New Toys: the Enemy

The only toy Emily immediately took to was a gingham baby rattle. Others, she regards with the deepest suspicion.


Then she runs to security.

Helping Out in the Kitchen

[Mommy's little girl FRAP]

After Yummy Food, Emily Barks at My Ankles

Post-vet, Emily was sleepy and needy, and refusing food.

So she got turkey white meat and no-salt gravy for dinner. She licked the bowl a dozen times after the food vanished, as if that would make more turkey appear.

Already I dread her reproachful face tomorrow when she finds Orijen in her bowl as usual.

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Emily likes digging... in her crate. FRAP or post-poo euphoria?

[Diggy]

[More Diggy]

Rabbit Hunting

Emily's Prey:

Lazy Afternoons

Emily's energy turns on and off. Some afternoons, she can't be bothered to get up:



[news] Our visit to the vet's office was perfect and bribed with cheese. As usual with strangers, Emily went ears down, tail waggy, not a peep, even with a vacc shot. Big hit. Then she slept all afternoon, and got up at 10 pm to chase my ankles and bark at me. H. is learning how to growl with authority.

Pottery, Games, Life as Usual

Taking play pictures of her is difficult, as she stops what she's doing and comes over when the camera is on her. At least she's not a total blur.

[Sit! for the camera]

[What, you didn't take down the Christmas tree, yet?]

-- M. likes the cheery look. Left to him, we'd have the tree out until March. Some People We Know have their tree sitting out all year long, for several years.

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My mom has always insisted on good dishes and silver silverware, so it was sad to hear Wedgewood went bellyup this year. After it happened to Lennox last year, too.

Mom's been sending the whole Lennox "Consort" line to me, 2-6 pieces at a time by mail and over visits. We now have the full set. This is the only one that acquired an interesting hairline fracture (all the others arrived safe), and is my favorite 'cause it split its side, hee hee.
Emily, privileged puppy that she is, eats out of Koryo Celadon. :

Don't worry. She's not too spoiled. It was just the right size. Her water bowl is a hamster dish.

Wish her luck! Emily's off to the vet for her puppy vaccs in 2 hours.

Anorexia or Pickiness?

Emily is being needy lap-puppy, refusing to eat her nice Orijen puppy food at meal time, and insisting she clamber up on me to have toast with apricot jam, too. Silly puppy!

I have to trick her into eating with the Kong. Wow, food slot machine! Gotta have that!

[mistake] So the Elfstedentocht wasn't on Jan/8. It must have been some other natural ice marathon, or other.

[good news] I keep tabs on dierenasiels, to see who's out there. Iggy Pudd, the Shiba mill rescue that I wasn't allowed to adopt, has finally found a suitable family. Yay!

FRAP, and a few surprises

FRAP, or Frenetic Random Activity Period, is when Emily goes through what we call Cujo Hour. Or what my late grandmother would call, in mildly rude Korean, 지랄발광.

Surprise for H.: holding Emily under running water and rubbing the poo off her butt isn't grossing me out anymore.

Surprise for Emily: an ice-cube is the best toy. It slides, it shoots, it's crunchy. Hey, where'd it go?

Surprise for M.: his wife wanted to take a picture of Emily's heart-shaped poo and put it on the blog. He raised the spousal veto card.

People and Puppies

[Emily fell asleep on my neck. Oi.]

Emily is getting her doses of daily "Socialization." We wrap her up and take her out to say hello to strangers, people and dogs of all ages, have them pet her and feed her cheese, so she'll grow up to be a good member of society.

We had our first Puppy Guest yesterday, our friend Ernst, for dinner and videos. Emily loved Ernst, thought he was the best thing ever, tail waggy, ears back, happy wriggly.

*

Emily doesn't mind vacuum cleaners. I can vacuum her pillow with her sitting on it, and she'll just look at it. When she's in deep sleep, I can do whatever I want.[She can sleep in the oddest ways.]

[I clip her nails and trim her feet hairs when she's dozed off.]

Dirty Things

I caught Emily mid-poo today, and rushed her outside. She was pooing in the air as I clipped the leash on, and dropped a piece before we got out the door. Thankfully, she did the rest of the gooey sticky yuckier part outside. Small favors.

["This way I don't get into trouble."]

The saddest accident so far was when, in her excitement during play, she peed twice in her smelly big white blanket and, having already cut many holes out of it, we had to throw it away. Goodbye, Snow Garden.

H&M got 30 square bricks and laid them over 4 meters of disgusting garden gutter, so she won't go eating snails and worms and rotten leaves, and other yucky things when she goes out to potty. We're suckers for the puppy, we know.

[Before]

dried snails, slugs, worms, caterpillars, bird droppings, old rot, new rot, construction messes, three-year old cigarette butts, centipedes, spiders, gutter mud, stench.

[After]

Nine days of Puppy chaos/24 hours, and sneaking in a few pages a day, I finished, with great regret that it was over, Nancy Mitford's Love in a Cold Climate, in my wee 짬시간. It was utterly lovely, enjoyable fun.

Portraits

Puppy pictures are hard because most of the time, it looks something like this:I have to catch her in a drowsy calm moment, between naps:[Whatcha doing?]

[Fan Service]

[Back to Sleep]

Sleep Monster

Emily has three major modes: Cuddle, Frenzy, Sleep. Most of the day she sleeps. I wish she'd do it for a good 8 hours at night.

This winter's been cold in Holland, and today the Elfstedentocht was held (the 11 city race over canals, when it's cold enough to freeze over), first since 96-7. So, on the way home from errands, I bought Emily a baby's bib, lined with fleece. She "wore" it when she was asleep:

[More of a skirt]

To prevent Separation Anxiety (분리불안) when she grows up, we ignore her when we first come in, don't make a big fuss. I stepped out to get scent-free diaper wipes, and came back and called my Mom, all the while not paying attention to scrambly puppy. Where does the puppy go?[Same pose, different place]

She climbed up on the back of my legs and fell asleep while I was talking to Mom. Oi.

ps. She got a bath last night. I picked two nits off her. Evil Bastards.

Pee and Tears

Emily and H. had quite a stressful morning, all because H. wanted to catch 2-3 hours of sleep. Over 3 hours, 4 "accidents" in the house, before 10 am.

H. smacked herself on the head with a rolled-up newspaper for letting Emily down. H. really needs 4 arms to get things done, though.

So, we're on stricter Crate Training Schedule. Emily does not like it much, as it means being woken up every 2 hours to go out and do her business. And the first time we locked her up, the yowling. Cheese helped her through hard times.

Routine, routine, routine![Dirty but Pretty]

ps. No smell sensors for the Internet! Emily looks so fluffy and cute in the photos. What it doesn't tell you: she's so stinky! That's what you get for walking through the garden gutters 6 times a day. Pee Yew! Bath tonight!

Image, Reality, Truth

M. came up with the brilliant plan of providing Emily with burrow space. Romping fosters excitement and mania; burrowing induces calm. Our theory.

Hee hee hee, and it's a lot of safe fun. During the day, Emily plays best alone when hanging out in her snow garden. [Can you find the puppy?]

Now, can you see her?And, yes, that's Captain Keropi, a prezzie from Aunt Freda, and now Emily's favorite toy. We take it away from her when she's about to go Cujo.

Emily is pretty good for an 8 week+1day old puppy. Downtime in her crate is good for her.

[ Or maybe there's no good reason
Why i'm locked up inside
Just cause they wanna hide me
The moon goes bright

The darker they make my night ]

Of course, she romped right in there on her own. And the door's swinging wide open.

[What it looks like from the outside]

All natural melodrama: brought to you by Emily Puppy

A Perfect Day

Perfect Manners Puppy comes with a price.

Going out to Potty: 11 times. (and three #2s too!)
Must watch Emily's every twitch, and predict when she needs to go.
- including three times in the rain. She always picks the most disgusting part of the yard. Once I peeled an earthworm off her leg. She always steps back on her puddle of #1, and stepped on #2 once too. Must wipe her bum, clean her paws, and praise her with cuddling and warming, while picking up her messes, and cleaning up the yard with hot water and broom.

Meals: 4, soaked in warm water, and hand fed one kibble at a time, while practicing "come!" and "sit."

Averting Cujo Hours: 4 times, around 1 hour each of careful interaction and ignoring the bratty behavior, cutting short barking and tantrums before they escalate, and taking away the wrong toys and giving her calming chew toys.

Then, there's the other 7 post-nap playing that must not become Cujo Hours.

Include 30 minute cuddle-walk, greeting strangers for socialization, and you have Emily's 24 hours.

Result: One Perfect Day.
Puppy Parents: Exhausted.

[ETA] That was Sunday. Monday morning, Emily has forgotten everything. Oi.

Cujo Hour

After a power nap, Emily Puppy turns into Evil Monster. I call it her "cujo hour," when my sweet cute baby turns into Dog Hyde. We're trying to keep these short, under 15 minutes, then quickly calm down, but she can go on up to 1 hour, with barking, howling, air-biting. Rampage!

It escalates if she gets the Bunny, so it's off limits for now.

Clean at Last

We gave Emily a bath last night! M. wanted to be cautious, so we skipped washing her face, but I go at her with cotton wipes 3 times a day anyway.

Still a lap junkie:

[Peekaboo!]

Though her second favorite thing is digging at the cardboard crates we set up as the gates to her play pen. H. has to run after her and extract pieces of paper from her mouth.

ESPuppy

Somehow, Emily Puppy seems to know that she's getting a bath today, and is not doing #2 at all, in a futile attempt to delay it.

[Her Nibs]

After her first morning Potty, she ran for the neighbor's again, got garden gunk all over, rolled in something stinky, and came back smelling like a rose garden... that's been dumped with fresh manure.

I brushed it all out, and two huge gobs of eye-boogers, too. But pink stains are here to stay, at least until teething is over. Doesn't she look like Obi-wan Kenobi?

[Use the Force. Snuggle me!]

Say hello to Uncle Shaggy, Emily. Cats don't like him, so he's okay:

Post Trauma

At 5 am Emily had done Potty#1 in front of her crate, before I woke up at 5:20, but that was OK. She's new to the play area, and we only introduced the night tray yesterday. I cleaned up and put the tray over her #1 spot.

We got up again at 7, then at 8, and went out for Potty, which she did. Good girl!

Instead of letting her clamber on my lap, I had her sit at my toes, and she we practiced "Sit" while I hand fed her kibble.

Perfect Manners Puppy.

When Mommy's not being confusing, that is. I've learned my lesson.

Day 3 Trauma Part 2

She slept in her crate, but woke up while we were having dinner, and cried her heart out, cranky. We let her cry because Ian Dunbar and Brian Kilcommons and Cesar Milan say not to comfort her in the middle of bad behavior. That just reinforces it.

We took her out when she calmed down.

Then came evening potty, during which she decided she hated the leash A LOT. Instead of Potty, she pulled and balked and fought it. Then ran straight under the fence to the neighbors. Good thing the leash was on. She CRIED. In the YARD. Like we were MURDERING HER.

So, I had to ignore her after that. M. hand fed her dinner. She was good then.

Bad Mommy taught her some silly rules the first 2 days. Now we have to undo them before it's too late.