I started through the living room and just happened to look toward the entertainment center this afternoon to find this! This is the first time Molly and Amber have gotten on the dog bed together. They didn’t last long, once I went quickly back to the office to grab the camera, but I got two pictures.
I knew that they would eventually tolerate one another, but I was really surprised to see this. I’m still grinning. :0)
Filed under Amazing Animals, Family
the odyssey online
This, of course, isn’t Amber, but our dog might have done the same thing this hot doggie did to cool off. Amber’s pool is about twice as large as this one, so it’s hard for me to get the old water out before scrubbing the pool.
I played ‘throw the totally chewed up cloth toy remnants” with Amber this morning. She only wants to play tug of war with them, and I won’t do that, but I figured out a way to give her some fun and exercise. I throw one. She goes and gets it, brings it back, but won’t give it to me. I hold up another. She wants that, so she drops the first one. I throw the second one and pick up the first. Sometimes we get three into the rotation.
I then took her for a walk outside. We walked all over the top of the ridge line, with Amber running down and exploring further down the slopes. She was wearing her shock collar. This allow her a lot more freedom that being on the end of a leash. She readily reacts to a warning from me with the remote, plus she gets a treat when she comes back to me right away.
We came back inside to play again, and then Amber flopped down on the floor, panting. She got quiet, and when I turned around to look, she had propped herself up with her paw against my desk, so she could lie on her back, legs spread-eagled, looking very happy and comfortable. Of course, when I tried to get a picture, she turned over. She’s still sleeping, so I guess I gave her a good workout this morning.
I’m going to TRY to get her kiddie pool scrubbed out and filled up today. She has at least another week where she’ll enjoy jumping into it on her walks. When it’s freshly scrubbed out and filled, the kiddie pool looks appealing to ME, too.
Filed under Amazing Animals, Family
We’re enjoying a quiet, laid-back morning in the office.
I just had a nice chat with our son. That doesn’t sound like a big thing, but he’s in Koh Lanta, Thailand for a week and then will head back to Chiang Mai, where he lives now. When he left about two years ago now, he set up things so that we could readily communicate – a chat program, where we can type at each other in real time, leave messages, send pics, etc.: regular email, of course, if the chat program ever isn’t available; a Skype type program that is much better than Skype, where we can see each other and talk real time.
We are very lucky. We’re really close to our son and communicate almost every day in some fashion. He’s a good communicator, so it doesn’t seem as if he’s across the world from us. His friends sent some pics a couple of days ago. I would share them, but I promised both my son and my husband I wouldn’t post many pics of them. :0( (Amber doesn’t mind me posting pics, so you see her playing with a squeaky ball. She wants to chew on her toys in your LAP for some reason, which can be a bit disconcerting at times and causes us to be ever vigilant.) Brian was telling me how great it has been to ‘watch’ Amber grow from a fat puppy at 10 weeks and 16 pounds to what looks like a full grown dog now, at 6 mos. and over 62 pounds.
While I’m chatting with our son, my husband is working at the computer, trying to rebuild a sensor type driveway detector. And, to top off our nice morning, our friend, Carla, comes with her dog, Nikki, for a play date. Amber is just learning socialization skills, and Nikki is the perfect dog to put her in her place. There is a bit of growling on Nikki’s part, when Amber is too exuberant in her hellos right in her face, but that is a great way to show Amber the limits. Amber didn’t want to share her bowl of water, but with the encouragement of the three two-leggers, Sweet Nikki got a good, long drink before heading home. We’re going to try to do this once a week.
We’re regrouping now in the office. Amber has spread out all over the plastic roll-around covering for the carpet, panting. I think she’ll probably be asleep in a matter of minutes….
Filed under Amazing Animals, Family
thirdmonk
Comparatively speaking, I feel as great as this owl does today. I’m not hurting and haven’t taken anything for pain, muscle relaxants, etc. I don’t know how long it will last, but right now, I’m declaring victory!
I actually felt well enough to take Amber out for a long walk this morning. She’s to the point where we don’t need to put the leash on at home. If she strays too far, I can simply call her. If I’m lucky, she’ll come. If not, I can push the green warning button on the shock collar remote and she comes right away. We haven’t had to shock her for anything lately, except once for dive-bombing the cat with too much enthusiasm.
The past two weeks seem to have been a lot better, as far as getting through to Amber what we would like, and having her actually comply. This doesn’t mean things are calm – far from it; but we’re living in tandem more now, rather than having to fight our way through the day quite so hard, ending in complete exhaustion.
She is doing two new things lately – I throw her toys into a clear plastic bin in the corner of the office. Rather than go get a toy as she used to, she picks up the entire bin, allowing toys to fall out as she carries the bin across the room, and then sits down and chews on the bin. I have to admit she may get this from me. Half of the time, I covet a DISPLAY, rather than the items ON the display, in a store.
The second new thing is that, while she spends less and less time on the back porch, when she does, she has started either eating or scratching off the white paint on the boards that comprise the side of the porch. We have three spots now that are down to the bare wood. I can spray those spots, but I don’t think there is enough Bitter Apple in the world to keep the whole porch covered…
She has oodles and gobs of chew toys of all shapes, sizes, colors, and squeaks. She tires of them quickly, whether she has access to all of them at once or just one at a time. We play ball with her on the porch and in the front yard, take her out multiple times a day to take care of business, walk, explore, and play. She takes a short nap in the mornings and one in the evenings, and – otherwise – is a perpetual motion machine with teeth. It’s a good thing she’s loving and sweet….
We’re going to do errands in a bit, and then I’ll TRY to do some very gentle yard work, if my back is still cooperating. Such a pleasure to move – get up and down – without pain!
I hope that you are having a pleasant day, too.
Filed under Amazing Animals, Family, Health Alert
Amber was 6 months old September 7th. She weighs over 62 pounds and is still growing like a weed. We expect (hope) she’ll stop at 80 pounds.
Since she’s been having trouble with digestion, we’ve been trying different things (while going through courses of probiotics.) I’ve been researching, since she wasn’t doing well with the changeover from puppy food to the dry food we gave Molly and Bambi, either. I decided to try grain-free food, and so far, it seems to be the answer! We’ve been able to stop the probiotics and stool firming meds. She really likes the taste, seems to be much more comfortable and happy. There are a BUNCH of grain-free dry dog foods, so we’re trying now to find one that is offered in large bags. (The 11 pound bags just aren’t good, as she eats over 4 cups of food per day now.)
Right now we’re feeding her Rachael Ray grain-free, but we got another brand we’ll start soon. It comes in a MUCH larger bag. If she weathers the brand change well, we’ll switch to that and then stock up before winter. We hope that we can change her over to the food we get from our vet eventually, but she’ll either mature enough to handle that or she won’t. Time will tell. We’re delighted that we seem to have found a good solution for now.
We also got a shock collar with remote control. I generally don’t like these, but I have to admit it’s the answer right now with Amber. She’s a very independent, stubborn thinker with really strong desires and a deaf ear when she chooses, which is often. With the shock collar, we are mostly to the point that we give the command, reward her if she does it, warn her with a tone if she doesn’t readily comply, or a shock (rarely now) if she continues the bad behavior. It’s as if a miracle occurred. She now realizes that we MEAN what we say. We’re not just playing. We don’t want to say the same thing over and over. Usually, she adapts her behavior now when we SAY it, or failing that, when we warn her. Amazing and wonderful!
Because she’s behaving better, she spends more and more time with us, whether we’re inside or out, something she really enjoys. It’s all working together to make a healthy, happy, better mannered dog, and relieved, happy two-leggers!
Filed under Amazing Animals, Family
Poor Amber! Nothing to play with!
When we brought her into the office this morning, all the toys were in the bin in the corner. 10 minutes later, havoc reigns.
Not only are all the toys out of the box, but she’s decided to chew on, and eat the bin! And she looks so innocent…..
Filed under Amazing Animals, Family
Amber at 6 months old is a sweet, doofus, loveable, hard-headed dog. She now knows much of what we want her to do, but many times CHOOSES not to do it. We’re having good luck using treats to encourage her to respond to commands. The main problem area is getting her to stop doing things she shouldn’t.
We got a smart no-pull collar that works with our retractable leash that gives her a warning when she pulls too hard for too long, or decides to play, “Crazy Dog,” running back and forth to the end of the leash. If she continues, she receives a shock. Now, if she’s wearing the collar, she acts very nicely – EXCEPT when she is confronted with a whole vet office full of critters at one time, with ONE big dog acting hostile.
We have to say things over and over, such as “Down” when she’s right beside our dining table. It’s as if she’s on a trampoline. She obeys the command and then pops right up, over and over again. Or we say, “no.” She stops for a split second, and then starts in again. Over and over…
Lately we got a more regular shock collar. I don’t like these much, but certain dogs don’t seem to take you seriously until you really get their attention and show them that you are the lead dogs in the pack. Amber seems to be one of these. The squirt bottles of water and the fly swatters seem to invite her to PLAY many times, rather than disciplining her.
So, the collar is set up so that we can warn her with a sound she can hear, but we can’t. We warn her, and sometimes that’s enough. She stops whatever she’s doing. If she ignores the warning, we have the shock level carefully set so that it gets her attention, stopping whatever she’s doing, but it doesn’t hurt her so she yipes.
My husband started using it day before yesterday. The first day he had to hit the shock button 3 or 4 times during the day and evening. Yesterday it was only once. So far today, not at all. And when he hits the warning tone, she’s beginning to respond to that well.
At almost 62 lbs now – with possibly another 20 pounds to go, we need to be serious 24/7 before she hurts one of us. Her exuberance is pretty impressive, and she has a healthy streak of ‘stubborn,’ as well. Since we have heard that labs are ‘puppies’ for 2 years, we’ve set up for the long haul on serious training. We’re making good progress. We want her to be a happy member of our animal and human family, plus act politely around other people and other animals. We just need to keep on keepin’ on…
Filed under Amazing Animals, Family
Our yellow labrador retriever “puppy” Amber is 6 months old as of yesterday and officially weighs 61.6 lbs. She will do almost anything if she knows a treat is involved.
This has made our efforts to train her more effective (thank goodness!) but it’s a problem if you go outside with her and find you are ‘unarmed’ without one treat in your pocket. (See pic above)
I switched to goldfish because they’re small, fit in my pocket more easily, and a double handful will get us through the day pretty well. She doesn’t seem to mind the change. She loves EVERYTHING, but she goes through a LOT of them, so we’re trying to find cheaper alternatives and use the more expensive stuff sparingly.
Lately I’ve discovered that she will stay pretty much by my side outside without a leash if she is sure I have treats in my pocket. I simply show her one and then we take a nice walk. She is also improving on ‘sit,’ ‘down,’ ‘place,’ ‘get the ball,’ ‘come,’ ‘waiting for an ok before she eats,, not jumping up, and other things. Remaining a challenge are teaching her
Especially challenging is getting her to mind us when others are around. It’s as if she is suddenly blind and deaf, doesn’t know who we are, etc.
Lately, one of her favorite things is catching me on the stairs when I’m coming down in the morning. This morning is a typical example – I got halfway down the stairs. She heard me and came bounding up the stairs to greet me. I’ve learned to sit down on the stairs and give her a lot of love and petting before trying to continue down. Last night I left shoes and socks on the floor in front of my chair in the living room. I know better, but she has to reteach me from time to time.
I had to fight my way over to the chair with Amber trying her best to chew on my toes or trip me. I made it to the chair, but Amber had one of my shoes in her mouth. I retrieved the other shoe, plus the socks, and then had to try to ‘trade’ her something for my shoe. I finally got my shoe and then fought my way back to my chair. She tried to get both socks and shoes back as I squirted her with the water bottle and said, ‘place!’ firmly. She finally responded, though she really didn’t want to. I put on socks and shoes and vowed NOT to leave them again…
Filed under Amazing Animals, Family
Amber at 6 months
We just got back from taking Amber to the vet to get an official measure of her weight, since she is 6 months old today. She now weighs 61.6 lbs. We’re HOPING that her final weight will be 75 lbs or less, but we’ll just have to wait and see.
We had a hair-raising trip.
I had called to make sure it was okay if we brought Amber tin o use their scales and the receptionist said, “fine.” She neglected to tell me that they had a FULL house, with dogs, cats, and other critters from wall to wall. Amber doesn’t pick up on ‘vibes’ from other animals well. Another large dog was there, and wasn’t happy to see Amber at all. That didn’t keep her from trying to nose the dog, wagging her tail the whole time. The large dog got hostile. My husband was able – with a LOT of pulling and almost being tripped by Amber trying to go in two directions at once – to pull her into the room where the scales were. We got her on, looked at the scales long enough to register 61.6, and then got out of there as soon as we could get to the door. Whew!
On the way over, we had Amber in the front passenger seat of the truck. I sat in the back seat. I had her on her leash, holding her tightly enough she could put her head out of the window. She moved around a bit, but not badly. She wants to really lean out, which bothers me, but I was confident I had good control with the leash locked in.
After the vet, we stopped quickly at our insurance agent’s to leave an updated DVD of our ‘stuff,’ and then at the bank to leave a copy in our safe deposit box, and then we were on the way home.
Amber was antsy this time. She got in the back seat with me, sitting on me, standing on me, leaning out of the window, coming back in to sit beside me, over and over. I’ll probably have some interesting bruises on my ‘lap.’ She was really a handful on the way home.
We’ve decided we need to take her for rides more often, mainly around our neighborhood, and maybe down to Greenwood Lake, where we can walk around a bit mid trip. We’ll do the vet weighing in again next month, but we’ll try to find a good time when they’re not busy…
Filed under Amazing Animals, Family
Amber with bit of green plastic bone
I was helping my husband put a gigantic box that the TV came in up into the attic over the garage this morning. After we accomplished that, we swept out the half of the garage that was easy to get to with one of the cars out on the pad.
We went back into the house, but I couldn’t find Amber. I checked with my husband, and he glibly said, “I let her out when we went out to the garage. She’ll be fine.”
I ran out to the front yard and started calling her. I went all the way around the house, calling, but no Amber. I was in tears, still calling when Amber came running across the yard to me, smiling.
I gave her some treats, put her into the house, and then calming told my husband that his life was on the line if he did that again.
(We had agreed that HE could let her run first thing in the morning when breakfast followed. I have taken her out without the leash, walking from the house to the shop. I did it again yesterday, keeping a close eye on her and keeping the walk short. She is coming better now, but I don’t trust that she would come if she were distracted by a rabbit, squirrel, cat, or another dog. We even have COWS across the street that runs in front of our yard.)
My husband gave me the lecture about ‘mistreating the dog’ by not simply letting her out and letting her come home when she’s ready. I told him that we would build to that, but NOT YET!
And so continues the disagreement about when Amber truly knows where home is, when she’s coming on a reliable basis…..
Filed under Amazing Animals, Family
This is Molly. She’s a cocker spaniel/schnauzer cross who has been a member of our family for over 12 years now. She and our pit bull, Bambi, got along famously, in fact she is such a happy dog she added joy to the life of a rather serious dog – and his people – who needed some laughs.
When Bambi died, she wandered around the house looking very lost. She would bark to go out, searching the yard, then bark to come back in, searching the house again. It killed me that we couldn’t share the hard decision we had to make with her, help her understand. All we could do was hold her a lot, hug her, and grieve.
We then found Amber, our completely doofus, now almost 60-pound labrador retriever puppy. Since we brought her home in May at 10 weeks old, she has pretty much dominated our days. Molly’s reaction was to hide, leave the room, try to disappear.
Lately she seems to have made the decision that she’s not going to give up her rights as the dog who should be the head dog in the family, the one with seniority. Now when Amber dive-bombs her, she bares her teeth, growls, and maybe even gives Amber a little snap. Amber’s reaction is to jump straight up in the air, and then decides Molly must be playing with her.
We’re still trying to monitor the doggies when they’re together and curb Amber’s exuberance as much as we can. Molly seems to understand that it’s not a free-for-all, but she also won’t cower in the corner anymore.
She DOES still leave the room, if possible, but I’m glad to see her standing up for herself. (Our two cats are learning to deal with Amber lumbering toward them. They hiss and spit, if she corners them, and jump up where she can’t get them. Smoke actively stalks Amber when they’re outside. Our fish couldn’t care less about any other family members.)
Hopefully, Amber will begin to see the pattern on approaching Molly, adapting her behavior a bit.
Filed under Amazing Animals, Family
purpleclover.com
I’m feeling really lazy today.
Poor Amber desperately wanted me to play, so after I took her for a walk, we played with her basketball and small purple squeaky ball on the back porch. She only brings something back every once in a while, so once you get it going, she pretty much entertains herself – while someone is there. She teases you, acting like she’s going to bring it to you to throw again, and then, when you try to get it from her mouth, she either runs off again or tries to change the game to tug of war.
She also drops the ball a LOT, giving her oodles of chances to run, jump, play, and growl.
Amber on the dog run yesterday.
We played for about 15 minutes before she finally had enough. She’s asleep on the floor beside my chair as I type….. YAWN.
Filed under Amazing Animals, Family
As we were eating breakfast this morning, we were trying to get Amber to lie down quietly on the floor beside us.
Yeah. Right.
It was as if she were on a trampoline!
We would say, “DOWN.” And she would comply.
We would pick up our spoon – “DOWN.” And she would comply. Before we could pick it “DOWN!” –
I think you get the picture. Up and down. Up and down. Down and up. Down and up.
We ARE making a bit of progress, but it’s very distracting trying to eat breakfast – or talk – or swallow…..
Filed under Amazing Animals, Family
Right at this very moment, Amber is lying down beside my office chair, asleep. Ahhhhhh!
We’ve had a busy morning. We’re still having a bit of trouble giving Amber food that agrees with her. And, even if THAT is all good, we can’t keep her from acting like a vacuum cleaner outside, eating everything dogs find appealing. UGH.
Obviously, something didn’t agree with her that she ate yesterday. I had to hose and mop the porch first thing this morning. Since she’s been having trouble off and on, we’ve been leaving her crate door open at night. My husband did the initial clean up and then I followed with the hose and mop.
We fed her lightly, and then checked on her in half an hour – my husband had left the Clorox Clean Up bottle on the table. She had knocked that over, spilling about half of it on the porch floor. I leaped up to get THAT cleaned up, hoping she didn’t ingest any of that. I then admonished my husband that we’re at least PRETENDING to be smarter than the dog….
We went out to play with her later and ended up hosing and mopping the porch again –
We took her out and walked her quite a bit, gave her some water and went inside to get ready to go do errands. I checked on her before we left – to find she had taken her bedding from the crate and was in the process of shredding it all over the porch floor.
I put the the intact piece of bedding back in the crate, closed and latched the door to it, put her on the string on the deck since she won’t allow mopping or sweeping without a game of tug of war. I swept everything up and put her on the porch once again.
Amber on her dog run, waiting for me to get the porch mopped.
Amber with her purple bone on the office bed.
We were gone about an hour. Amber was delighted to see us when we got home. Her porch was still clean! We took her out again, and then let her come into the office. (If you look behind her head, you can see where she discovered the reams of copy paper on the shelf yesterday –
So far, so good. Fingers crossed.
Filed under Amazing Animals, Family
Thanks to Marsha Koenig for her email.
Filed under Amazing Animals, Awe-Inspiring Photography
Thanks to Marsha Koenig for her email.
Filed under Amazing Animals
Can you see that Amber lets her tongue loll out to the side of her mouth and down? I think it’s hilarious.
She just doesn’t ‘get’ the idea of fetching and bringing the ball back yet. My husband has been out in the front yard with her a couple of days in a row now. He throws the ball. She runs to get it, picks it up, and then either drops it again, doesn’t want to bring it back, or – if she does bring it back – doesn’t want to give it back to my husband to throw again.
She did it right twice today – much better than yesterday. She got a treat when she brought the ball back and actually allowed him to have it. :0)
The best part about this whole thing is that she and my husband are having fun, both are getting good exercise, and Amber is much more calm in the house after a session. (She’s asleep on the floor beside me now).
PLAY BALL!!!!
Filed under Amazing Animals, Family
Amber at 5-1/2 months
Amber is over 52 pounds now, almost 6 months old, but she is not showing any signs of being a brave dog yet.
Yesterday was particularly traumatic.
First she met this –
Paperblog
Picture – if you are able – a large dog almost putting her nose on the baby frog my husband was showing her – and then large dog leaping backwards. She sneaked up on the frog again, almost putting her nose on it, then leaped up and backwards again, with a bark. Then came dancing around, whining. My husband started to show it to her again, and she was leaping backwards again. Mean, scary frog!
Then she met this on one of our walks –
Texas Parks and Wildlife
A turtle similar to this one was on the sidewalk in the yard in the front of the house. Amber went right over to it, but leaped back in fear when the turtle had the audacity to move. Amber leaped backward, coming over to me. “Save me, Mom!” She wouldn’t go near it again.
To cap off her day, she faced this –
credit unknown
Amber wanted to be with my husband, but he was going up and down the stairs to our basement. We tried to entice her to come down the stairs, offering a treat, but she would barely stick her head around the corner, much less even CONSIDER coming down to us.
She finished off her day with a small bite of the burgers we were grilling, some ice cubes from my husband’s drink, a ‘mad dog’ run in the yard, and then bed.
Whew! Such a challenging day for our ‘baby’ dog!
Filed under Amazing Animals, Family
One of the many things we’re dealing with in training our labrador retriever puppy, Amber, is that labs love to chew on everything. We have tackled this problem in several ways –
She’s teething now which exacerbates the problem. Today I’ve disciplined her for chewing on the back pull-on-thingies on the backs of my shoes (while my feet are in them – either walking in front of her or sitting in my chair), chewing on the basket in the office, chewing on the bottom corners of my desk shelves and a roll-around table, trying to get into my trash can, and more.
You can see her here chewing on a bully stick. She really loves these, but they’re expensive – particularly since it takes her about half an hour or less to ‘eat’ the whole thing.
I’ve also tried to distract her, taking her on three walks so far this morning (it’s 10:15). That has helped some.
There is never a dull moment with a lab puppy. The fact that she’s well over 52 pounds now and is quite headstrong adds to the flavor of our days. We’re really learning to plan ahead on more and more things, trying to make her as happy as possible while not risking life and limb.
She just looked at me – having finished the bully stick – whining a bit. She looks so innocent with her pretty face and big, brown eyes….
Filed under Amazing Animals, Family
Amber is one sweet, affectionate doggie. Some days we have wonderful companionship, eager interest, and even acceptance by our animal family members. Other days, not so much.
Today is a “not so much” day.
We’re trying to let Amber stay in the house with us as much as possible, since she’s a people dog and seems very happy to be where we are. Today she would NOT settle down. It’s like a baby with colic. You do everything you know, stretch to try desperate things, trying to get the ‘baby’ to calm down and be happy. I remember one day when my son was a baby, my ‘everything’ just wasn’t enough. I finally ended up sitting on the living room floor with him – both of us crying.
Amber is again out on the back porch, now barking and whining from time to time. We’re waiting until she stops that to try her in with us again. And so it goes…
One new good thing is that with careful monitoring when she’s hungry, we can take her out without the leash. I don’t trust her enough yet to simply “let her out” as my husband thinks we should do, but in certain circumstances, I have seen that she happily walks with us to the shop without restraint. Also before breakfast she doesn’t stray. It’s also a good time for us to practice, “COME!” And, as long as she trusts us to have treats, she complies quite readily.
I’m trying to practice this at least once per day, gritting my teeth. I’m worried that she’ll see and chase one of the cats, see another dog (we’ve had two come up the driveway lately) or NOT respond to our command. I know it’s something we need to do, and I’m happy that we’re starting to see results now.
Ahhh. The barking and whining has stopped. I’ll go let her in again.
Filed under Amazing Animals, Family
Sweet puppy Amber is taking a very rare nap. Even though her eyes seem open, her legs are moving in dreams and she’s snoring lightly. She was very hyper this morning, teeing off Molly, our ‘old lady’ white dog, and the cats, Abby and Smoke, all in the space of a minute or two on bursting through the porch door after she ate.
When she wouldn’t settle with us in the office, after each of us played with her for a time, she ‘won a trip back to the porch’ for a few minutes. I let her in again and she was much better. Now I’m getting a reprieve that I know won’t last long. I’ll enjoy every second!
Filed under Amazing Animals, Family
Amber is making progress in getting us to do what she wants, but she gets truly frustrated with how very slow we are to learn.
For example, she wants to play Tug of War with her toys. She goes and gets a toy, brings it to her humans, and very clearly wants us to grab the other end – the other side – and fight with enthusiasm – in the end letting her win. She is letting us know lately how dumb we are. When she brings the toy, we won’t even TRY to take it out of her mouth. We ACT like we’re going to play, but the minute we meet resistance, we let go, over and over until she finally drops the toy into our laps in disgust. Just as she’s leaving, we throw the toy! The game is on again until the humans refuse to take their end of the toy. AND her humans get mad when teeth run into skin, yelling and running into the kitchen to wash the wounds off and wrap them with band-aids. Hummmmppph!
Her humans HAVE learned to arm themselves each morning, making SURE they have a pocketful of treats. Amber has taught us to give her treats in all parts of the ‘taking-care-o-business’ process, when she sits, when she comes, when she lies down, when she goes to her place…. all day long – finishing up with going into her crate. This takes a LOT of treats. We routinely get somewhere out in public, one pocket bulging with dog treats.
Amber realizes that getting her people trained will take time, patience, and lots and lots of effort. She’s encouraged that we’re better than we were when she first came to live with us in May.
She’s looking at me, distinctly saying, “Really? You want me to get up?”
Filed under Amazing Animals, Family
Thanks to my friend, Marsha Koenig, for her email.
Filed under Amazing Animals, Awe-Inspiring Photography
Thanks to Marsha Koenig for her email.
Filed under Amazing Animals, Awe-Inspiring Photography
Eating and chewing. Chewing and Eating, Our lab puppy, Amber, lives for these two things. She would LIKE to have US for chew toys, too, but we’re discouraging that. We have to watch her like a hawk, catching her when she makes it through to the stuffing or the squeaker, and trying to eat those. I won’t buy any more toys with a lot of stuffing, but the squeakers are a particular joy in life to her, so those will continue. You can see a favorite hollow plastic bone in this picture. One end is fine, but the other end has collapsed, having a tear in it. She hasn’t been able to pull bits off yet, so it will remain in the toy box (at least some of the time.) *
This is a plastic ball with small plastic soft nubs sticking out all over it. It has a squeaker and Amber loves it. She WANTS to play tug of war with everything. She is slowly figuring out that, if she wants us to participate, she has to give us the toy first. It’s more fun when we throw it. So even though she wants to pull and tug, she’s starting to actually give us the ball (or other toy) occasionally.
She likes playing with several toys at once. I have a toy box in the corner of the office where at least once a day I throw all the toys. If she’s inside, that lasts approximately a minute. We’re learning to watch where we step. Here she’s chewing on the softer bone while keeping the harder KONG bone in reserve….
She’s spending more and more time inside with us. She really likes being with her people. She’ll happily stay in the office with us, or stay in her PLACE on the big dog bed in the living room, as long as both of us are there. We don’t have to be interacting with her – just there.
The other animals are becoming more resigned to the onslaught of Amber at least a couple of times per day. Thankfully, her exuberant behavior doesn’t last quite as long these days, so our family is beginning to meld.
*While I was typing, she started pulling off bits of the orange bone. I don’t THINK she ate any of them from the number of pieces on the floor. That toy is now history, but it lasted about 3 months – a record for a new toy for Amber.
Filed under Amazing Animals, Family
Thanks to Marsha Koenig for the email.
Filed under Amazing Animals, Awe-Inspiring Photography
I have decided that it’s almost impossible for me to get pictures of my aquarium AND the fish so you can see both well. My sister-in-law, Mary Lou, mentioned the fish today and wanted to see more pics.
This is the best I could do, Mary Lou!
Filed under Amazing Animals, Family
Thanks to Marsha Koenig for her email.
Filed under Amazing Animals, Awe-Inspiring Photography
We’re learning a lot about what toys are NOT good for Amber.
Take the football above. It lasted 30 seconds before Amber started biting chunks of foam and trying to eat them. I bought a sweet Lambchop type stuffed toy last week. Amber was pulling the stuffing out and eating it within a minute or two. Both ended up in the trash.
She LOVES anything that squeaks or makes weird noises. The unstuffed animals toys are good, particularly if they squeak. The KONG bone is now good – after all the tennis ball type felt and the stretchy rubbber thingie that went all the way around the bone were removed (by both the dog and me). Heavy rope tug of war toys are good. We have a large plastic ball that has an irregular service and makes really weird noises as it rolls. Amber really likes it.
There is a stuffed long, green, weird animal with ears that she likes. I have to sew it together to keep the stuffing in, but she’s not bad about getting the stuffing out, so for the moment, it’s still in her toy box.
Each time we buy a toy, we’re getting a bit smarter. Since labs are supposed to be ‘puppies’ for a couple of years, maybe we’ll start getting it right more often before she grows too old for toys…
Filed under Amazing Animals, Family
This dog may LOOK innocent, but she’s plotting her next move as you look at her.
We feed Amber on the back porch after she goes out and takes care of business each morning. Today I went to let her in. As I opened the door, she was jumping DOWN from the porch table!
My husband had pulled out the one chair we have down, sitting in it to rub a towel over her, since it was raining heavily this morning. She apparently first chewed part of the mesh of the chair off (GRRRRRRRR!!!!!!) and then jumped up onto the table to try to get at the other stacked chairs, water jug, and umbrella in the corner.
I reminded my husband that he wasn’t supposed to leave the chair away from the table and that it was now partially destroyed. Sweet Amber has reached new highs on destruction and being able to get places she couldn’t get to before.
We’re supposed to be smarter than our pets, aren’t we?
Filed under Amazing Animals, Family
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