Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Warning: Not for Young Viewers

Just watch'em. It's not what you think. Hilarious.



Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Monday, February 2, 2009

Happy Birthday, Bear!

It was Bear's birthday yesterday (he turned 2), so I wanted to dedicate a post to him. Not that he doesn't get mentioned in any of my other posts, but this one is especially for him. The pup is getting mellower in his old age and he's quite the pumpkin sometimes. He has a new friend too. Our neighbors behind us got a new puppy: a 4 1/2 month old Aussie named Scout. He's about the cutest thing ever and he and Bear adore each other. What's really nice is we have a gate in between yards that we can open up and just let the dogs run around together. So here are a few pics of the two romping around together (taken with J-wad's sweet ass new SLR).





His right eye is half blue.


This pic is just a cute one of him laying in the hall. I don't know why he lays in that crazy position, but it's adorable.

It's been tough with these cold days cuz we can't get him walked, so it is nice that he has a bud so close by to play with. His walks have improved dramatically since we got a gentle leader. I actually enjoy walking him again and he is much calmer, relaxed, and he seems like he's enjoying it too. I can't believe what a difference the gentle leader has made. It makes me feels much more in control and he can sense that. The other thing we have been doing on walks is feeding him little pieces of roast beef when he sees another dog. The dog behaviorist we had here told us it's all about taking the emotion out of seeing another dog, cuz he would get so worked up. Now, the moment he sees another dog, we just feed him the beef and then he's fixed on us and doesn't get so crazy about the other dog. It's a slow process but we have already seen a change in him. It sounds wrong, like you are feeding that excited state, but it's really not like that. She also told us that a dog like ours needs 2-3 hours of mental and physical stimulation a day. One way you can do this is make him work for his food. So we bought two little kong like things that you put his food in and he has to roll them around to try to get the food to drop out of it. It keeps him busy for like 15-20 mins instead of him scarfing down his food in less that 2 mins. And he loooooves to work for it! So all these things we've been working on have really made a difference in him. He's learned some self-calming skills (which were desperately needed) and like I said, he is much calmer now. We still have to work on his greetings at the door and reactions to the doorbell, car doors, etc. He starts an obedience class on Monday, Feb. 16th. He is a work in progress, but such a sweet boy!

So here's to Bear and many more happy years in our family! I leave you with a pic I know you've seen before, but I love it. So sweet and innocent (deceptively hiding the Bearcifer that lurks inside).