Doo Doo Dragons

Willow sounds snarfy when she breathes, she’s got a runny nose: I thought it may be her smooshy face. She’s got a WHOLE LOT to say, and she always eats her poop.

She does REALLY well with ‘sit’ when I have a treat in hand.

Willow’s favorite place to irritate Jewel is from under the couch. They take turns sleeping in the snuggler bed, though sometimes they'll share it.

Look for the video of Willow licking Jewel's ear last night. It just broke my heart, it was so sweet.

We went to the vet today: Jewel got vaccine #2 and took it like a CHAMP! Did she even notice?

See the princesses with their Doctor!

Dr. Tenjinder Sodhi, Ayurvedic Vet, also does acupuncture, all the regular stuff and naturopathic vet medicine. He has a clinic in Bellevue and one in Lynnwood, right next to Mommy's brand-new first office!!

The vet didn’t have much to say about Willow, but her nose has been runny. He said it was the excess tearing draining from the lacrimal canal (duh, I knew this) and that I needed to trim her hair out of her eyes.

I’ve relented…

Look at my pretty puppies NOW!!!!!

"Mr. De Mille, I'm ready for my close-up..."

I’ve got my act together enough to get them both to fetch at the same time. They love it! I’m teaching them to STOP! and SIT! When things get too rowdy. I only started doing it this evening and it’s working pretty well.

Willow has NO IDEA where to do her business. I think the lack of potty pads is a factor. I haven’t been paying much attention to her elimination habits to get on a schedule. Jewel is doing awesome. She always asks to go outside. I’m not always there, so she goes on the paper by the door when I don’t come.

Daddy finally ordered the patio pet door (free shipping!), so that won’t be an issue for Jewel anymore! She’ll be 100-poo-cent housetrained !!!

I feel like I’m feeding teenage boys, they’re eating SO MUCH!

They were angels in the car today.

We went to the park and they wore themselves out.

Jewel was fascinated by a crow: I got some great video of it, to be posted.

Everybody got in the bathtub when we got home. Even in 2 inches of water they were NOT COOL with it. Well, Willow was cool until Jewel started making a racket.

Then I trimmed the poky hair in their eyes (Sorry you had to endure that gloopy face hair for nothing, Shawna!!!)

I was bonding with Willow on the floor in the hall and Jewel came bounding up saying GUESS WHAT I DID……???????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! with several rich kisses to my face, lips and eyes…

You got it.

I got spackeled by the poopy tongue.

Willow Settling In

Willow is a little butterball, Jewel’s whipping her right into shape: she’s probably burning 3x as many calories as before, she’s lost weight overnight! And Jewel’s eating about 3x as much food as before. All they do is wrestle. All the time. And Jewel’s on top 95% of the time.

I think Jewel is the instigator, and Willow’s constantly growling: she sounds like a mini-motorbike. Though, when Jewel isn't touching her, Willow will bark and bark and bark until she plays again. Jewel gives her hell whenever Willow bites her.

What a Rowdy pair!!

We have to separate them occasionally because Willow wants to snooze and Jewel won’t have it. She probably doesn’t realize the new puppy is a permanent fixture and is trying to get as much fun out of her as possible.

They occasionally lay side by side and chew on their toys. Or share a toy.

(Munchy munchy munchy on carrot treats... my little vegetarians...)

Jewel barks at Willow when Willow finally acts submissive. Ian says they walked into the crate last light and Jewel spooned Willow.

Our Christmas decorations are about as up as they’re going to get.

Willow understands that presents go under the Christmas trees, the aroma of hers, however, fills the entire house.

We can’t get over how different these two are, both in personality, conformation, and movement. Jewel jumps around like a gazelle and Willow can barely clear the sides of their bed. Willow has a lot more wags and chews on everything.

We went through a handful of green beans working on ‘sit’ and ‘down’ with both of them is 2 sessions this morning. I’m expecting Jewel will be taking a few steps back on her progress, since she waved buh-bye to her brains when Willow arrived.

I’ll spend the rest of this week getting Willow settled in: I’m relying on Jewel to do some of it for me, and she’s doing a great job! One of these days I need to get my office together.

Right now, I can shower and clean the kitchen and not have to wonder what kind of trouble they’re getting into because I can hear them wrestling. When I came out of the bathroom this morning, they were laying side by side very nicely on the doormat waiting expectantly.

Cutie... Party of two...

Willow's home! Willow's home!


We went to Shawna's today to pick up Willow. Of course we brought Jewel inside to play with all the doggies. She couldn't believe her luck when Mommy put Willow in the crate with her!

Willow whimpered most of the way to her new home, but no big cries or tantrums. Jewel was very attentive putting her face into Willow's: "I'm here, it's ok..."
Willow just laid down and was still for the most part. Awww, look that those 2....


Daddy met us at home for lunch, Willow waddled around checking out her new digs and taking the occassional moment to nip and shout "STOP IT!" at Jewel who ruuuuudely kept jumping on top of her and barking.

Her first pee pee made it in the sod box, but her poo was deposited in the corner under my plants. Well, she was being distracted...

Jewel was insistent on making it known to Willow that This. Is. My. Place. and YOU are for playing with.

Willow was like, Whatever beeyawtch: Get offa me.
















Things calmed down a bit after Jewel was satisfied by getting Willow on her back and licking submissively. They still had a few shouting matches.


Willow wanted on Jewel's bed and play with the new jangley toy Dot's mom got for them.
Thank you Auntie JoAnne! Jewel LOVES it!!!

I knew they were tired, so I cleaned up their faces and slicked the hair out of their eyes.

Willow conked right out on the bathroom floor when I was done with her and Jewel fell asleep on her back in my lap: I was able to get a topknot on her. She's got a 'fro-hawk: her bangs stick straight up on one side and fro's on the other.

Jewel doesn't really want to share her bed. Fortunately, we have a little buckwheat hull hassock just about Willow's size. They have no problem sharing the couch.


Willow's got a little mushroom-head. She's so sweet and cuddly, but no shrinking violet!

I must say: Jewel is a MUCH different poochie with other pups around. She's a bit nuts, actually. Willow appears to be very well-socialized, so I hope she'll teach Jewel a thing or two. Jewel just seems to be downright ruuuuuude, but does really well with people.

Willow kissed Jewel during their nap on the couch.

I think they'll get along juuuuuuust fine, becoming partners in crime...


We shot a TON of video, look for it to go live in a couple days...

Jewel Goes To The Beach

Jewel's adventures in Coos Bay continued today. The first order of business was the beach! Jewel loved it... driftwood to chew on, children to play with, and other doggies to meet and sniff. At one point, Jewel found a piece of wood that looked like a cigar in his mouth.

She looked at the water, but surprisingly wasn't that interested in it.

After the beach, Jewel spent some quality time with Grandma while Ian and Becky went horse back riding for a little while. However when they got back, it was off to pick up Grandma's Christmas Tree. Aftwerwards, we piled into the car with Corban and hit the local tradition, Holiday Lights at Shore Acres. This year is the 19th year, featuring over 250 thousand lights. And not just simple christmas lights, but dolphins and frogs that jump through the air and whales that blow their spouts. Technically Jewel wasn't allowed out of the car, but this usually doesn't stop us, as we just put Jewel in her $9 Nine West "pup pack."

Another tuckered out pup-squeak...or as Corban would say, "sqeak-pup."

Jewel Buys the Farm

Jewel may have thought Thanksgiving was fun, but that was just the beginning of her adventures in Coos Bay, OR. The day started off with Mommy and Daddy making a quick stop at the mall. As it turns out, Jewel's bark is enough to set off the car alarm, which was a source of confusion for an innocent family that knew they hadn't gone anywhere near the screaming car.

The mall was followed by a more entertaining trip to the farm that Becky used to live on. Jewel met horsies! including a wild mustang. We let Pete, Becky's old horse and Jewel sniff each other, but that was as close as our little girl was allowed. While Becky brushed Pete, Daddy took Jewel for a walk away from the animal corrals. Seemed to be a whole new ofactory world for Jewel.



Friday night, Corban and Amy came over for dinner again. Corban had a fun time setting up obstacles and challenges for Jewel to overcome in order to get her pedge pog.

Between that and the running around, we had never seen Jewel pant before. Lets just say she slept well that night, completely konking out before it was even bed time.

Jewel's First Thanksgiving

Jewel played with Grandma on her first Thanksgiving morning. She's VERY thankful for Grammy's thick wall-to-wall carpeting: she can lay down and be comfortable wherever she pleases!



Despite being a guest in someone else's house, she was not on her best pottie behavior, but she reallyreally tried. Most of the accidents were pee pee's in the stone entrance way. She did leave a calling card in Auntie Mary Lou's when we we went over there to store some of our overflow leftovers. Jewel had a BUSY morning, so she took a long afternoon nap.


Jewel loves Thanksgiving! She gorged herself not only on green beans, but ate lots and lots of turkey. YUMMMMMMMM!

CrunchaCrunchaCruncha... a WHOLE gween bean!!!!!



Like the rest of us, she went into the post-Thanksgiving food-coma.



Jewel can't wait for next Thanksgiving!

Oonnn the road agiiiiiin.....

It took us 10 hours to get to Coos Bay, usually it takes just 7 1/2, but the freeway was clogged south of Olympia. We went east to Highway 101, the coastal highway, which is beautiful.

....in the daytime. We got to Astoria at dusk.

Go Figure.

Jewel was a gem (*snicker-snicker*...) the WHOOOOOOOOLE 10 hours. Since Mommy sleep-deprived her all morning she slept or dozed for the first 4 hours, then she got to spend 2-3 hours in Mommy or Daddy's lap. Then she hibernated in her crate the rest of the way.

No Accidents!! Potty or otherwise!

Jewel LOVES Grandma's house!! There's carpet EVERYWHERE! Grandma went to Hawaii last week and brought her back a PINK, sparkly-Brandy-spanky-NEW COLLAR! And her very first-est topknot bow!

She tore all over the place when we arrived: we let her play on the bed for a little while because she was such a good girl the whole way down.

Hark! little bark! Flying through the park!

We took an impromptu (read: didn't have camera) trip to the off-leash park and Jewel was in DOGGY HEAVEN!
She got to runrunrunrunrunrunrun!!!!! Now I've seen her move fast when fetching, but nothing like this. Jewel's discovered TRACTION.
She got to play with a BIG feathered Irish Setter, a smattering of golden labs and retreivers and mostly-bestly-making-it-all-worth-while of all ....
An English.
Jack.
Russell.
Terrier...

WOOHOO!!!!

Jewel just went ballistic: the Russell, Haley, was teaching her some proper manners and Jewel was getting it, though I think she needs more practice. Haley was very nice, but no-nonsense, rolling Jewel onto her back and holding her down until she chilled out.

I just can't wait to get video of Jewel running flat-out in the grass. She loves being outside more than anything. In. the. World.

Even more than green beans, asparagus, carrots, apples or squash.

Jewel was a durdy-durdy girl by the time we had to go home, so she got a full bath. (We've censored all images of wet shih tzu to respect the privacy of the aforementioned individual(s) and to avoid unnecessary humiliation and mockery commonly associated with Aquaticus caninus domesticus )

She tolerated the hairdryer for the first time. I think she was just too tired. She actually fell asleep while I was drying her.

Poop report: More of the same. Sometimes she asks to go out, and she goes out to the sod box. Sometimes she just lets fly on the floor. We praise and give treats when she goes in the box, and ignore everything else. I did catch her doing her poopy dance today and got her outside in time. We'll take lots of potty pads when we go to my Mom's for Thanksgiving, cuz Grammy's got nice carpet. (she did say it needs to be cleaned, though, but we're still trying to get her trained as much as possible)

Weekend madness

Saturday we went to Auntie Chai's house.
Jewel was toted around by Cousin Tyanna

Her friend Taylor

She peed in Auntie Chai's (the laborador) bed

Pooped in Aunt Patty's yard

And sneaked a dozen Tully's cups onto Aunt Patty's Starbucks Christmas tree

Daddy got a kick out of that

Auntie Chai kept poking Jewel with her nose, trying to get Jewel to respect her authori-tuh. They got along ok, but we weren't 2 inches away from them at any time, Chai-chai gave Jewel the warning growl an awful lot.

We got the hardest parts of our Christmas decorations up! Daddy doesn't like Mom's fake tree, Mom sure wouldn't mind getting a 10' fir: we've got the ceiling clearance for it! Our little tree must have 8 ornaments on every branch.

We pulled half the branches out of the tree and made a big garland out of it-

Those ornaments in the garland are the size of cantaloupe.


We got Jewel's 'bangs' in bands, that lasts about, oh say 2.4 minutes into playing. I can't find them: I hope she didn't eat them.

She stayed in her crate for 7.5 hours last night without peeing. THEN she let Mom sleep in for another 2 1/2 hours. Nice Puppy... She even walked into it and laid down when it was time to go to bed.
Jewel's almost all the way quiet in the car now. She whines enough to remind herself (& us) that she still does not like it in there, but I think she'll make the 7 hour (minimum, more like 9 with holiday traffic) drive to Coos Bay on Wednesday.

To Wee or Not to Wee ...

... on the wee wee pad, that is.

So the last 2 days, Jewel has been peeing on the floor wherever she sees fit. Sometimes she asks to go outside in the sod box (Which she MUCH prefers to PLAY in... And eat the dead grass and dirt out of...), but it's only really been to poo.

Whenever she does pee, they're really big!!! She holds it forever.

It dawned on me that she may not realize she's supposed to PEE in the box: no problems pooping in there... She pees outside in the grass no problem.

Keep in mind all the wee wee pads have been put away for 4 or 5 days (I think), so I grabbed one and she followed me out to the sod box and I barely had the pad down in the box (just a corner of it) and she jumped on it and had a HUGE pee.

Well, I'll be danged...

Jewel helped me pull out all the Christmas stuff.
Every square inch of our dining table ...

and then some...



is covered in ornaments and figurines. Daddy promised to bring home egg nog tonight: I've got our Christmas music in the CD changer.
It's funny, because hardly any of it sounds familiar! We've got 'Yule be Swingin' which is all unfamiliar (to me)Christmas swing tunes, and a Female Madrigal chorus (sounds like a boys choir doing gregorian chant) Ian's mom gave me last year. I should put Manheim Steamroller in there....

Jewel's pooped after helping...


I LOVE CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!!

Strange behavior...

I am pleased to announce Jewel has had no accidents while in my care (yet) today. Daddy's report is probably quite different, based on the early morning snarls that woke me up....

This morning we went to PetCo in search of tiny rubber bands to start Jewel's topknot after a trip to the post office where she WANTED OUT of the pup-pack.

The grooming spa gave me a little handful of them because the store doesn't have any to sell: that was nice, wasn't it? Again.... EVERYBODY loved the little fluffy puppy. There were a few daycare kids there on an outing with their caretakers and I heard a chorus of little voices asking "Can I pet your baby puppy, lady?"

When we got home, I let her play in the grass: she wanted to go across the street to the nice grass. She did her little poopy dance and did her business.

Then she kept darting around in her little squat trying to get more out. She tried to get her face into her butt and lick, bite, or whatever and drag her butt on the ground. I was thinking "Constipated? Well, she just had a nice long poo 2 seconds ago. Minifissures that burn, sting or itch? maybe. Pinworms? Well, it wouldn't look like this: it would always itch. So what is it??


I took her into the house to pull the poop off/out and give her a butt and foot bath. Accompanying (Is that a word?) the poop was a long strand of hair, say, about the length of one of mine.

ooooooooooohhhhhh, I see.

Note to self, pick up hair in bathroom daily.

I tried my hand at our first topknot.



Really, it's more of a lop-sided ponytail, but at least she can get used to having something in there. Hair's not long enough yet. She did, of course, try to rub it off a few minutes after putting it in.

"Shah-la la-LA-la-LA-la LA-la Lala

Tee-dah ..... She's myyyyyyy.....
...Brown-eyed girl..."



Jewel helped Mom put up the Christmas tree today: Dad promised we could put up our Christmas decorations this weekend, so Mom's not wasting any time!!

Now, most people have a respectable Christmas decor collection that warms things up around the holidays. We, however, are not respectable about Christmas decorations... We're rabid.

Ian's nutcracker collection is pushing about 50 strong. I bought a new suitcase last Christmas hitting the after Christmas sales to get my ornaments home. We went with my mother-in-law in Monterey, California, who, by the way, has a Christmas collection so large and elaborate she has to rotate what gets displayed each year. I was thrilled to find a $10 ornament for $2-$3 and she's getting $200 whimsical snowland houses for $50 to develop a new wonderland scene and not batting an eye. I'm learning. Ooooh I'm learning from the best...

Last night Dad got up and tried to get Jewel to "go" in the box and after 10 minutes, he gave up and THEN she managed to outrun him in sleepy haze, first peeing at the far end of the house and then pooping just feet from the patio door. Daddy was not amused. In his words, Jewel put the Shiht in Shih tzu.

What, her....?



C'moooooonnnnn....

Mom had slightly better luck: the morning business made it in the box (she asked to go outside) but the subsequent 3 pees just got deposited wherever she happened to be at the moment. With our wood laminate flooring, this is no big deal: Sister Dot's mom has new carpet and Dot's trying to make it all her own, if-you-know-what-I-mean.