Tuesday, May 25, 2010

All About Annie


Tomorrow will be 2 weeks since Annie came to live with us. She is now 10 weeks old. We are so amazed with everything about her.

We have puppy agility classes scheduled for her, starting July 21st, Handling classes starting July 20th, and Kinder Puppy classes starting in a couple weeks! She will keep us busy, or should I say keep hubby busy!! She is his puppy.
She knows, "sit", "down," and "stand." Last week with mostly luring, but this week, she will do sits and downs with just a voice command! She now knows and responds to "here", "come", and "leave it"! Being a typical puppy, she will start to bite our pant legs, hands, and anything she feels she wants to chew or pick up, but now when we say "leave it", she will stop what she is doing, and come and sit in front of us!! Really responding well.
She loves her food, and lets just say, feeding time around here with five dogs can get a bit crazy and loud! She screams at the top of her lungs if she knows food is being prepared for her. We felt it would take her a long time to learn to sit before we put her bowl down, but...this past Sunday she started offering the sit first!! Wow! We are just amazed with this little girl.

We took her out over the weekend for some good socialization to a few safe places, and to both of my husbands stores, and everything was positive. For one, she wasn't startled, nervous, or overly interested in any of the sites, smells and sounds. She visited with many people, including children. She walked so beautiful on her leash and held heel position with 100% focus on hubby the entire time. Even better, when hubby walked her into the lobby of his gun range, she kept focus on hubby, and continued to heel beautifully, without worrying about the sounds. A very confident and happy puppy she is.

We have her crate with the gate open all day inside a 2 foot play yard in our living room, so when she can not be right with us, she is safe there, especially when I have the daycare children. Well...Sunday, she discovered she can climb out! She only attempts to climb when we are preparing food (again, food CRAZY). I caught her before she got all the way over, thank goodness. Since then we covered the top and she can no longer climb out! She is going to be a challenge, that is for sure.

The other dogs love her. Bandit is just smitten over her and is always hovering, and will paw at her if she isn't moving, wanting her to play with him.
Jarie gets a bit crazy. They both will get eachother started with the Zoomies, but for now, with her being so small, we limit Jarie's time with her, so she doesn't over do it, and hurt the puppy.

I apologize for some of the poor quality photos. Unfortunately the week before Annie came home, I was out taking photos and had fallen and not just injuring myself with quite a few bumps, scrapes and bruises, but I broke my camera. It was not fun shopping for a new one, and I am still trying to figure out how to get a decent photo with it. That too, is also the reason I have not updated sooner.

All is good here, and now I am off to check in with all of my blog friends.




Friday, May 14, 2010

Thursday, May 6, 2010

Remembering Jake



It has been a year since we lost our beautiful boy, yet it feels like only yesterday. In the year that has passed, one can say, life here has been different, lacking of some sort. Jake was a huge part of our everyday life. He was full of life and always wanting to please.
I am very aware that after we lost Jake, was when I quit blogging as often. We have lost many pets in the past, and with each passing, we lose a part of our hearts, but with Jake, he took a huge chunk with him.

He gave us so much more then we could have ever expected. I remember holding on when he took his last breath, taking his pain away and making it our own. We still carry that pain with us.
The pain of missing him is just as fresh today as it was one year ago. He is and will always be forever in our hearts.

Words are so inadequate to describe the beauty, intelligence and loyalty of Jake. If you haven't read his tribute you can find it here, or on my side bar.