This Texas heat is killing me, and our yard! Ugh. I see I’m lagging on my blogging. Man my life has been busy! Harry the dog is keeping me busy at home as well as Sophie. She’s all over the place! She can stand when she’s up against a few objects. She stands in her crib and when she goes up to the dog’s crates she pulls up to a standing position, hanging on the bars for dear life.
We think she’s starting to sign some. She seems to clap for “more” and every now and again we see her do the “milk” sign but she’s not consistent yet. I’m excited about her doing more signs though. Fun, fun!
Today we played peek-a-boo. It’s so fascinating to see a baby actually growing and learning like a person! She looks for things and notices when they are gone. For example, earlier today I was in the bathroom and I guess she didn’t see me leave. She went around the corner and peeked her head around as if to say, “I know you’re in here mommy” and I could see her looking confused. I said, “Sophie! I’m over here!” She turned around and smiled really big and started crawling really quickly over to me.
My little cutie pie is getting so big! She’ll be 9 months on the 28th of this month . . . I can’t believe it! She now has her two bottom teeth all the way in and they are so incredibly cute when she smiles at you. And speaking of smiles she does that just about all the time. It’s so heartwarming. She’s got a lot of hair, David put it in a mohawk after her bath.
Last week Sophie was sick for the first time in her life. I keep saying it’s all the probiotics I add to her food. I’ve added probiotics to her formula since she was 3 weeks old and still do so. Anyway, she had a fever for a couple of days but no infection. The doctor said she had a “summer cold” and we could just give Tylenol and Bendedryl. She bounced back about mid-week last week and now she’s back to being her little happy self!
Crawling is rather speedy and she pulls up on her knees only. She’s not standing yet and I’m perfectly fine with that. She loves Amos and the rest of the dogs. Amos actually just lies there and she is very interested in his big paws and toenails. It’s funny. Noah and Trevor steer clear of her and Jake also just lies there and lets her get really close.
Here is a video of my happy little blue-eyed gal.
I’m still working diligently with Harry and he’s coming along nicely. I sure hope you all can make the competition–yes, you in the front row, I’m talking to you. Here is my schedule for the weekend. The horses being shown that go from mustangs to trained horses will be there as well. We are mingled in the same show. Here is the schedule for the weekend (Legends is the Horse Show):
THURSDAY, SEPT. 17TH
Move in day – Dogs to arrive after 10 AM
5 PM TRAINER’S MEETING – Dining Room in Watt Arena
7PM Trainers/Sponsors/Judges Reception at National Cowgirl Hall of Fame Museum
FRIDAY, SEPT. 18th –
(No ticket required – Open to the public.)
John Justin Arena
8AM – 2PMIdols In-Hand
Legends In-Hand
3PM – 7PMIdols Horse Course
7:30 PMMission :008 Youth Competition
Mustang Magic Draw
Mutt Makeover Preliminary (Large Dirt Arena)
Mutt Makeover Arena
5PM – 6PMMeet the Mutts
SATURDAY, SEPT. 19th
(Ticket required for Saturday Night Finals Performance. Buy tickets here.)
John Justin Arena
8AM – 1PMLegends Horse Course
2 PM Mission :008 Youth Top Ten Finals
4 PMIdols Top Ten Finals
Mutt Makeover Arena
1PM – 2PMMutt Makeover Preliminary(50’ X 50’ Astro Turf Area)
Big weekend for me and Harry. I would post about last week but I’ve slept since then so I have to start with what I remember. . .
Thursday evening my wonderful friend and dog trainer, Misty, and I left town around 8pm and drove to Austin for a weekend planned to hang out with our mentor trainer, Lee Mannix. I decided to take Harry since he needs to be trained everyday for our big competition just around the corner. I was hoping to get some good tips from Lee on Harry and what I can do with him (yes, he did give me some too!)
We stayed with Mom, of course, but she lives in far north Austin and Lee’s training center is in far south Austin. Misty and I made it to his place by 9am on Friday morning and were able to follow him around all day. Then after our big day Lee bought several pounds of shrimp and crawfish and we went to his place on the Blanco River in Wimberly to eat yummy shrimp and hang on the river. Now you must know that Lee is a one-of-a-kind sort of fellow. He’s a remarkable dog trainer, that’s probably saying it lightly. He made the front page of the Austin American Statesman a few Sundays ago. This guy is a love-him-or-hate-him guy. He’s a good ole boy who loves beer and dogs just about the same. So we had some good old fashioned fun on Friday. Lots of laughs. Saturday was another long dog training day and so was today [Sunday]. That guy never stops working! He said since the article came out he’s tripled his business and he wasn’t hurting for work as it was . . .
Harry had a blast on the river! He learned to swim and enjoyed it quite a bit. He also was running around off-leash and having a good time. He’s a natural swimmer and a very great dog. He’ll make someone a really great buddy! Lee kept saying, “Man that is a cool dog. He’s so awesome . . .” Harry also met goats as Lee has some on his property and he didn’t think much of them. He just looked at them and then sat down.
So the weekend was fun but exhausting. My brain hurts and so do my feet. I’m off to bed for now and hope to be able to add more later . . .
I haven’t said much about my poor hound dogs in awhile. I knew this would be the case after that little bundle of cuteness arrived . . . anyway . . . I snapped this darling photo of Sophie and Amos both wanting to go outside. Sophie was banging away on the glass and Amos walks up and, as if in slow motion, she stops and slowly looks up at him like he was the Trojan Horse. It was funny.
The dogs are doing ok. Noah split a toenail in half and it’s been a mess trying to keep him from licking it and we can’t touch his foot or he yelps. He was always a drama queen though so I think he’s more dramatic than he lets on.
And some rather cool dog news . . . I recently started working with a client that lives around the corner from George W’s new house in Dallas. We met outside down the street the other day and I said, “Let’s wait until this lady passes us with her two Scotties . . .” My client looks at me and says, “You know those are the Bush’s dogs, right?” And I looked again as she walked the two very handsome and well-groomed little terriers past us. Sure enough. So I saw the Bush dogs and their dog walker! Sorry no pic.
Harry Pooper, as David calls him, is doing great. His training is starting out nicely and he already sits like a champ on command and lies down. We are working on stay and walking nicely on the leash–nicely being the key word there. His leash skills are lacking.
I walk a couple of Golden Retrievers every Tuesday and Thursday morning and beginning in June I decided walking was not fun for me due to the heat and then the dogs weren’t getting long enough walks to do any good. My friend Michelle let me borrow her bike so I now bike while holding the leash and the dogs can run next to the bike. I do one dog at a time. Anyway, the other day I was riding along and I noticed a woman ahead of us walking her little Chihuahua on a Flexi leash (my pet peeve) while chatting on her cell phone. Riley likes other dogs a little too much and so I thought, well if I speed up he’ll be going too fast to be able to do anything. So I start to speed up. We come to the woman and her little yapper jumps out at Riley and he got all excited and pulled over to the back of the bike. I started to tumble down. I didn’t fall but jumped off the bike and kind of tossed the bike to the ground so I wouldn’t go down with it. Then I try to gather Riley up and get back on; he was being difficult aside from the fact that he’s 90-lbs of goofy Golden Retriever! The woman was just standing there, still on her phone and starts to apologize profusely. I said, “Don’t worry, it’s not your fault” as I’m still gathering myself and the bike and the dog. I hop back on and start to pedal and then realize the chain is off the gear of the bike. Wonderful. It’s only about 92 degrees out. And I hear the woman tell whomever she’s talking to on the phone, “Oh this poor woman, she just fell off of her bike and now the chain is off of it. . . ” I feel like a total moron. I get down and get the chain back on, have black, grease-covered hands and head back to Riley’s house. I laugh now just thinking about it, and even more when I think about the woman giving instant replays to the person on the phone about this poor red-headed fat girl falling off of her bike. So I ordered the K9 Bike Jogger. I’d been eyeing the thing for a few weeks and decided it would be worth the money because I’ve now been biking every week, twice a week for a month and sometimes at home with Noah. The K9 Bike Jogger attaches to the bike and allows the dog only enough room to run but not go behind or in front of the bike so that Chihuahua owners on the phone don’t have to report to their regatta gala friends about biking mishaps.
So far this week has just been full of fun days like that one. I’ve been incredibly busy, tired and I’m very ready for a few days of no dog training! So for now I’m off to bed and back up early to ride my bike with Riley again tomorrow. This week I get to do it 3 x instead of just 2. Say a prayer for me and that poor Chihuahua’s owner. . . .
This will be a long post and hopefully you’ll take the time to read it all because I’ve had a heck of a weekend and would love to share it with all of you! . . . First I’m so blessed to have such a wonderful family and little things will come my way and show me that I need to step down one rung on the ladder of life and not take anything for granted.
Anyway this post isn’t going to be about Sophie entirely but primarily about something I posted to my dog training blog as I have this really great thing that came my way! First about Sophie for those who want updates on that cute little thing! She’s into everything, I mean everything. I’m figuring out what to do with Kelsey and possibly get her to come more often but not sure. I just can’t get anything done at all. The poor thing was crying in her bed the other day for 15 minutes because I was trying to get off the phone with a client but she was frantic about her dog and I couldn’t just let her go. She had called me in desperation so I sat there and listened while Sophie cried in the bed until I could get off the phone! Anyway . . .
She stayed over at Grandparent Greers on Saturday and David and I had 7 dogs at the house over the weekend. One went home on Sunday evening and the other goes home this coming Saturday but the other . . . well keep reading . . .
Sophie’s teeth on her little bottom gums are just about through. They are peeking nicely and one is almost erupted completely, the other not far behind. They are so cute when she gives her little scrunch nosed grin.
I was chosen to be one of ten trainers to participate in the all new Extreme Mutt Makeover. The goal is to have trainers train 10 dogs they are paired with from the Humane Society of North Texas and then have them be highly adoptable at the end of it. The way they will show off these dogs is in conjunction with the Extreme Mustang Makeover which has been run in several states since 2007. Here is my blog post from my dog training blog on Saturday:
Well today I got my dog. My wonderful trainer, Misty, came to the house around 9am and we headed out. It was pouring down rain as we launched the seats in my Honda Element to the sides of the car (they fold upward in my car to leave cargo space); we toweled off and headed to the Humane Society of North Texas in Fort Worth to see what dog I was going to be paired with for my Extreme Mutt Makeover.
We arrived and all 10 other trainers were there and we all gathered in a garage-type area in the back of the shelter, dripping down sweat as the clouds rolled by and the sun came out to play. This event is going to be one whopper and I’m more excited than a kid in a candy store! We have our dogs for 6 weeks and we have to train them for obedience and then anything else we want to show off at the final competition. They said last year they sold 4,000 tickets and we’ll be in a 50 x 50 arena for our judging and competitions–yipes! I’m a little nervous . . . .
Apparently since 2007 they have been doing this Mustang Makeover (more on that here) where they literally take wild mustangs from goverment land and train them over 100 days and then have a huge competition with the winner receivng $25K. The horses are then adoptable. If they were not trained they would spend their lives in a pen and as a woman said to me today, “A wild mustang is better off dead than trapped in a pen.” I’m not a horse person, while I’d love to be one I’m just not educated on the magnificent animals because I’ve never had the honor of being around them to be able to learn more or even know how to train them. I’d love that, I think it’d be great. Here is the video of the winner of 2008’s Mustang Makeover. Just remember this was a wild mustang running free on open-land with no human contact just 100 days before this . . .
The group of dogs we were paired with were all evaluated by the staff and tested for being good with humans, other dogs and not aggressive in any way. The dogs simply are homeless and need training. They don’t have what a trainer would label as a “problem” other than owners that didn’t take the time to train them and give them what they deserve. We are going to do that for these dogs and I’m very happy to be part of it!
We had a lottery drawing and picked a number and 10 dogs were already pre-numbered. I picked #3 and got this darling fuzzy mutt of a dog. We really have no clue what he is but I think he’s one of the youngest of the bunch. I’m guessing he’s no more than 6 months old but his paperwork says 8 months. Here is a slideshow of the morning.
He was named by the shelter (“Pancho”) but they said we could name the dogs something else if we wanted so I had set up for my clients to give me ideas and I had a few that did but Tracy came up with one that David and I liked a lot and it fits him–“Harry”. So he’s now Harry and the Greers.
The Greer Blog 