Avoiding the Snow

Mia has a teeny tiny brain, or that's what I'm always telling her, but she does seem to understand the snow.  This morning we woke up to 7 inches of snow covering everything outside.  Abe shoveled off the deck and then a small area at the bottom of the stairs for her bathroom.  Mia comes from the south, so she finds snow very intriguing and it's sort of like a love/hate thing she has.  At first it's so cool and new and exciting and she'll pounce around in it, and then a couple minutes later she realizes that it's actually cold and she wants to run right back inside.  This was the first weekend day in recent memory (probably ever) that she didn't ask to be walked after eating and using the bathroom.  I think after she realized that there was snow out there, she wanted nothing to do with going back outside again for the rest of the day.  Instead she snoozed for most of the day in lazy-dog mode.  We were both relieved to now have to listen to her whining for her walk, or to have to trudge outside in the snow for her.  The roads out here don't have sidewalks and they are more narrow than we'd like with the snow out there.  One day of no walk won't kill her, tomorrow she will be back at daycare to do some indoor playing!

Free At Last

This morning we took our little princess to a nearby baseball field to try free ranging.  We thought it may be a good idea to experiment with letting her off leash to play fetch with a tennis ball.  This was our very first time doing this outside of the yard, so we knew that it wasn't going to go perfectly or anything.  She lasted about 10 minutes playing with us before she caught the scent of something more fun and went bounding into the woods.  She loves loves Loves running off leash, it's probably her favorite thing in the world.  Luckily, she came right back, but after that we decided it was enough for the first time and also we didn't want her to think that was Ok to just run away so we slapped the leash back on.  She did pretty well, and got a little exercise chasing the ball but we can't have her running loose into the woods or people's yards.  I'm not sure how we can train her to ignore her natural instincts and chase after other animals or scents.  This is probably where the remote trainer either works beautifully or fails miserably.

Gifting and Toys

I think that our doggie daycare Christmas gifting actually worked.  For the first time since Mia started going there, she was sent home with a report card that noted things like: how she played, her general mood for the day, her activity level, bowel movements, and then just side notes.  It was noted that she got a scratch on her nose but it was disinfected and treated.  It really was just a small scratch, so I'm pretty surprised that anyone even noticed because she gets little things like that all the time just from playing crazy and other dog's nails aren't always cut short - and like they never make a point of mentioning it.  She also got a doggie daycare nylon drawstring baggie with their logo on it.  I know that all the full time daycare dogs got one this year, but we've never gotten gifts from them before - we've never gotten anything but large daycare bills, so that was pretty nice!  

Seems like Mia is in a pretty festive mood these days.  She loves playing with her new stuffed toys.  We generally don't allow her to have stuffed toys because they eventually get ripped apart and eaten if we don't pay close attention and that kind of stuff can mess a dog up.  We did pay close attention this time, and although she had no idea what we wanted her to do with the stuffed reindeer at first she figured it out after a few days and then it became her new BFF until the stuffing came pouring out.  We had to take it away but then replaced it with a stuffing less crocodile from Abe's dad.  I think she loves it just as much as the reindeer, and she will really love anything that gets us to chase her around the office (one of the only carpeted surfaces).  She loves new things!

Pass the Remote

Does anyone have any experience with remote training collar training their dogs?  Don't judge us.  Mia is a wonderful dog, she just needs to learn to be more obedient especially if we are going to have a baby in the house.  I can't be chasing her around the yard or having her bark like a mad woman at people anymore in public or at home.  Since the vibrating anti-bark collar works well, we thought that this remote option may work well too.  There are several settings so after you get to a certain point in obedience, you just hit the tone button and the dog will stop the stupid shit and you don't even need to send a shock or vibration or anything.  Much like, I just need to show Mia the bark collar and she'll stop barking, I don't need to put it on her.

She's gotten better with the barking, but worse with the exploration of the world outside of the house.  It would be great if she could learn to be off leash on our property.  It would also be great if she didn't bark at people during daycare drop off and pickup anymore - I'm sure she has the title of Scariest Mutt Ever.  Speaking of daycare, we just got the entire staff there presents for Christmas.  We also just gave our very awesome dog walker a big Christmas gift too.  The idea behind these gestures is completely selfish.  We want to bribe all these people to treat our dog extra special.  This will work right?  I'm pretty sure that it does, if even just for a couple of days!

Milestones: welcome to the teenie bopper years

Good Morning from the couch.  Excuse our bed head.
When we first got our little bundle of crazy, she was just that - completely and totally out of control.  We tried training her at home, we sent her away to boot camp, and then we tried more.  We didn't go over the top or anything, and sure we both work full time, so there was only so many opportunities we had to get her into situations to train (weekends mainly).  I am pretty sure that she just has a rebellious personality.  The good news is that I'm pretty sure that we've entered the dog teenage years and she seems much less crazy than she ever did a year ago.  She's willing to leave my side and go take a nap in her favorite spot for hours at a time by herself.  That is probably nothing major to anyone else who owns a dog, but it's a gigantic milestone for our dog.  She can know that I or both of us are home, and she may still choose to go do her own thing - it blows our minds.  Usually on the weekend, she's bugging us to take her for a walk sometime between 8-9am.  She'll just sit and stare at us and whine, it's super annoying.  These days, it's like she wants to go for her walk but she's much more willing to wait on it and doesn't necessarily make a huge deal of it.  Everything is a little less dramatic than it used to be I guess.  This Mia is much easier to handle than the younger version of herself, that's for sure.

Sometimes I wonder if having a second dog would make her better or worse.  Would we have 2 crazy dogs with weird habits, or would the other dog distract her Mia out of her oddness?  When other dogs are over, Mia doesn't do any backwards walking, she's too busy playing.  Would having a second dog mean that they'd play together and amuse each other or would it mean that they would just sort of be 2 dogs who live in the same house?  Either way, I'm not ready to add a second dog to the family yet.  Having Mia plus a baby, plus a new puppy is just way more than I can handle and honestly we can't afford it since doggie daycare is something that we need since we're gone all day.  If I found a way to work in my house, then I'd certainly consider another pup, but definitely not until then.  Someone needs to be around all the time, otherwise it just doesn't make sense for us.  Mia will just have to continue entertaining herself until then.

Wish List: Bones

Eagerly waiting for Santa.
10 minutes later she barked at the poinsettia.  Santa doesn't visit barking dogs Mia!

Run! It's a Mutt!

I picked up Mia today at daycare, and it was a day like any other.  There were actually less dogs in crates waiting for pickup than usual, it must have been a slow day.  Another dog came out with her - must have been one of her buddies since she is a "special dog" and isn't part of the general public of friendly happy dogs.  So I say Hi to the boy, say Hi to Mia, and we headed towards the door.  Right before Mia got to the door, it suddenly opened and two women in Army uniforms were standing there and they FREAKED out when Mia started barked at them.  It was unfortunate.  She was startled by their sudden appearance, she only barks about 50% of the time at people when we are leaving daycare, which is a lot less than a year ago but still it's not such a good percentage.  It was bad this time though because she was caught so off guard.  The women were So Scared, like it was as if a monster started to attack them.  It is the same reaction that I would have if someone pointed a loaded shotgun to my face, or if a zombie suddenly came running towards me at full speed, or if a shark suddenly appeared and I was snorkeling in the middle of the ocean.  The looks on their faces plus the defensive body movements didn't do anything to calm Mia down.  They ran out of the gated area and let us go by, but they were still completely scared of my dog and may have peed their pants.

I've never come across dog owners that were so afraid of dogs, I mean usually if Mia barks at another dog owner, they're all like whatever.  I wanted to stay and see what kind of dog they came back out with, I bet it was a tiny little 5 pound thing that can barely be considered a dog.

If Mia was trying to be the most vicious dog on the block today, then Mission Accomplished.

Scary Things

Mia is deathly afraid of this super cool elephant balloon.  She avoids going anywhere near it and/or barks at it like it might come attack her.  I had to move it in order to get her to walk down the hallway to the garage this morning.  Something about balloons that she really hates, maybe that they move...?

Over the weekend, we had many guests in the house.  She did her usual "I'm going to bark at you for 1-3 minutes and then I will want to be your friend" routine with the adults.  With the kids, she was her usual asshole self where she feels the need to bark at them on and off repeatedly.  Luckily, she is still afraid of her bark collar.  All we have to do is show it to her and she will stop the bad behavior for a bit.  I mean, it doesn't stop her for good, so we have to keep waving it around through the day but it works really well considering there is no battery in it.  We did put it on her a few times, and she would put her tail between her legs and go sulk in a corner somewhere.  The collar is probably the last thing in the world that she would ever want near her, even more than this balloon.  She did a really good job overall though.  It's not often that we have guests in the house.