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Progress report written April 21, 2006
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We recently celebrated Penny's second 'gotcha' day. It's hard to believe that we've had her for 2 years. I've certainly learned alot from having her. She's nearing 50 pounds now and yes she is over weight and yes we are ashamed of ourselves and we do make efforts to try to help her lose the weight, but it hasn't worked yet. We're hoping that with warmer days approaching and more time spent outside chasing birds, bugs and butterflies, that she'll drop some of the weight. We shall see.
We haven't had more than a few nights of complete sleep since Penny has been with us. She always wakes up in the middle of the night to go outside. The past couple nights, she has finally slept through the night, so maybe within the next year, we'll finally get to sleep normal hours again.
Penny doesn't sleep in her crate now, but maybe once or twice a month. I've took it down twice and she had such a panic attack at it being missing from the room that I had to put it back up. She takes naps around the house now. I didn't think she would ever do that even as recently as a few months ago.
The other day, Whilst I was trying to vacuum the couch cushions with the hose and brush attachments, I ran into a major dog of a difficulty... Penny kept bull dozing in between me and the cushions. Finally, I remembered experiencing this with a cat we had 15 years ago, he loved to be groomed by vacuuming. It was a blessing, that cat shed worse than any critter not molting that I was ever around. I took the brush head and vacuumed once down Penny's back and that was it. She flopped her butt down and did a complete roll over so I could vacuum her entire body. lol The funny thing about Penny is that she has thinner hair & less hair than any critter we've ever had and she sheds very little. Oh well, I think it's pretty neat new game for her, except it'll probably takes twice as long to get my vacuuming done now.
Penny has a special fondness for clothes, socks, towels,
shirts, anything that hits the floor near her fast little jaws. I learned
early on that trying to wrestle or pull them away from her ended up with
the clothes getting holes from her teeth, so I started making trades with
her: the sock or shirt for a milk bone. It's worked so well over the past
couple of years, that now when she comes dragging a shirt or toting a sock
stolen from the laundry, that all I have to do is say the word 'trade'
and she'll drop the item of clothing and follow me into the kitchen for
a milk bone.
I also do this trade thing with the little treasures
she brings in from the outside. My goodness, some of the twigs looks like
spiders and it scares me to death. lol Now that she's older, she doesn't
bring things in very often, but when she does it's now usually a rock.
Penny loves rocks for some reason.
Guess I should add in here, that we chose the 'milk bones' as our choice of treating her because they are more up on the nutritional scale than alot of the other dog snacks are.
Edible or digestible Rawhide is a great chewing option for dogs, but I'm really kind of afraid to give it to Penny too often. We buy it for her every month or so. When we give her a rawhide chew, every ten or so minutes, I check on her chewing progress of the rawhide and cut off any loose pieces that are flimsy enough for her to bite off and swallow. I know it's supposed to be digestible, but I worry that it may clog up her plumbing anyway. It's funny, I say to Penny, "Can I see that a minute" she stops chewing and I pick up the rawhide and if it has any scraggly parts, I'll say to her, "Just a minute" I go to the utility room and trim the rawhide and then take back to where she's laying and she'll waggle her tail and happily take it back and continue chewing. lol Yep, she's so used to me doing that, that she doesn't even bother to get up and chase after me because she knows I'll bring it back to her. lol
We have only recently been able to leave the bathroom doors open. We no longer can have caps on the commode anchors though, Penny chews them up. She also discovered the magic of toilet paper and the never ending ribbon it makes through the house. The toilet paper roll no longer hangs on it's lovely designer hanger, now it sits far back on the sink vanity out of reach of little paws. We had to put the trash can in the linen closet and we keep the commode lid closed. Dh made a wooden cover to protect the water pipe leading from the floor to the back of the commode. The only difficulty we have now is when it's a really rainy day or it's in the middle of the night and Penny goes tinkle in the bathroom floor. I honestly don't believe Penny will ever be 100% potty trained. I've tried every technique listed, but if it's raining or midnight and the tinkle urge hits her, well she heads for the bathroom. I sure do go through alot of cleaning products. Dh says "at least she's using the bathroom in the bathroom."
Our grandson has his own room here in our home. Penny has never been allowed to be alone in the room because of all the wonderful toys. mmmm as a puppy it was a toy buffet for her. Fortunately, we we've been able to stop her before she ever actually chewed up a toy. What helped the most was the giant loc blocs. Our grandson gives her one and she chews it to oblivion. We have to watch her of course and throw away the parts she chews off. Now after 2 years, when she goes in his room, she heads straight for the loc blocs and gets one and lays down and chews on it.
Penny has 4 blankets. I keep a blanket in the sewing room, one in the living room and 2 in her crate. I wash them once a week. I allow Penny to eat a kong or chew a chew bone only when she's lying on one of her blankets on the floor. This has kept the chewys and the kong from staining the carpet or furniture. Whenever I get her a kong from the freezer, she runs and lays down on her blanket and waits for me to bring the kong to her. lol who's the master? Recently, my sis was visiting and was quite amazed at Penny lying by herself in the floor on her blanket chewing on her kong. I heard my sis mention it to my Dh and he told her that I had trained Penny that way. So, even with the excitement of company, Penny still minded her manners. Cool!
Speaking of manners, Penny is much better mannered now. She still gets real excited over visitors, but she doesn't do the jumpy thing much now and she calms down after a few minutes. With certain visitors, we still keep her on a leash for the first 15 minutes or so of their visit, just until we see if they all will get along.
Penny has also stopped chewing on furniture too. So, if I can ever afford new stuff, at least I'll feel pretty hopeful that it may last awhile without chew marks.
She hasn't ate the tv remote this year, but we've been careful to keep it out of her reach unless we are right there with it. She ignores it most of the time, but every now and then she'll nose at it and act like she might want to eat it. lol the last one she ate cost us around $36.00 to replace. Wow! We still don't understand why she ate it, she had never bothered it. Oh well, hey who knows what goes on in a dogs mind. lol
Penny showed a true sign of growing up the other day. I took a pitcher of ice cubes and water to her outside bowl and filled the bowl. Penny turned her head towards me and wagged her tail, but didn't leave the spot of sunshine she was sitting in. Goodness, last year, she pounced in the large bowl and strowed ice from one end of the porch to the other and would drink the water like she was dying of thirst.
Knowing that she's growing up finally is one of those
bitter-sweet moments.