Old crimes, new digs

We bought a house! And we live in it! Like, for reals, all the time, all of us, we live there now!

Holy crud, that was a big shift.

Despite our best efforts at adjusting the dogs to the new place, we knew it was gonna rock their little world pretty hard. Check in that column- world rocked.

Their poor little insecure selves spent the first 3 days almost literally underfoot. For Odie it was literal a couple of times, Piper just kept getting kicked in the shoulder. They continue to go the wrong way when given commands to go outside or to their 'houses'/ crates. Although it is interesting to see how they make the connections- their door outside used to be through the kitchen, so now they go that way, despite the new door being at the other side of the house. Their crates used to be in the living room, so they still head that way, despite their crates being in a totally different room now. And people say Dogs are stupid, brainless animals..... feh.

The insecurity is also manifesting itself in the renewal of some old crimes.

yay.......

Piper is the MOST affected by this change (yet another time where she is just like the human who picked her- resistant to change) and therefore her renewed crimes seem to be directly connected to that. She has peed on an area rug twice- the same one- while one of us was in the room with her, but not paying attention. Thankfully, she's blocked from getting into the guest room and marking that spot again. She also felt a strong enough attraction to a tube of (pricey!) hand lotion to grab it off the table and chew on it for a good 10 minutes before I found her with it. Less then charming, to say the least.

Odie on the other hand, has a renewed interest in rolling in inappropriate things. Oh yay- my favorite. Hopefully this will fade once he's found all the nasty stuff and caused us to pick it up as a result. Of course, we do have fruit trees now, so there's potential to have semi constant rotting things to deal with. Again I say... yay.....

On the flip side of this coin, we've learned new things about the dogs now that their environment has changed a bit.

Odie is a mouser! He yelled at, then tried to pick up and run with a mostly dead (hopefully) mouse last night. This was AFTER he'd pawed at and tried to dig up a dead rat carcass over the moving weekend. So, clearly his hunting Jack Russell genes take over around small rodents. This could be a very helpful attribute, or it could end up with dead rodents all over my yard. I know where my vote falls.

Piper is endlessly eager to please! (I guess that's not entirely new) but she has adjusted to new changes well in some regard. She's learned to get on her pillow when she's in a room with us, which is a new trick as she never had pillows before. She also likes to be where we are, so if she has to be a certain way to accomplish that, she's amenable- thus she'll stay in a doorway as long as she can see us. She picked up on new boundaries of new rooms within a day. See- she is smart! for a dumb dog anyway.

In general, I'd say the transition is going well, if a little bumpy. We're revisiting some old crimes, but hey, everyone relapses once in a while. We'll re-institute the Rehab procedures and see what progress we can regain. In the meantime, if someone has a secret to getting dogs to remember things like where the door is, feel free to let me know.....

No crime, just cute

OK, so this isn't a crime, it's not even really that funny a story, but it is evidence that every once in a while my dogs are just stinkin' cute.

(thus why they are still in my house)

I was going into work late this morning, due to an appt I had, so I decided to hit the road and do a decent length run. It's become something of a tradition that after a run like that I sit outside in the back yard with the dogs while I cool down. I stretch a bit, then sit on the stoop and watch them run around. It's a great opportunity for my heart rate to come down while spending time with them.

When we first got Odie, I'd sit outside with him every morning, so he's gotten really good at knowing just how to come over and sit in my lap. We have a very definite position when he's in the mood, and he'll push on me until I get into it.

This morning, Odie bolted the moment I opened the door- there were squirrels to yell at and leaves to overturn and sniff. Piper on the other hand was practically glued to my side. It's like she thought I'd left them forever and was just SO HAPPY I came home again.

So I sat on the stoop, and she tried her best to get all 4o lbs of her self into my lap. She got very perturbed when she kept falling off, so I finally shoved her into a position where her front half was across my legs and her back half was on the stoop next to me. She then did me the great honor of trying to clean all the sweat off of me with her super stinky licks. *eye roll* Thanks sweetie, but you can stop that now.

So there we sat; sweaty, gross me, and a 40 lb curly mop of a dog for about 8 minutes. At this point, Odie had stopped his squirrel hunt and noticed the cuddling that was going on. From about mid way down the yard, he full out sprinted over to us, shuddered to a halt next to me, then slowly, and methodically, climbed into my lap, shoving his sister aside inch by inch.

This went on for probably a full minute, with Odie slowly wiggling his way into his favorite position on my lap, and Piper fighting for her space as well. Throughout it all, I just sorta watched this land warfare and waited to see what would happen. The end result was Odie on my lap in "his" spot, with Pipers legs under him, and head resting on top of him.

So frickin cute!!

We sat like that with them watching squirrels and birds pass by like some bizarro two headed creature, and me letting my heart rate come down, for about 10 minutes. I honestly could have stayed there all day if I wasn't so gross and smelly. It was just so nice to have them both so calm and relaxed, not fighting (although I do find their fights to be the height of good comedy) and just chillin' out with me. I would kill to have a picture of that moment, but alas, I just have to try my best to remember it.

See- I'm not so harsh with them all the time. Just when they're being crazy. The rest of the time I adore the mental patients.

Crimes continue into the new year

So, things have been insanely busy over the past couple of months, and quite frankly, the dogs have had to settle for fitting into the picture instead of being the focus of it. These times happen, and the dogs have adjusted pretty well, all things considered. Until the other day....

Part of what has been keeping us busy is we bought a house. We're prepping to move in this month (so again, regular updates may not be happening as much as I'd like) and we started bringing the dogs over to the empty house to get them acclimated to it before we just walk them in and go "get used to it!" On our first visit to the new house, within 30 minutes of being there, Piper peed on the ONE CARPET in the entire house.

*head*desk* Really?

Oh, and this happened not 5 minutes after my husband had unknowingly stepped in poo in the yard and dragged it into same said carpet.

So within 30 minutes of being homeowners we had shit and pee in the one carpet we'd purchased.

Right

Awesome

We cleaned it up, and wrote Piper's choice to pee off to the smell of the previous owners dogs. Odie hadn't been taken off leash long enough to give him the chance to do the same. I had figured the boy dog would be the culprit and kept him tight to me.... who knew Girl dogs would be just as territorial?

(did I mention I've never had a girl dog before?)

Knowing that room would be a problem, we closed it off to the dogs the next couple of times we took them by. Until last night when we were showing some friends the new place, we go into that room and within 45 SECONDS Piper's squatting to pee again. Fortunately, I had my eye on her this time and caught her before more then a drip came out.

Damn dogs! I can't have nice things!

Rug Doctor is now on my speed dial and will be helping us out with this problem.

Meanwhile- Shelter adventures are continuing. as soon as I get more time to get in there, I'll have more updates from the incarcerated. Look forward to those adventures- cause there's always something going on

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!