ME OMG I’M STUCK WHERE DID THAT TREE COME FROM?! – it is, of course, the same tree he’s wrapped himself around Every. Time. He’s. Out. (Which means we have to not rescue him right away, as well as be sure he sits and stays before we do. baby steps. always.) But, he’s outside without freaking for 30 minutes to an hour now – so that’s good.
He still completely tears up the house when he’s left alone, though. If he’s left outside, well – he doesn’t break off his lead, and that’s about all I can say since I’m not there to watch, being, you know, gone. We do have to make sure the deadbolt is turned when that happens, because he has discovered how to open the door and let the cats out with his efforts to get inside to see if we’re hiding. Yeah, I know. *L* Cats think this is fine. I do not. When he’s inside alone, it’s a disaster. Garbage overturned and strewn throughout the house, dolls eaten, backpack straps torn apart, paper shredded, loaves of bread eaten, and the occasional (extremely rare, but once recently) shit in my room.
If we take him with us in the car, he does better, but he barks at everything that moves and it takes a certain amount of speed and dexterity mingled with calm command to get out of the car without him getting out too. Heh. Then he barks until he gets tired, he then lays down and rests, and barks only when he sees something moving past in hopes that Mom’s come to the rescue. Even with the pain in the ass getting in and out of the car is – and how he’ll all but jump out of an open window if you are trying to talk to someone while sitting in the car still (50 pound dog in the lap trying to say HI I LOVE YOU YOU SMELL GOOD PET ME to random people is not exactly fun. Holding him back rips the shoulder out of socket. He also climbs over anyone else in the car, and the kid gets trampled and whines. Heh.) BUT he doesn’t chew up the interior of the car. So that’s a plus.
It’s all baby steps. Painfully Slow one step forward two steps back two steps forward back to square one baby steps. But he’s getting better.
And he LOVES to do tricks for treats. He jumps for them, he’ll sit for them, he’ll lay down for them, he’ll run for them (fetching – not so much. *L*). The latest trick we’re working on is for us to be able to put a treat on his forehead, or nose, and have him leave it there until we say it’s ok and that he can have it. He’s ALMOST to the point to where I don’t have to lay my fingers over his nose to remind him to keep his head still. He’ll now leave the treat for as long as I tell him to ‘wait’ and keep my fingers there – for the first time today, he left it there long enough to snap a photo of the trick in progress. We’ll start using only fingertips now, then hopefully soon, on to no fingers at all, just voice command. He will SERIOUSLY do ANYTHING for a snausage. (the glow-y eyes and tongue sticking out is just bonus. ha!)
Some day, 300 or so years in the future, he’ll be a perfectly well behaved trick loving puppy. Chuck just makes it look so easy. Show off.
Rose Purple colored glasses…
The Pup is going to a new church with Nana this morning, and wanted to dress up. That, of course, means purple tinted sunglasses, with her birthday pink shirt and sparkly belt with sparkly embellished jeans… and her amusingly mishmash choices of other accessories…
I know, right? How cute is she?!
ETA Sunday Evening:
Happiness is….
A new Swiffer Duster Wand. Who’s child is this?!
She SQUEALED. Literally! “A NEW SWIFFER WAND!” Then she tore into it, and went around dusting to her little hearts content. Singing the commercial “One way or another, I’m gonna find ya, I’m gonna getcha..”
Yet it took her and her sister 2 weeks to clean her/their room. Go figure.
How to know…
…that the reading switch has been officially switched to the on position in your youngest child:
She wouldn’t put the book down to walk out at bed time, or to give me a hug, or to walk back to her room. And I still can hear her murmuring to herself in her room, with the lights off, in the fading light of our midnight (10:45pm) sun…
(I’m positive she’s trying to finish this one so that she can dig into the one TBF got her for her birthday – she’s already sampled the first couple pages in anticipation. Hee.)
Our own Wisteria Lane
While our houses pale in comparison, and we even trailers on our street, and houses built around trailers and many government built 30 year old houses that are falling down around our ears – it seems that we’ve caught that Desperate feel.
Our Brie, the one with the perfect lawn, the garden that’s perfect, the perfectly behaved teenagers that they seem ok to leave alone at the house with masses of friends because they’re all well behaved and just because they were sleeping on the floor in a tangled puppy pile when they got home – they were just tired from the jobs and school activities that helps keep them perfectly well behaved. The flowers are always in bloom, the Christmas lights are taken down and put up on time without fanfair, the garden is decorated with seasonal items, and everything is – well, perfect.
Our Edie, while she is not as out and in your face as her TV counterpart, she is just as outlandish in her own way. A former pro cheerleader, she is proud to still fit in the uniform that she wears every game day, she stays awake all night with the music blaring loudly, playing pool, cooking, watching TV, dreaming of home in TX, and whatever else she does inside the confines of her home. She uses the small space between her house and another to pen her dogs close to her door, despite having more room (and a noise buffer) along the other side that would work much better for the neighbors. She remains shut in most times, but that does not stop the drama from blossoming around them.
The newest neighbors – Lee and Bob (Yes, the gays). They are raising two children, one part time, the other full time. They’re lovely ladies, and my daughter is totally enthralled with their children. They are, unfortunately, directly across from Edie, and get the full effect of the all night loud music and dogs barking, just as the next door neighbors do. They, however, have decided to fight back. Now, once the all night party has stopped and Edie is sleeping, the Newest Neighbors have decided to amp up the drama, and now open their garage door, turn on their car radio (or the inside radio, we aren’t sure) and blare the Oldies loud and proud, all day long. Some neighbors wonder why they have to be the oldies radio station – how long must we live in the 50 60s 70s and 80s for heaven’s sake? But they are fighting fire with fire… the rest of us are sure to get burned.
Who am I? I am our Lynette (mingled with a bit of Susan). I have the kids who are good kids mostly, just maybe a little excitable, and my yard is most often filled with any number of things to piss off the neighbors – toys, a toppled garbage can, a barking dog, a conglomeration of various things that have spilled out of the garage and haven’t been cleaned up yet. I’m not a good housekeeper (Hybrid Susan!), though I am something of a good basic cook, and I’ve lived on this street the majority of my life. I’m the sloppy, clumsy (I sprained an ankle by tripping on a can of green beans, after all) bitchy yet somewhat endearing neighbor that people like to nark on to the city because they’re irritated with the things in my lawn and hello, now they’re going to fine me because I told the guy to piss off. My neighbors think I’ll take it and merely mutter “I’M SO WRITING ABOUT YOU ON MY BLOG!” Or something like that. And well, they’re right -because instead of cleaning up the offending mess in front of my garage – look at me making Desperate Housewives comments instead. Ha! (I even took the quiz at abc.com – they decided I’m right, I am a Lynette. Heh.)
And for those who know that Nana lives on the street – please note I didn’t compare her to any of them. Because I am far, far, far from stupid. (grins) but if I did, she’d have to be the lovely Mrs. McCluskey, who always has a helpful word to share, and takes care of Lynette’s (my) children as needed. Now, I’m not saying that someday we’re gonna find that she’s kept Papa in the freezer for 10 years after his passing because she couldn’t bare to be alone and not have him to talk too, but she’ll just have to fill in the Mrs. McCluskey caretaker role. And it’s not just because she’s older then the rest of us either… she looks MUCH more like the younger prettier housewives then Mrs. McCluskey! Just sayin.
So – if you’d like to move into our Wisteria Lane, we are taking applications for Gabby, and Kathrine to help amp up the drama a little more. I’m also willing to take applications for a Mike and/or Tom who’d be willing to clean up the mess of my house before the city gets out their little fine-book and I tell them to piss off again.
Or, if the Desperate gods are smiling upon me – send me Gale Harold. For I’ve loved him since he was oh so fabulously gay on Queer as Folk! It’s not too much to ask, right?
My kid is SO better then yours!
IN happier news – today is the last day of school.
Wait – that means they’re home all the time. CRAP. But that’s not what I wanted to say…
in HAPPIER news – despite the fact the kids are now home 24/7 for the next three months – the pup got her report card today. Everything was wonderful – but one thing was SUPER FANTASTIC…
The goal for the benchmark reading at the end of 3rd grade is a 110.
The score the Pup started the year with was a mid 2nd grade 51, stage 3 (early reader).
The final score for the year….
(drumroll please)
(thank you)
109!
One Oh Freakin’ Nine!
That puts her at a completed stage five (independent reader), and perfectly in line to go into 4th grade next fall with confidence. WHOOOHOOOO!
Told ya she was awesome!
PS – four days of outside field trips and hey! The pup has COLOR!
…sunburn. whatever. Beggars, choosers….
