New Beds for the Puppies

At the beginning of January, I picked up a new "living room" bed for Charlie, and he really does enjoy it.  Molly always opts for the carpet, so I really wasn't worried about getting her one.  That was working all well and good until I rearranged the living room and Molly discovered the "cool" bed!  Charlie wasn't really appreciating her in his spot, even if he wasn't laying in it to begin with, so we picked her up one today.  Molly likes to lay up on things, so we went for one with the raised edges.  She's been trying it out in spurts this evening and so far, so good!

Of course, Charlie needed to check it out to make sure it passed his approval as well.  Molly wasted no time in trying his out again as well.  She didn't get to lay there long once he realized that she had his spot. 

Of course these are just for their family time naps.  At night and during the day, they are still in their kennels.  At eight months, there are no unsupervised house visit for these two hooligans!

More Puppy Damage

The four legged kids are driving this two legged momma batty!  I wondered why they were being so quiet the other day and a peek around the side of the house explained it all. 

I keep all my extra plastic and little terracotta pots in my tiny greenhouse that I used a few years back.  Basically, it's just a shelving unit with a plastic cover that I started using for the pot storage.  I put the cover on it so that rain water wouldn't accumulate in pots.  Thing One and Thing Two however thought it had a much more useful purpose...shredding the plastic so they could then rip apart and disperse the plastic pots all over the yard. 

All the pots are now in a large plastic tub that is secured tightly on the porch.  I'm thinking that I've pretty much puppy proofed the backyard unless they decide they need to rip out the few things that I do have in the ground.  Fortunately, they've not showed any interest in these and they've had ample opportunity. 

Mandy

Guinea Pig Puppy Love

I posted this earlier and then was reading through some different blogs and came across Smiling Sally's Blue Monday.  I sat there thinking, "I could participate, but I don't know if I have anything blue."  I came back to my blog and look at that...Hedgie's cage is blue! 











It's really funny to watch Charlie and Hedgie socialize with each other.  He's huge for one thing and she never paid any attention to Goldie, but for whatever reason she will sit in her cage and let him lick her.  He's not hurting her and she's not trying to bite him, so I guess they're fine. 

Hedgie by herself is driving us bananas!  In the last two weeks, she's starting demanding food every time someone walks by.  This is hard to avoid since she's in the front room and she can hear you coming from whatever direction.  Forget the fact that the dogs are all over the place and that will set off her chomping the cage for food as well.  We've all been trying to convince Shelby that we need to find a new home for her to no avail.  I like her, but believe me when I say that this is the last guinea pig this momma's gonna fall for!  The dog's are more than enough at this stage.

She is really cute though.

Let me clarify my mother's comment though before anyone gets offended. I will cry like a baby when Hedgie passes away, I did with the last guinea as well. That said, she's been with us much longer than expected and with two shepard/lab 6 month old terrors, my hands are a little full. My 11 year old can't bear to part with her guinea, but yet isn't a whole lot of help with her either. I'm working on convincing her to let us find her a new home, but in the meantime, I'll have to keep enjoying her until her time comes to an end. Now it's really going to be something if Miss Hedgie decides to be one of those lifer guinea pigs, I won't promise not to complain, but I will keep feeding her.

You can click the link at the top of the post to enjoy more Blue Monday posts.

Mandy

The Puppies

Charlie and Molly are closing in on six months, which means we've had them for three already.  There was a good couple of days not too long ago when I was threatening to send them to boarding school!  I'm not sure why, but Charlie loves anything fuzzy.  That means that any fuzzy Kalanchoe he can get his mouth on is history; you can imagine my irritation with him and his attraction to my favorites.  The trainer at puppy training suggested this great spray and I went to town! We haven't had an issue since except the morning I left the chair next to the plant rack and wouldn't you know it, Charlie found the only fuzzy one there!

Charlie is very found of Daughter #2, actually they both are, but we won't tell Daughter #1 that! She can get them to do just about anything.  Charlie is definitely the stubborn one of the two, so she's got her work cut out for her.

Molly is a trip, she comes out of the kennel with a toy in her mouth and out the back door usually with two.  She snorts like a horse, but refuses to come out of the house any other way.  Molly is our fetcher.  She loves to chase and is pretty good about bringing it back to you.  That is of course until Charlie decides he wants the toy and then you can forget about getting it back.  He's much more into tug-a-war as long as he's winning.

This weekend, we picked them up two new beds for their kennel.  The plan was to get another kennel, but we're going to hold off for a while longer before we separate them.  They both loved them!  This was the first night since we've had them that they just chilled in the living room for longer than five minutes. 

Charlie really likes his.  He took about an hour and a half hour nap; again a first out of the kennel! 

Daughter #1 is trying to grow on Charlie.  Molly is hers, and Charlie just likes to scare her.  He doesn't give anyone too much trouble but her...I'm thinking it's because she squeals like a girl!

My big baby!  I did not want a boy dog, but I love my little guy.  He loves to cuddle unlike Molly who just likes to jump and terrorize you with her tongue...gross!!!

How can you not love these faces!  Last week we weighed them...  

Charlie is at 29.5 lbs.

Molly is at 26.5 lbs.

Mandy

Mr. Graceful...not!

Charlie has learned there's a whole new world to be explored at the top of the stairs.  We've had Charlie and Molly with us for about two month, and until last week they never paid any attention to the staircase.  Gone are those days.  The first couple of days when he found the stairs, he would only go to the first or second landing.

I tried to get him to come up the stairs, but he just stood there and looked at me while banging his tail against the wall.  That was yesterday.  This morning, he made it all the way up and explored the bedrooms.  It was kind of cute watching him go room to room.  As he walked from room to room, he'd do that wiggly, submissive puppy thing like they do when an older dog is checking him out.  He wasn't so sure about coming down, so I had to pick him up and lug him back down.  It was that or face the wrath of a teenager being woken up by a barking puppy.  The girls didn't have school today and had them out of their kennel more than they should have.  I got a call about 11 a.m. asking me how to keep Charlie off the staircase.  My suggestion was to put the guinea pig's cage in front of it; that got tossed out.  Throughout the day he got a bit braver, and by the evening had become quite a pro at zooming up and down the stairs.  The landing isn't always graceful though! 

I wish I had been further back, because he completely bellied out when he hit the floor...hilarious!

I'll be picking up a baby gate in the near future. They had to go in their kennel early because the girls were preoccupied and he really digs his new game!  I on the other hand don't have that much patience to keep retrieving him from upstairs, not to mention pulling the socks out of his mouth that he keeps carrying down!

Molly hasn't found the joy in the game like Charlie has...no, she'd rather just knock the trashcan over!  I suppose it's a good thing that we're starting obedience classes on Thursday.

Puppy Happenings

It's been a while, but I wanted to share some sad news and happy news. 

At the beginning of July, I had to put my Goldie down.  I don't talk about it because I still cry.  To be quick about it, she had been walking funny and seemed like at times she didn't know what was going on.  I took her to vet knowing what they'd tell me, but thinking I was over dramatizing the situation.  She was getting very close to 15 and for a Corgi/Shelti mix, that's pretty old.  They told me that she had arthritis and hip issues as well as what sounded like dementia.  Her spine was riddled with it, and I couldn't handle knowing that she might fall down while I wasn't there and be stuck for what could be hours.  I went home that morning without my girl.

When the girls came home, I told them when I was ready that we'd look for a puppy.  I knew what I wanted.  Either another Corgi or a little Westie.  So much for my opinion!  Last weekend, I had the brilliant idea to take them to the animal shelter "just to look".  We fell hard for a brother and sister in the puppy section.  They were 12 weeks old and adorable.  I came back home and asked my husband about it.  He's objection was still, "Why do you need two?".  I have been trying to explain to him for years that we needed two since we're gone so much and they need company during the day.  I reexplained my point and off me and the girls went.  I took Amy with me and that was probably a good thing since I bawled through most of the paperwork.  The whole thing just made me really miss my girl. 

So much for small...meet our newest additions to the family, Lab/Shepherd mix puppies...Charlie and Molly. 

Charlie is the brown one that I lovingly refer to as "my little Marmaduke" and Molly is the little black one who's looks are very deceiving.  She is the instigator of the pair and he's just pretty laid back and stubborn.  She looks and feels just like a Lab with the smooth, soft hair and Charlie takes after the Shepard with the shorter, courser hair.  He's huge...so much for small! 

So far, so good, but I did pick up a copy of Cesar Millan's puppy book this weekend and keep telling them that good puppies do not bother mommy's plants!  We're still working on that one.