Our dog the cottonball

So we had a very large snowstorm recently--two feet here in Springfield. While I was very sick, Anne was a total trooper and went out and shovelled quite a bit during the storm so that on Sunday we only had to do a bit of work to be ready to leave our neighborhood when we got the chance. Zeldie had seen snow once before, but this time was very different. She absolutely loved playing it in for a while. At about noon, when the snow was about a foot, we went out with our neighbor Julie to the tennis courts to let Zeldie play around. She was running around, digging and eating the snow while we threw snow on her to get her riled up. This picture is from the end of the playtime, where the snow was almost completely covering her.

The problem arose later after the snow ended that evening. By that time, the show was up to her head. She didn't like that quite as much, as she had to essentially plow through the snow. She sorta crowd-surfed/hopped through the snow, which took quite a bit of effort. One big issue for her was that she couldn't find a place to poop. She didn't mind peeing in the snow, but she really wanted a piece of grond to poop on, and of course with two feet of snow everywhere, she couldn't smell that the ground was down there. She was walking with her head down sniffing for a good 10 minutes. Finally, on the middle of Hunter Village Drive, which is normally a fairly busy road next to our condo, she did her business. What a relief I am sure for her...

Nurse Zeldie

So I had two and half weeks off from work, with Anne having a solid two weeks...I was pretty sick on the Thursday and Friday before Christmas, and then it snowed a South Bend/Oswego amount of snow. While sick, Zeldie did not leave my side. I think she thought it was a lot of fun that her dad was home during the day, but when I wasn't playing with her and just laying on the couch she decided to join me. I pulled the the Ottoman close to me and she slept next to me with her body on the couch and her legs on the Ottoman. She was very distressed when I got up to get something to drink--she looked at me, let out a big sigh, and then rearranged herself deeper into the warm blanket.

We have a dog that thinks she is a person for sure...

Zeldie Horak-Litter Patrol

Cesar Milan says that all dogs should have a job. This helps them to feel well adjusted and therefore they have fewer behavior problems. Although Zeldie does not have the extreme behavior problems Cesar deals with, just the regular ones, chewing, jumping up. We have been contemplating what Zeldie's job might be so that she can fulfill her potential as a canine in this world.

This past week, we bought her a harness. This was because of Erin's suggestion while were were visiting her for Thanksgiving. It has been a wonder. Had I known the benefits of walking the dog with a harness, I never would have gotten a collar. In any case, the collar is a pretty deep Raspberry pink color, which I will admit was a bit difficult for David to swallow at first. But the only other color in the size and type we wanted was a steel gray which he and I both admitted made Zeldie look like a boy dog. When he looked at it that way, he perked up a bit about the color. David is, more than anything, willing to be the person he needs to be to do what is best for his family and for that, I find him to be truly incredible.

While it was a bit of adjustment for her at first, she was biting at it, while we were walking, she was peppy and bright almost as if she was proud of her new harness. It occurred to me she looked a little bit like one of those crossing guards with the vests on. So, on that walk, when she sniffed and sniffed and sniffed until she found her piece of litter and then looked back at me like she had found the pot of gold, rather than say, no, "off", I said "Thank you, Zeldie Horak, Litter Patrol,"and took the litter from her and added it to the deposit we had already made in the poop bag. And this went on with every piece of litter we found. Thus, Zeldie has now found her purpose in life.

Bizzaro Zeldie

We went to Erin's house for Thanksgiving this year. We were very excited that Zeldie would get the chance to spend three whole days with four other dogs including one Irish Terrier that is only a week older than her. I was a bit nervous about how she would behave so we spent a couple of weeks beforehand focusing intensely on "off" (the counters). But as it turned out, the other dogs proved to be quite a distraction for her, more so than what was going on in the kitchen or with the people for most of the time.

We did come to realize though, that Zeldie has absolutely no self-regulation. On Thursday she spent the entire day playing with Sam and long after all of the other dogs had fallen asleep on the floor, she was still wandering around seemingly not sure what to do with herself until she finally fell, a full 12 hours after we had let her out of her crate that morning, over exhausted on the floor.

We were also completely amused that Zeldie seemed reluctant to do her business in the backyard. This was perhaps the part of the trip that David and I were looking forward to the most, waking up and letting her out into the big fenced in backyard in the morning. No trudging around in the cold and near dark with a poop bag in hand. However, as it turned out, Zeldie is definitely a city dog. On a leash is how she learned to potty and on a leash is how she prefers to potty. It seems to her the backyard was an extension of the house and unless we left her out there for hours on end playing with the other dogs, she wouldn't potty and she never once pooped back there.

I think the thing that was most incredible was watching Zeldie and Bailey together. It seemed as different as they were in stature and looks, they had a lot of the same habits. I noticed how they both scratched their nose the same way with their long back leg which I have never seen another dog do in my life. They both loved to give kisses the same way too. David kept saying it was "Bizzaro Zeldie" like that episode of Seinfeld. In fact they were so much alike that we had a hard time convincing PJ at one point that there were actually two of them there until we showed him the two dogs together. One thing they did do very differently lay down to take a nap. Bailey circled her spot and then laid down tucking herself into a neat little Bailey ball. Zeldie, on the other hand, fell over in her spot sprawled on her back limbs askew and snout thrown back. She's is a wonder.

Above you'll find some video of Bailey and Zeldie together so that you can see if you can tell them apart. At times, it was difficult for us too.

Seven Months of Puppy Love

Zeldie turned seven months old this week. It was a shock to realize that she was that that old and that we have now had her five months. The past three months have just flown by. We were just asking each other when the last time she even had an accident in the house was because we can't remember. She has definitely outgrown some of her puppy behaviors and has grown into some others. We are working hard on teaching her "off" and "heel". She seems to be adjusting fine to the long hours in the crate, even if she has to do six hours. We didn't think she was growing much and then we looked back at some pictures of her and realized that she had gotten a lot shaggier in the past couple of months even if she hadn't gotten much bigger. If she keeps changing in the next five months as much as she has the past five months, we can only guess what she will be up to next.

Dinner Time

Zeldie has always liked to play with her food bowl. She will often tip it over and push it around. Tonight she did something new with it. We happened to catch it on video. It amused us so we thought we would share it.

October is a busy month

We've been working very hard this month, and it's been a bit difficult to keep up for the past few weeks. We enjoyed our time time in San Francisco, but when you go away for a few days, everything from laundry to work emails to grocery shopping seem to take a long time to get back on schedule, especially when you add in parent information nights and classes and swim practices. Poor Zeldie was in her crate quite a bit this past week as we were both out of the house Monday night and Tuesday night, I was out of the house Wednesday night with practice and then met Anne at the condo association meeting after that, and then Thursday we needed to get some shopping done.

However, yesterday, on Halloween, we got up and took her to Rock Creek Park to the "Mutt Masquarade" Parade. It was a whole lot of fun to see a couple of hundred dogs dressed up in costumes. There was probably a two mile walk with all of these dogs, and also some booths set up for various dog products. We had bought a pirate costume for Zeldie at Petsmart, but it is too small and she was very much tugging on the dangly parts. So, we just put her ND jersey on her, but that might be too small now too. Shiloh came along as well, and is growing quite a bit. Those two get along well, which is great if we ever need to dogsit for one another. There was a man and woman there who had three Irish Terriers, which is the first time we've seen another Irish Terrier. They were very cute and friendly and calm, so hopefully Zeldie at some point will be as calm as them.

Zeldie is showing pretty good progress towards being a fully adult dog. First of all, she's figured out how to show she needs to go out. For a while she would just sit by the door and wait for us to realize she was there. Now, she's doing two or three very audible whines while walking near the door and then sitting with body touching the door when we see her. We haven't had an accident in the house in quite a while, so hopefully we're out of the peeing in the house stage. She also has a fun little trick where we'll have something in our hands. We tell her to sit and stay, and then walk down the hall and throw it in a room. We'll say "go find it," and she'll run and put her mouth on the object.

We're getting ready for Anne to leave for a few days to go to a conference, so it'll just be Daddy and Zeldie for Thursday through Sunday. But, I'm going to be coaching both Saturday and Sunday mornings, so we'll have a good time hanging out each afternoon and evening. Maybe we'll even have a campout on the floor in the living room...