One of the many...

Ariel has so many boyfriends it is ridiculous. I dropped her off for two days of wonderful CAGE FREE boarding because I will be busy this weekend and want her to just have some fun with friends while mommy is having fun. Sooo, when I dropped her off I was shown this awesome video of her and one of the many boyfriends:

Ariel's New Bling

I thought this deserved a post of it's own. My little rescue baby is proud of where she came from (or it's me projecting my pride on her...) so here is her new bling! It goes well with her id tag, microchip tag, rabies tag and license tag don't ya think?

Out of Timeline Update!

Hey y'all! So a few months ago San Diego had the Loew's Surfdog Competition and we took Ariel down there so she could get dirty and play with pups. It was super fun and I was amazed at all the dogs who surfed all the way in, especially the dynamic duos on the same board. I kinda want to get a foamboard or a cheap surfboard and try to get Ariel doing it. I used to surf 3 or 4 times a week, but with work and the poobers and all, it's sort of difficult. Maybe if I get her doing it, it can be a family event!!! We also went hiking on Sat. morning with the Brand-a-thon-5000. It was really nice and overcast for a while, but around 9:00 am it got really hot and we had to pack it in. Ariel got a bunch of play time in and made two very best friends. I always wonder what it is that makes her absolutely love a dog. There is no physical trait (she loves huge and tiny alike) and no color, but there is something that makes her love a dog. She met an adolescent male Aussie/Border Collie that she fell in love with. She kept teasing him and staying out of his on-leash reach. She also fell for this adult female Dobie who kept dominating her. She kept going back for more wrestling and was obviously loving the roughhousing. I am sort of on the hunt for a best friend for her. I imagine it will be like how I found her, natural. She just fit at a time that fit, and any dog that comes into our lives next should be that way. There are so many wonderful dogs in rescue right now that it almost hurts me. They are so beautiful and all deserve wonderful homes, and if I had a ranch maybe I would have an over-sized pack, but for now I will wait for the perfect one to fall into our laps (and kiss our faces). I want her to have a dog partner who she loves/has that special something that makes her happy and crazy. For me, it's not so much about what I would want in a dog, I already got my dream pup, but what she would want in a (wrestling) partner. I just want a pup to make her as happy as she makes me (and who shares her same interests of having fun, getting dirty, and especially playing in water/ice). For your viewing pleasure, here are a few new pics!

I <3 the Gentle Leader

Ariel is a strong pup. She always has been. I'm often surprised at the amount of power that comes out of her little body. As a pseudo result of this, she is a leash puller, especially when she sees a dog and wants to play, or a person calls to her like he is going to love on her. Soooooo, this morning I tried Shep's Gentle Leader on her, and WOW. That was by far and away the nicest calmest gentlest walk we've been on. It took her a little while to get used to the halter (kind of like a horse's halter and not so much a muzzle), but once she did, she was heeling like she'd been doing it all her life.

How she came to be mine...

So, I was thinking that I never explained how exactly she came to be my puppy. So, here goes nothing! I think I should start on the back story of my last dog first. Senior year in high school, I went to Ikea because my mom said if I designed my room, we could do it, so off I went with measuring tape in hand. As I was leaving I saw this scraggly mangy dog running towards the freeway. There is no way I could let him go get run over so I turned around and headed into the Dulux paint store's parking lot. Sure enough this muddy messy dog did the you come to me I go away, you go away I follow tango for about an hour before this nice couple came and gave me a bag of treats and explained they had been trying to rescue him for a few months. So I threw him a treat. He scarfed it down. I threw one closer, he came and scarfed that one down too. I continued the closer, treat, closer, treat thing until I put a treat in my backseat. He was so hungry he just couldn't resist trying to get it. So with both back doors open, he timidly tried to get the treat with as much body outside the car as possible. That is when I grabbed his collar and he just hunkered down on the ground like I was going to beat the living daylights out of him. He was so scared I had to pick up his approx. 50 lb body and set it into the car. Once the doors were shut and I was inside he perked up and let me pet his chest and ears. I took him home, and he was my Shep. I spent the next week brushing out his coat as he lay in my lap and generally making sure he knew he was in a good place with regular food and love. It took him a while to learn to trust anyone but me. He was always perfect with other dogs, but large men (well adult men) were always kind of scary to him. It seems like he was beaten and abused pretty badly before me. About four years after I'd had him, somehow our derelict backyard fence didn't close and he got out. Some awful man beat him with a baseball bat and let his dogs bite him. My mom ran out to him screaming in pain and had to carry him inside. The jerk had broken his leg, broken his teeth (required a root canal and an extraction) and had ruined all trust he'd built. We took him to a training class with Houston's version of the Dog Whisperer who said he was kind of a bully but wouldn't be a threat. He said he could be rehabilitated and not be any sort of threat to people, but one day he freaked out about a year and a half after the incident and bit my brother's hand with no provocation and broke open skin. Don't get me wrong. I love my Shep, but I cannot have a dog who would be aggressive towards a family member he had known and played with for about 5 years. What if it was someone's small child who got too close? So I had to make the hard decision to put him down.

Fast forward about a year and a half later and I was finally ready to bring another canine into my life. After having to let go of him, I wanted a puppy so young it could either not have been abused (and would therefore only know my loving home) or so young that it would not remember or keep hold of anything any awful person could have done. I was ready for the poop and the pee and the feedings and not going out. I searched for a long time on petfinder. (I don't believe in getting a pet shop pet for the obvious reasons, and I cannot justify getting a proper breeder dog when there are so many who die every year/month/day because someone didn't spay or neuter) FINALLY, New Year's Eve morning, I was searching around and I found a pictureless listing titled 5 Aussie Pups. They were all the way in Apple Valley/Lucerne Valley. For those who don't know, that is half-way to Vegas from LA, so about 2-3 hours drive. Something just felt right. Like one would be the puppy meant for me. I called the lady at Helping Paws and she said I could come that day. She mentioned there were 5 of them and 4 Aussie/Border Collie mixes from the same dad. (Who could not spay/neuter their three dogs, then not want the 9 beautiful pups born within 2 days of each other? You don't want puppies, fix your pets.) As we are almost reaching our destination, the lady asks us to go hang out for a minute as she has an extremely sick puppy who needs medical attention. So Angel and I hang out at Target for about an hour and call her again. Within 5-10 minutes of being back on the road, she calls and asks us to come pick her up as her truck just broke down. So, we pick her up and continue on. Along the way we cross what she calls Dead Man's Curve as apparently a lot of people used to die there when it was all proper desert, and so many bumpy dirt roads I can feel my brain rattling. We finally arrive at her home, which doubles as the rescue and she brings out the first puppy. She is a tiny 2lb furball of gray black and white. I am in love. We see the rest of the pups, but my heart stays with the tiny merle. It is so cold outside I have tucked her into my jacket to keep her warm. I almost, and very nearly almost, took home another of her littermates, and probably should have, but I got my dream puppy. She was the best $150 I have ever spent and is worth so much more to me. She has been worth the sleep loss of feeding her every 6 hours and the bunches of times I cleaned/mopped/sanitized the floor before she was house trained and the nights of staying in/missing out on stuff because she's like a kid and needs taking care of. She's not man's best friend, she's my best friend and co-pilot.

ALMOST 9 MONTHS OLD!!!

Two more days and she will be 9 months old. I can't believe she's almost so old! It is a strange feeling, like she's been in my life forever, yet has only been in my life for a little over 7 months. We went to the dog beach in Long Beach Friday, and ummm....That was interesting. Ariel has NEVER EVER in her life gone outside the coned off area that marks the dog beach, but something was super interesting and she kept running outside and I kept bringing her back, until I decided if she couldn't behave and play with the dogs, we had to leave. I find it really strange that she has been going there since the day she was done with her puppy shots, yet Friday was the day she decided to test the limits. I'm starting to think home training might not be enough and it's time to look at proper puppy classes to solidify my alpha status. She's usually really good about listening to my commands and doing as I ask, but recently she seems to be going through a puppy-teenager stage. That means I need to step up my Alpha.

On another note, she's doing really well on the bike. An hour in the morning or so sets her up for the day, then another shorter bike ride at night finishes off her amazing boundless energy. I really want to get her into flyball or agility, but the closest good one is on the westside or long beach on Mondays or so. By the time I grabbed her after work and got there, the class would be over. Maybe I'll check out the herding meetup in riverside on Sundays.

She's really loving daycare. Two days a week seem to be good. The caregivers tell me she loves the runners and rarely lays down for a rest. That would mean for approximately 9 1/2 hours, she's running and playing. That would explain why she passes out in the car on the way home and is "hungover" the next day. The funny part, they say, is that she is submissive to smaller dogs when they play bitey-face or wrestle. I think I just got a sweetie. Yes, she tries to be dominant with me right now, and is testing the limits, but she really is good natured and is a fair player with other dogs. She's especially gentle with small and tiny dogs.

Oh yeah, I can't remember if I documented this, but she's on a new food and we both love it. http://www.naturesvariety.com/ She eats a combination of Nature's Variety and Instinct. I chose the Instinct over Prairie because she seems to do better without grain. Her business is finally all solid with kibble. Lord knows I wasted hundreds of dollars trying out kibbles that left her business less than pickup-able. She eats 25% raw, 25% canned and 50% kibble. I swear she eats better than I do (regardless of the fact that I don't eat meat). Her varieties are Duck, Chicken Rabbit, Lamb, Venison, Beef and I think I'm missing a couple, but geez.

Final note: I love her way of getting around not being allowed to be a nuisance and bark when people pass by in the hallway. Every other dog in our building causes a ruckus and barks like crazy when you walk by, but she knows that is not ok indoors, so she makes low, quiet woof sounds that sound like a gorilla. When she does this I call her King Kong and tell her thanks for letting me know, but it's ok. I got it.

Daycare

Ok, so she love love loved the new place. I like them a lot too. They told me she is everyone's friend and great with all the dogs of all the sizes. That makes me really happy, like a proud mommy after her kid's first day at kindergarten. She passed through her eval and spent the day romping with other pups. I think I'm going to try to budget in daycare every Weds. I picked her up at around 6:15. She ran like a bat outta heck to me, then we get in the car, and within 5 min she's passed out for the rest of the night. It was adorable. She was trying so hard to stay awake and you could see her droopy eyes, then the next time I checked she was sprawled flat on her side OUT.

Real Update

So, she's about 7 1/2 months old now. I can't believe it's been so long, but at the same time I can't believe it's been so little. It seems like she's always been a part of my life. Her favorite activities of all time are the dog beach, hiking, the dog park and coming with me to my kickball games. Last night was the last game of the season (before the playoffs) and she was playing with a little goldendoodle AND they both ran onto the field during another team's game... OOPS But, I do have to say it was hilarious to see this gray and black blur and a cream blur run through the field at top speed. The great thing about the place we play games is there is a dog park at the front of it. SO, up until the first game is over, there are a ton of dogs. It was kind of amusing to see her meet a really dominant female pit last night. Now, I do have to admit that my pup is a relatively dominant girl herself, but she was all sorts of submissive to this girl. She even rolled on her back. The girl (though neutered), did hump her. You'd have thought Ariel had never met another dog in her life.

Today will be her first day trying out a new daycare center (Canine Cabana). This place was recommended to me by a coworker's friend. Everything I've read about it say it's really good, so I'm hopeful that it won't be like the last place where she comes back dirty and more energetic than when she left. SOOO, we'll see how this goes.

Medical Updates: She is finally done with all her shots, microchipped and is finished healing from her spay. I am glad for puppy health insurance.

Major Update OMG

So, it's been a while since I've put up pictures. SOOO, here we go!

This is from dress up. As you can see we wouldn't be doing it again. ;)



A little balcony action.



A litle nap on her Honey Bear.



Her first road trip to Cayucos, CA. She had a blast on the beach, though it was a tiny bit cold.



The sleeping monster's adorable paw.



This is us hiking at Runyon Canyon!



More hiking with the rock climber.



Bathtime fun!

Skateboarding Queen

We've been trying to see if she'll be the next skateboarding pup. She seems to think it's a chew toy and really likes early dismounts:

The Wonder Years

It is kind of ridiculous to watch this pup put away food. Being so young she has to eat four times a day (once every 6 hours). By the time she's full, her stomach is a big hard potbelly of delicious food. I didn't think you could fit so much food into something so small.

This is a picture of her the first night she was with us:



She's also starting to vocalize, which is extremely cute I think. It's not a whole lot of vocalization, just enough to tell the doorstop who's boss or to tell us she wants to be picked up. She's getting bigger every day and I'm both excited to see her grow up and sad she won't be a tiny baby anymore.

p.s. Her gray ear is growing more slowly than her black one, which makes her have this adorable lopsided head thing. Her gray ear is also sort of standing up, which I love.

Ariel Loves The Doorstop

I guess maybe it makes a really fun noise and wiggles all around, but I can't really figure out why she loves the doorstop so much. Though it is really adorable to watch:

Ariel's First Post

Ariel the Puppy Wonder has arrived!!! After 18 months of searching and waiting, the perfect puppy was found and brought home!!! She was found on Petfinder New Year's Eve 2007. At 7 weeks and 1 day with a birthday of 11/11/07, she was the blessing I'd been waiting for.