Nurse Shirley

Emme has taken on the role of nurse. In the last few days, Rudy has had some digestive upsets and yesterday we discovered that he has some red spots in his ears, probably another ear infection. We have a vet appointment at 9:45 this morning but Emme wants to make sure we know that there is a problem with Rudy. This morning she went up to Rudy as he was lying on the floor next to the dining room table and began sniffing the outside of his ears. She backed up and started whining in a way she hasn't whined before. She would whine, bark and look up at us. It was like she was saying, "There is something wrong here, guys. Fix it." She did this over and over for about four minutes. She didn't like what she was smelling and she was upset about it. It was like she was a school nurse, Nurse Shirley, diagnosing a sick student. Soon, Emme, we will take Rudy to the vet and get him fixed. Thanks for the medical advice.

Yum, Tuna

Emme has discovered tuna and it is GOOD. Rudy has been having some digestive upsets and on the advice of the veterinarian, he is eating boiled rice and canned tuna in water. We began this yesterday at dinner. We gave Rudy rice and tuna and gave Emme about a half teaspoon of tuna on top of her dry kibble. She was enchanted. I have often described Emme as a good, if indifferent eater. Not this time. She gobbled down the tuna and all the dry kibble. Last night at dinner she ate every kibble in her bowl.

Breakfast is usually her lighter meal. She usually will eat a third to a half of her portion and leave the rest. Not this morning. We again put a half teaspoon of tuna on top of her food and she ate all but three pieces of kibble. Wow, who knew tuna was this good?

Sweet Summer Sweat

Emme loves to lick us, especially when we are hot and sweaty. There is nothing she likes better than to jump up on our laps when we are taking a break from gardening. We get a bottle of water and sit on the porch with the overhead fan blowing cool breezes. No sooner have we sat down than a fluffy white dog jumps up on our laps and begins licking. She will lick our hands, fingers, arms and she loves to jump up and lick our necks, ears, and faces. And if we kick off our shoes, heaven! Toes are irresistible. We must taste of summer: sweat, salt, dirt, and sun. Yum, sweet summer sweat.

Back to the Groomer

Emme's groomer has lost her lease at the Wooster shop and I had to make a decision to follow the groomer to her other out of town location or to find a new groomer. I wasn't crazy about making the 25 minute trip, but she is the only groomer who has trimmed Emme and I was reluctant to make a change.

I happen to be a rather loyal customer who doesn't make changes just for the sake of change. I am still going to the same OB-GYN doctor that I went to when I was pregnant with my first son. And he is having his 41st birthday this summer. Actually, the doctor has since retired but I am still going to the same practice. I have vacationed on the same island off the coast of New Jersey each summer since 1970. I have been married to the same man for 42 years. I don't like a lot of change.

So I decided to follow the groomer. It actually worked out fine. She is about 15 minutes away from the outlet mall, and I went shopping while Emme was getting beautiful. I don't know if I will continue when winter comes and the weather gets bad, but for now, we are staying with the same groomer.

Cook's Helpers

I am never without company when I am cooking. Emme and Rudy love to come into the kitchen when I am preparing meals. They lie down on the floor in a good down/stay while I cut, chop, and cook. They love to get tastes of the food I am preparing. I often give them a piece of a vegetable or fruit I am cutting up. They have tasted carrots, green peppers, strawberries, mushrooms, cherry tomatoes, celery, apples, and others. They seem to like them all. Emme's favorite for the entertainment factor is cherry tomatoes. She will roll them on the floor, lick them, put them in her mouth and throw them up in the air so she can run after them. After I am done in the kitchen, I give them each a puppy biscuit and then they leave the kitchen and lie down in another room until something else exciting happens.

I Don't Want To Play Fetch

Every morning Emme waits patiently while Ken plays fetch with Rudy in the back yard. Emme has a specific spot she sits on the porch waiting for her turn. She waits and whines, so excited to go outside. When Rudy is done, Ken takes Emme outside to play her version of Fetch. This game consists of Ken throwing the little tennis ball, Emme running over next to it, and stopping to eat grass. She gets next to the ball but doesn't pick it up. Then Ken walks over to where the ball is on the grass, picks it up, and throws it. Emme runs over next to it and eats more grass while she waits for Ken to come over to the ball. This goes on for a few minutes and never varies. This is the game.

We were surprised the last time Eric and Katherine came to visit. Emme knows how to play fetch. She just doesn't want to. When both Eric and Katherine threw the ball inside the house, Emme would run into the other room, grab up the ball and run back to them with the ball. That is a whole different game than she plays with Ken. With Ken it is run next to the ball and eat grass. With Eric and Katherine it is bring the ball back. She can play fetch when SHE wants to.

We Love Tissues

Emme and Rudy both love to grab tissues. For Emme, tissues are cheap entertainment. She will spend a great deal of time (if we don't catch her) tearing them up into a million little pieces and throwing them all over the rug. Rudy likes to eat them. New or used. Old or new. If he finds one, he eats one.

Both of the dogs also love paper towels. If we clean up with a paper towel or use one with food, we need to be extremely careful that we throw it away immediately or it becomes a dog toy or snack. The funny thing is that neither of the dogs is interested in toilet paper. I would think that TP is so similar to tissues and paper towels that the dogs would be attracted to that. But no. Charmin must not be the same as Kleenex. Neither pays the slightest attention to toilet paper. They walk into the bathroom and never bother the toilet paper. I wonder why.

Interior Decorating

Emme has watched too much HGTV. She is in to interior decorating. When she can get into the guest bedroom on the second floor, along with doll wrestling, she pushes the pillows on the floor. She loves to go into the family room and push the four pillows on the couch down on to the floor. This weekend while I was upstairs in my sewing room, she went downstairs and into the living room and cleared all the pillows off the top of the couch there.

When she goes to bed at night, she has to push around the items in her crate. In her crate, her mattress is a standard bed pillow inside a waterproof pillow case, inside a cotton pillow case. She also has a small fleece blanket in there. When she goes to bed, she needs to push them around to fix up her bed for sleep. Recently she has been sleeping under the pillow. We wake up in the morning and find half a little white puppy sticking out from under the pillow. Busy, busy, busy.

Down and Dirty in Holmes County

Emme loves to go to the lake house in Holmes County. She explores in the high grass, eats bugs, plays on the garage floor, finds spider webs, walks on the deck, tumbles in the dry leaves in the perennial garden, sniffs tree trunks, and gets absolutely filthy. The picture above doesn't do her justice. She looked just awful. Rudy probably gets as dirty but with his brown coat, we can't see the dirt.

We decided long ago that it was pointless to try to keep a little fluffy white dog clean at the lake so we just let her go. She gets her mouth dirty, her paws filthy, and collects hundreds of little pieces of "stuff" in her fur. We ride home with her on my lap and I feel like a momma monkey picking little pieces of grass, seeds, twigs, and who knows what out of her fur as we drive back home. The first thing we do when we return to the Wooster house is unpack the refrigerated food and put it away. Then next thing is wash the dirty, grey puppy. When I first bought Emme, I also bought twelve small white towels and six washcloths. We have put them to good use.

Four on the Floor

Emme is still jumping up on us when we return to the house or when she is let out of her crate in the morning. She is so excited to see us, that all training evaporates out of her brain. For a long time, we just ignored the behavior, as recommended in many of the dog books we read. The idea was that the jumping behavior would not get the attention she sought and she would stop doing it. Not so. We would ignore her while she was jumping: no petting, no speaking to her, and even no eye contact. That didn't eliminate the jumping.

So now we are trying another method. On the advice of the trainer, since ignoring the jumping didn't extinguish the behavior, we are telling Emme to sit. She doesn't get any attention until she has obeyed the sit command and has all four paws on the floor, "four on the floor." So now, she jumps once; we say "sit" and she puts four on the floor. Then we pet and talk to her. The minute we stop petting her, she jumps up again. We say "sit" and she puts four on the floor again. Then we pet and talk to her. This can go on three or four times.

She has learned to sit and get petted, but only after she has jumped up on us. I hope we are heading in the right direction with this. She is in no danger of knocking anyone over when she jumps up, but it is just not good manners. She could put muddy paw prints on someone or snag stockings or trousers. She knows what we want, but her enthusiasm gets in the way of her obedience.

Feed Me

Emme has always been a good, if indifferent, eater. She eats a few pieces of kibble, carries a few pieces to the waiting rug to eat them there, comes back to her dish to eat a few more pieces of kibble, goes to get a drink of water, wanders into the living room to make sure she is not missing anything, returns to eat a few more pieces of kibble, etc. This goes on for about 10 minutes until she eats all or most of her meal. Lately, there has been a change. She continues the above process for dinner, but for breakfast, she is not interested in eating anything. Sometimes I can hand feed her two or three kibbles of food, but then she is done and she lies down on the waiting rug. Ken has started picking her up on his lap and hand feeding her kibble. She doesn't eat it all, but she does eat some on Ken's lap. I wonder if she is telling us that she only wants to eat one meal a day or if she is just enjoying the attention of having Ken hand feed her. If only puppies came packaged with an instruction manual.

Emme and Rudy can S-P-E-L-L

Emme and Rudy both know many words. They know, among others, sit, down, come, leave it, no, eat, food, treat, ride, walk, come, hurry up, outside, in, upstairs, bed, home. Until now, they didn't know how to spell. Every night one of us says to the other, "Do you think it is time for bed?" That is the signal for the dogs to run to the kitchen for one last hurry up before going upstairs. Recently we have been really slick and spelled B-E-D to fool the dogs. That didn't last long. Last night Ken said to me, "B-E-D?" and both dogs jumped up to go to bed. Now they know how to spell!

Peanuts

Last night, Ken and I were playing with our new coffee maker in the kitchen when he looked into the living room and noticed Emme helping herself to some peanuts left in a dish on a table next to one of the recliner chairs. Although she loves peanut butter in her Kong as a special treat, she has never encountered a whole peanut. As a matter of fact, one time we put extra chunky peanut butter in her Kong instead of the usual creamy and she licked all the peanut butter off the peanut chunks and left them inside her Kong. We are not sure if she was actually eating the peanuts last night or if she was just smelling them and licking the salt off of them. No matter. She was into something she should not have been, but it was our mistake leaving them within her reach. With a puppy anything is fair game and it is up to us to keep things out of her reach. I guess last night it was puppy, 1, adults, 0.

Ice is Nice

Both Emme and Rudy love ice cubes as treats. When I am working in the kitchen, Emme and Rudy dash to the kitchen and do a "down/stay." Rudy goes down and stays down for as long as I am working. I can even go to the back porch or the mailbox and he stays down on the kitchen floor waiting for me. Emme, on the other hand, knows good things come from lying down on the kitchen floor. She doesn't have the staying power that Rudy has so she is up and down a dozen times as I prepare a meal. During one of the down times, I like to catch her doing it right and I say "Good dogs. Good down/stay." Then I give them a treat: a puppy biscuit, carrot, cherry tomato, piece of vegetable or ice. Rudy chomps right down on the ice and Emme licks hers, throws it up in the air and pounces on it, or waits. Sooner or later Rudy will drop a chip of ice from the ice cube he is chewing. Emme would rather have that. It is small and has Rudy spit on it. What a treat! Go figure.

First Bone

Emme had a fresh bone for the first time last weekend and she loved it. We had a family picnic at the lake house on Memorial Day weekend and I thought a bone for each dog would keep them busy and out of the way.

We have always been very careful about giving bones to Rudy. One of the books we read when we first got Rudy was Daniel Pinkwater's Super Puppy. He cautions to use no bones except beef femur bones because all others shatter. I go to the market and ask for beef femur bones with the joints cut off and the middle of the bone cut into 3 to 6 inch pieces. The meat department does not always carry these so I sometimes need to check a few times until they are available. I think people use them for soup, so they are more available in the cold weather, fall and winter. Then I take them home and boil them for 20 minutes, as recommended in the Pinkwater book, to kill any bacteria and to make the bones more dense. I wrap each in foil and put them in the freezer until I want to give one to Rudy.

Emme has never had a fresh bone. They have marrow in the middle and a small amount of meat on the outside. For this reason, I like to give them to Rudy on the porch or in the garage so nothing gets on the rugs. After he has chewed them for a while, they are clean and can come into the house. These old bones last about forever. Some of the bones Rudy has are two years old. Rudy and Emme both love to pick one up and chew on the bone.

I have had some bones prepared and waiting in the freezer since last fall and brought two of them to the lake last weekend. It was a rainy day so we set up the big table in the garage for lunch. I gave a fresh bone to both Emme and Rudy who cheerfully chewed for hours while we were eating and visiting. It didn't take Emme a minute to figure out what she had and to begin to chew. There didn't seem to be a trouble with ownership of the bones. Periodically, they would switch bones and chew on that bone for a while before switching back. The combination of the greasy bone marrow and the garage floor turned our white puppy into an awful, dirty, but happy, grey puppy. It was a shame that I didn't have my camera with me then. She was so dirty that she needed to ride home on Eric's lap on top of a beach towel. As soon as she got home, I gave her a bath and our clean white puppy made a return appearance.

Rudy brought one of the bones back to the Wooster house and Emme is still in love with it. This morning Emme was chewing on the bone and decided to find a comfortable place to chew. Of course she selected the neighborhood watch couch. She sat on the couch on top of a pillow and proceeded to chew contentedly. Emme likes bones.

My Fault

I set Emme up for failure this morning. The morning began slowly and quietly. Emme and I slept in until almost 7 AM. After we fed the dogs, Ken and I had a leisurely breakfast: many cups of coffee, two newspapers, and lots of conversation. After breakfast we decided to go outside, Ken to mow, me to pull the never-ending weeds. As I always do, I opened the door from the kitchen to the porch so the dogs could see us as we worked.

Both Emme and Rudy came out onto the porch to watch us. We really got busy working hard outside and I completely lost track of the time. Suddenly I heard a bark of alarm from the porch. I looked at my watch and I realized that it had been a long time since I had taken the puppy outside to do her business and she must have needed to go. By the time I put down my tools and got back to the porch, Emme had made a puddle right in front of the door. This is the first time in months that has happened.

This incident reinforces that training a puppy is really training the owner. I set her up for failure by not taking her outside in a timely manner. When she needs to go outside she whines by the door and I am sure that I could not have heard it from the garden. Oh, well, we will do better next time.

Puffs Plus

I bet when Procter and Gamble make tissues, they don't know how versatile Puffs Plus are. In addition to their use for personal hygiene, they can be a dog toy or even a dog snack.

Rudy has been in love with tissues as long as we have had him. He loves them, clean or used, and he EATS them. He will go through waste baskets to find them, snatch them off of end tables, and even root in pockets to try to find a tissue.

This morning, Emme was not with me in my sewing room when I was checking my email. That was most unusual because she is almost always within my arm's reach. If she is not with me, she may be with Ken but today he was already gone for the day before I went upstairs. When I went to look for Emme, she was in our bedroom, beside our bed, with a pile of moist shredded tissue pieces all over the rug. It is amazing how many pieces she could make out of one tissue. I don't know where she got it. She must have pulled one out of a waste basket or off the night stand. She didn't eat it, but it was a wonderful dog toy. Fun!