Some random Puppy bits and bobs

• Puppy mommy guilt – this morning I was so busy with various other obligations that I had no time to take Buffy for a walk, despite the beautiful weather. But no that’s a bit of an excuse really – I was actually too lazy to take Buffy for a walk, and that just happened to coincide with also being too busy. And I also overslept…usually Buffy would add her voice to my alarm clock’s, but today she didn’t, so I woke up at 7:30 and when I let her out of her crate she peed a bit in there in between the moment when I lifted off her towel covers (which keep out the early rising british sun, allowing me NOT to get up with the dawn) and the moment when I scooped my hand in and picked her up. Can’t help thinking that was my fault, for getting up late.

• Speaking of taking her out of her crate and the likely bit of pee dribbling down my palm that accompanies it….it’s funny how things like having a puppy pee on your palm loose their grossness after a while and just become inconvenient).

• At what point do I stop just taking Buffy out to “her spot” to do her business, and instead start taking her on walks? I feel completely unsure of that timing.

• She wouldn’t eat a bit of her breakfast today – no idea why! She just spent 30 minutes staring at me while sitting next to a full bowl of food and a full bowl of water. And then that was all the time she gets with her food, so I took it away. Right thing? Wrong thing? Who knows!

• So far she actually seems ok, being allowed in the bed. She’s only allowed in there if she’s calm, and she doesn’t get to play or sniff or even stand up very much – bed is for her to be calm and more likely, sleeping.  And it does actually seem to be working – she pretty much goes to sleep in between our pillows and then Girlfriend and me watch some tv, grateful for the peace. And then at 11 I take her to do her business (how about if I call it ‘do her bidness’ and pretend I’m hard? That look totally works for me, right???) and then she goes straight into her crate and to sleep for the night.

And this bit isn’t puppy related – but the bowl I just ate my lunch from, at work? It’s a football bowl…with the team name Fulham written on the side. And then on the other side, amongst some soccer balls (what do brits call them, football balls? That seems weird) and various other, much weird, decorative designs, there are the words “The Cottagers”. Seriously? Seriously? Is that their motto or mascot or whatever? If so, it’s the best one ever. *snort*

Growing Pains

You know how there’s that book, what to expect when you’re expecting, that covers all the bizarre biological side effects of pregnancy like random intense itchiness or cravings for watermelon hamburgers? Well I need a what to expect when you’re raising a puppy book. Because Buffy is weird!

First of all, she has way, way too much skin! It’s like…you can pick up whole fistfuls without her even noticing.  Second, on Friday, she just decided not to eat at all at lunch or dinner. I have heard that not eating is very worrying with dogs, so I was ready to be completely paranoid on Saturday morning…but she woke up and ate her breakfast without the slightest bit of distraction. Sometimes she very clearly needs to go to the bathroom…and other times she just seems to squat with no warning. Sometimes she goes in the grass in front of our flat with no problem, and other times she goes absolutely mental from the moment she sees the grass until the moment I drag her away.  When are her baby teeth going to fall out? And she’s very skinny – how skinny is too skinny? Is she drinking enough water? Is she eating too many treats? And is her skin growing at a different rate than the rest of her body? Is that why suddenly she has handfuls to spare?

Basically I just want a portable, pocket veterinarian who will tell me in an authoritative and calming tone of voice that Buffy is fine, that all this is normal, and who incidentally won’t judge me for asking questions as stupid as why has she got so much skin.  Anyone got one of those?

A good day

 Today we practiced coming in the park.

No not like that, get your mind out of the gutter!

All of us trouped off to the park at 9am, and we set up a little diamond formation, divvied up the treats and called Buffy over one by one. She ran from person to person like the adorable and sweet little bouncy puppy she is, her ears flapping and her front paws seemingly going at a completely different rhythm from her back paws (sidenote: My flatmate today told me that Icelandic horses have different kinds of walks to all other horses – they have two extra speeds. One speed is in between trot and gallop, where the horse’s front legs go at a gallop but their back legs go at a trot. Apparently this is a very smooth ride for the rider, but to me I imagine it looks something like Buffy’s hilarious uneven sprint).

It was slightly nerve wracking at first because she would run over to me when I said come, but then she’d go off in a wide circle around me, and visions of my parents’ dog (who I once had to chase for a half an hour and only caught about 100 feet from a highway) flew through my head. But she always came back, and soon we had her sitting and even staying before we gave her a treat. She even manged to go to my flatmate when he called despite the distraction of a large dog who’d come over to sniff her. It was pretty much a complete success. She even peed on the grass, which is the first time she’s managed to do that at all.

So far – nice day.

Buffy does the bedroom

Well we gave in. We let her into our bed.

The cuteness! It was just overwhelming! We couldn’t defend ourselves against its advances!

A couple of quick pics…her hilarious ears obviously added intensely to our inability to say no…

Forbidden couch-shaped fruit

We’ve been trying to get Buffy to stop growling when we try to move her on the couch. It’s such a weird thing, she’s not an aggressive dog, but when she’s on the couch and we want to move her – even move her from one person to another or one position to another but still on the couch – she gives us a very warning growl. I’m not sure where it came from, but I know it’s not good news…so we asked about it when Flatmate and I went to the obedience class a couple sundays ago, and we were told that we shouldn’t let her on the couch. Well…we like her on the couch! It means that we don’t have to sit on the floor, which, let me tell you, while being carpetted is still HARD! and she tends to calm down on the couch…much more quickly than anywhere else.  So we decided on a compromise.  Buffy is only allowed up on the couch if we invite her up there.

Well that was harder to enforce than we realized! It seemed like as soon as we decided we didn’t want her on the couch, she decided she wanted to be on the couch at every second!  And as Girlfriend realized, any time we weren’t paying enough attention to her, she seems to have learned that she just has to jump up on the couch, and then we’ll start paying attention to her by shoooing her off. But how do you get her off the couch if you don’t shoo her off??

My newest approach is to pick her up and hold her in the air until she stops growling, then put her down, then immediately pick her up again and repeat process. She seems to growl less with each repetition, so that seems like progress…but there is something immediately funny if you happen into my living room to see me just pick up the puppy, hold her in the air and then put her back down, again and again and again…

Top Five

Top Five Reasons

that it’s hard raising a puppy in an apartment

5) The obvious… We don’t have any back yard. To be fair some flats do have gardens, and in fact ours does have a communal garden. Which is blocked off by a massive metal gate. And several locks. We do have a little balcony, and if you’ve read the post about my first plans to potty train you know that I was planning on having Buffy pee in a litter box filled with soil on the balcony. But this turned out to be quite the idiotic idea, and since the balcony sides have holes in them that Buffy could easily jump through and really hurt herself, that’s a no for the balcony. So far there’s not been any outdoor space where Buffy’s been off the leash, because there’s nothing that we could secure or that’s ours.

4) The carpets… I suppose luckily, we don’t rent, which means that all the carpet pee so far has no bearing on security deposits or any such. Of course the carpet was already pretty stained and we’re already planning to put in bamboo flooring (cuz it’s AWESOME. cheaper than wood and offers license to pat yourself on the back for being environmentally friendly in your conspicuous consumption…), so I don’t have to feel too bad about that…but yeah, if we weren’t in a small London apartment I’d hope there would be at least some space we could use that was uncarpeted, so that we wouldn’t have to deal with the trouble.

3) The distractions…. Getting Buffy to pee outside was a challenge. Getting her to continue to pee outside is also a challenge. Because regularly, mid sniff, she’s distracted by a bus going past on the road, or a motorcycle gunning the engine, or a gaggle of school girls or a stroller or a anything, she can be a distracted by a leaf for goodness sake – but adding in all the distractions of a semi-main road plus a bus stop outside the house, and you get a very distractable pee-er.

2) Giving up ain’t hard to do… When Buffy is whining or barking incessently in her crate, there’s little I would rather do than let her out and make her stop. But I’m very careful…every day, every minute that I’m home…that I NEVER let her out of her crate when she’s whining. My parents’ dog whines from the second you put him in to the second you let him out…unless, that is, you leave the house, in which case he stops immediately. Because he’s learned that if he just whines long enough, if someone’s there to hear him, he’ll get let out. Buffy, I said to myself the very first time she whined, Buffy is definitely not going to be like that. She will love her crate, and she will know from day one that she can’t whine to get her way. Well she may not be perfect, but she’s pretty good…which doesn’t mean she doesn’t still whine! She wants to be the center of attention, or at least hang out near to it, and when she goes into her crate she sometimes likes to make it known to us that she’s not very happy. But I resist. Because I’m supposed to. But boy do I NOT need another motivation TO let her out! And since I live in an apartment, everytime she starts to make a real racket, the first thing I think is…SHH! THE NEIGHBORS! I live in fear that one of my neighbors will complain to – well I’m not sure who you even complain to about these things, horrible evil public-private management company I guess, but SOMEone – and then they’ll make me give Buffy away. So all that guilt and worry just adds motivation to my desire to let her out of her crate RIGHT AWAY…and makes it harder with every whine to do what I know I need to and ignore.

1) The shame! Because she’s not quite fully trained yet, she’s still peeing right in front of the apartment, in a little driveway/circle drive type thing. You’d've thought that pee, being yellow, would be invisible on black pavement…but you’d be wrong! When it’s not raining, Buffy’s humble little pee marks, signs of such accomplishment for us, dot the drive. And since it’s on the tiniest bit of an incline (I’d never noticed before this), those pee stains are generally long, running streams of urine making their way from one side of the drive to the other. Luckily they’re not yellow, but just a darker black. What? I feel like saying, everytime I see a neighbor, They’re obviously oil stains! From…the…15 or so cars….that have parked here…in this tiny drive…where cars aren’t allowed…in the last week…(and of course there’s the embarassment when they walk by and I’m in my pajamas and a coat, standing with a plastic bag in one hand and her leash in the other, saying ‘Eliminate! Eliminate!’ over and over to my poor incomprehending puppy…)

Don’t worry, he’s friendly!

After a nice long weekend during which Buffy slept until at least 7am EVERY MORNING, I’m back!

We love the park. We go to the park everyday, and it’s a lovely park – everything a puppy could want, from grassy hills to big old trees to lakes to rivers to paths. And dogs. Lots and lots of other dogs.

I’ve said before that Buffy’s a bit timid but getting better, and this is definitely true. But I wish the other dogs would get better too! Because even though you’re only meant to take your dog’s leash off in the park if you have full control of him or her, owners regularly come running (or just strolling) after, as their dog sprints toward Buffy and sniffs the crap out of her/looks about to try and eat her. My very favorite is a shout from about 50 feet away (where their dog has dashed over to us from), “Don’t worry, he’s friendly!”

I love this. Because really, you’re only shouting that if you haven’t managed to get your dog to stay with you, so you’re basically shouting “Don’t worry, I can’t control him! But he’s friendly!” And basically they’re somehow putting their failings as a dog owner on me, because they’re effectively making me into a bad guy if I try to blog their 100lb dog from picking up my 6lb dog by the scruff of her neck and scaring the bejeezus out of her. Sorry, but my first priority is making sure that my dog has the best experience of meeting new dogs as possible – so if that means that after 30 seconds of semi-calm sniffing your dog starts to get a bit too frenzied and starts jumping, I have to put out my arm and block your dog from my pup, then that’s what it means! Of course, any time I do that, the owner immediately gets defensive and starts repeating how friendly their dog is, as if since their “friendly” I should let them behave badly and scare my puppy. Ugh!  I’m no perfect dog owner, far from it, but at least I’m trying…and since Buffy is nowhere near controlled/well behaved enough to be let off the leash, I keep her on the leash. It’s not actually my responsibility to make sure that the environment doesn’t contain any small puppies to tempt your dog away from your side – it’s your responsibility to keep your dog at your side or in your control no matter what!

Whew! That was a fun rant! I feel better. Also a bit self-righteous. But better!

Buffy the Superdog!

Yesterday, Buffy didn’t once pee in her crate! And when we were out on our walk this morning, I saw all these badly behaved dogs pulling their owners down the road, and barking like mad, and there was little buffy, walking like a cartoon puppy with her little paws dancing along the sidewalk…ok, done that! Training finished, accomplished, completed, what have you…I win, hooray!

Ok maybe not.

But it is awfully nice to have days like that! When her cuteness vastly overwhelms her pain-in-the-butt-ness, and I can’t think of anything I’d rather be doing than snuggling with her on the couch, and I amuse myself greatly by turning her into a rocket ship and an airplane while we play, and like all good superdogs she leaps over tall buildings with a single bound…

Tomorrow I’m sure will be back to the regular day of half panic/half cautious amusement but today I’m reveling in a happy, happy-making puppy.

Buffy’s Life Serial

No theme for today’s post, just some random bits of puppy life.

This morning Buffy officially got over the time change (which I’d been LOVING…somehow going to bed at 11 and getting up at 6:30 was so much better than going to bed at 10 and getting up at 5:30) and woke up at 5:45 today, with a nice little puddle in her crate when I got there. I still can’t tell why/when this peeing is happening! Is it that she just can’t hold it one second longer? This seems a bit unlikely, because as soon as I get in there and pick her up she stops peeing (if she was at the time).  Is it because she’s so excited she doesn’t remember to hold it at every second and a bit sneaks out? This seems likely, but why is she getting so excited in the minute or two it takes me to get into the room and get her out of the crate that she pees a whole puddle worth of pee?  Le Sigh.  Though I should just be very happy that she obviously gets the whole idea of house training at the moment, and is almost exclusively peeing outside!

I’m currently trying to think of how I can get buffy to let me know she needs to pee. Currently, she’s just going in her pee pen (no more newspapers or puppy pads in there) and either sniffing around like she’s about to pee (at which point I rush her out to the front of our house) or sits quietly and looks at me from inside her pen, at which point I rush her outside as well! But we don’t actually want to keep a 2×1 foot pen in our living room indefinitely to serve as a pee button for us, so I’m thinking of this plan: laminate a large piece of paper that says “My name is Buffy and I need to PEE!!!”. Place it on the floor in the pee pen. When she sits on it, take her straight out. When she sits somewhere else, move her to the mat and then take her straight out. When she sniffs, tell her to sit on the mat, then take her straight out. Then get rid of the pen and just have the mat?

This morning in the park we saw a dead rat. It was horrific. I don’t know how it died (they’re doing some renovations in the park so it probably got flushed out of a nice hiding spot, and then…well, there was blood, I saw that before I ran away!) but as soon as I saw it I was sure Buffy would be totally interested in this and she’d want to eat it/play with it/make me throw up…but she didn’t even notice it!

On Sunday we went to our second obedience class and it was a lot more reassuring than the first…still obviously doing tons of stuff wrong, but this time it felt more like I had a handle on what we were doing wrong and we were trying to deal with it. Also, this one wasn’t just for puppies, so it made me realize…this might be hard but how much harder would it be with a rescue dog!  And whenever I see parents with an tantruming toddler, I think – how much harder would this be with a baby!  And then I feel better. Schadenfreude, thou art the friend of the new puppy owner.

PicSpam!

Too tired to write a real post today (thank you Buffy!) so I thought…time for picspam!