Chompers

Zeldie's losing her puppy teeth and replacing them with her permanent ones, as seen in the photo here. While this means she is growing up even more, it also means that she is chewing on lots and lots of things, but not quite as bad as some people tried to lead us to believe. All of the sudden we'll see some small blood spots on her bone or wherever, and we know that she has just or is just about to lose another tooth.

Adventures of a Single Mommy

Zeldie and Mommy (taken by Mommy)

David went to a wedding this weekend in Indianapolis and I was left to take care of Zeldie all by myself. This meant on Friday, I had to get myself up, get the dog up, walk her, feed her, take the garbage out, get ready for work, make my lunch and still get out of the house on time. I was doubtful all this would happen. But, well, wonders will never cease because I did indeed make it to work on time, early in fact. When I got home, I got a very nice note from the dogwalker saying they had a nice walk and Zeldie had been pleasant. I was relieved to hear this because Zeldie had not spent the whole day in the crate since the first week we had her when we had to leave her with Tiffani and go out of town. I was glad though, that Tiffani reminded me of that week otherwise I would probably have been a bit more distracted at work on Friday, if she had not.

Saturday went relatively smoothly, although she cried more than usual when I put her in the crate. When evening came, which is generally her most active time, she was even more riled than usual and I began to think she was showing her first signs of anxiety at David's absence. I was also beginning to realize that either David has taken the role of the alpha dog or I am a big softie because it began to seem like I could not get Zeldie to listen to a single command I gave. I had trouble keeping her off the counters while I was cooking. I had trouble keeping her off the table while I was eating. I had trouble keeping her off the couch while I was watching TV. I spent the entire evening standing in front of the TV trying to distract her from jumping on the couch by throwing her toy and playing tug. It was a long couple of hours.

The next morning, I woke up with a headache. Zeldie was ready to go. This is when I believe what I think was her anxiety kicked into high gear. She was nearly impossible to keep off the couch. She was nearly impossible to keep quiet. After one particularly long barking fit, I heard a pounding on the ceiling, which I am convinced was my neighbor pounding on her floor to signal me to keep the dog quiet. As the pain in my head escalated to a migraine, I felt like a failure. I felt like I had failed at taking care of Zeldie. I felt like I had failed at being a good neighbor. I felt like I had failed at taking care of myself and getting my paper done. I was worn out and it was at least 10 hours until David was going to be home. I didn't think I was going to make it. I did the only thing that seemed logical to me at the moment, I called him and cried.

David told me to take my migraine medication and put the dog in the crate so I could get some rest. I cried harder. David told me to take my migraine medication and put the dog in the crate so that I could get some rest and work on my paper. I cried and cried some more. David told me to take my migraine medication and put the dog in the crate so that I could get some rest, work on my paper and take care of the dog later. She would be fine in the crate, he assured me.

Sure enough, David was right. And now I know that when you have to take care of a little dog all by yourself, you can't be so frivolous with yourself and wait until the migraine kicks in and you are in pain to take your medicine. You have to take care of yourself and take it right away. And I think maybe, that is just a good thing to learn to do whether you have a little dog to take care of or not.

Losing Her Head

Zeldie lost her Kong (if you're looking for gifts, Kong stuffers are always good!) underneath our buffett, and I took this picture.

Today was the first day that I truly thought that she is looking like a dog, not just a puppy. Her snout is definitely fully grown, and her ears have now taken their more natural position. All of the show dogs have their ears glued forward, but we don't want that so they pretty much fall to the side. It looks like she's always in a gust of wind. We like how distinctive the ears are. She's also about to get spayed next Thursday, so our little girl's really growing up. She'll have a collar on for at least a week, and we're pretty sure that she's going to hate every second of it. The vet says we need to keep her calm for that week....I would love a suggestion of how to do that. She can almost get things off of the top of the bar in our kitchen when she jumps, and we're supposed to keep her calm? Hmmm...

Exploring Upwards

We are both so impressed at how big Zeldie is getting and how much she is able to do now. She is getting to the point where she can really start exploring our house vertically, not just horizontally. Her front paws and mouth can now definitely reach the table top (she almost brought a plate of food down on top of her head yesterday) or the countertops, which have a lot of apparently good smelling things. Of course, this increases our anxiety anytime that she is out of her crate, but she also seems to have the (not) peeing in the house down pretty good. As long as we're taking her on pretty regular walks, she seems good. She has even started to sit by the door sometimes when she needs to go outside, which is great.

12 lbs, 13 weeks and counting

We took Zeldie to the vet this week and she was 12 lbs. She has put on a third of her body weight in the month that we have had her. The vet said she was entering her teenage days, which I'm not really sure how I feel about as in my jobs I am surrounded by teenagers all the time. Just another one to add to the crazy I guess. Her new favorite game is to run into our bedroom and get behind the bed and then crawl under and hide. She will be too big for this soon, we think, but it’s very cute if not a little annoying. It is amazing how quickly she can crawl to the other side of the bed though while pretty much her whole belly touching the carpet. To get out, she essentially has to turn on her side and do a movement something of a cross between a waterbug and sidestroke. Very funny.

She also graduated from puppy kindergarten this week. The instructor said she had improved a lot from the first night when she needed remediation--which is tough for two people involved with Gifted Education. But, we are teachers and so we did what we do best, which is teach.

The best part, however, is that she has had four accident free days in the house and one almost accident free day in the house. As we go through the process of training the puppy, I have realized with even more clarity the importance of consistency and boundaries. Setting boundaries with the puppy is a lot easier than it is with other people in my life—students, swimmers, family, etc. The puppy, of course, doesn't take it personally, or blame my wife for the choices I am making. She just lives happily and our relationship is thriving within the safety of the limitations we provide for her through the consistency of the boundaries we set. In fact, she is better off because of it and our relationship will continue to progress inside of the limitations. I see it like putting lane ropes in the pool for swim practice. It may be a bit more fun and free flowing to just swim wherever in the pool, but by putting the ropes in and giving her the way to be successful, we can get a lot more accomplished.

Stand as a Lighthouse

The reason we went to New York a couple of weekends ago was for Justin's graduation from high school. We all got to go to the Egg in Albany, a performing arts center that looks exactly as it's name implies. It's quite a strange building from the outside, and according to Travis there are no right angles anywhere in the main performance venue, making for very good acoustics (Travis is a gold mind of pretty much worthless building knowledge).

Zeldie was a champ when it came to all the travelling and meeting people. She was definitely the hit of the graduation party, meeting everyone and then falling asleep for a couple of hours on the floor/my lap/Willie's lap. We stayed in an all-suites hotel, which was great for travel with a puppy. We were a bit concerned with how much she was whining the first night, but we didn't want her to run free; therefore, on our king sized bed, we put Zeldie, in her crate, on the bed with us. Very silly indeed, but we felt better about making her travel so much that day.

It was quite a quick trip, but sometimes those produce the deepest thoughts. As we congregated after the ceremony, we were taking pictures in all sorts of different combinations. I really enjoyed just how happy everyone was in that moment, and how happy (almost) everyone was to take pictures. The family that was at the ceremony was certainly a blended family, with last names of Umina, Maselli, Rafferty, Horak, and Furman were all represented. Anne's father was very insistent that Willie, me, everyone was in a variety of pictures. The wholehearted acceptence of the people that are important in everyone's lives there is truly the definition of family. We all have differences, disagreements and issues with one another, but a family supports each other and truly wants to grow with each other as our lives develop. A family is what you make of it, with whomever will cherish who you are in the present time and all that makes up who you are. Those that are supportive of who you are and what is important to you is what will make up our family.

A Man and His Dog

It's been quite a busy couple of week, so we're taking a bit of a nap. Since the last posts, Zeldie has stayed with our friend Tiffani as Anne and I attended my grandfather's funeral in Texas, and then two days later we drove with her and Willie up to Albany for Justin's graduation. Zeldie did so well for the almost 10 hour car ride up and the 9.5 hour car ride back (except for the last hour on the ride up, for which she was quite cranky). Today, the whole family (Anne included) took a nap on the floor for a well deserved rest.

She's doing very well in puppy kindergarten, and she is now one of the bigger dogs in the class. She plays very nicely with most of the dogs, and is certainly the most distinctive dog in the class. We haven't seen another terrier yet. I guess the reputation as "terrors" keeps people away from getting them. We love training Zeldie, but that's probably the teacher in both of us that loves the challenge.

She's quite a spectacle wherever we go. I was walking her a couple of days ago, and someone drove by, stopped, and walked back to us to ask about her breed, etc. Everyone that comes near her wants to pet her, and of course she loves that. For the first time today, we actually ran into someone who knew what breed she is before we said anything.

Our second vet visit is tomorrow, for more puppy shots and another checkup. Hopefully the vet will be a bit more positive than the first visit.