Isn't that always the case?

When our kids were little, they liked all the ordinary household items better than the toys. Like hoses and pots 'n pans... Hardy likes Tupperware cups. I'll stuff something in it, like his ball, and he works hard to try to get it out.

He had a busy day, and has spent a lot of the afternoon snoozing. It's a dog's life. He played with a Wheaton Terrier (named Molly) this morning, and came back pooped and soggy from all that mutual mouthing and rolling in the damp grass. He had a wonderful time. That family had been away on vacation, and just got back. I had been pretty sure that dog would be another great playmate for Hardy, and I was right.

Hooray for Buffalo

Well, Buffalo is the same as Bison. And you thought that the Buffalo were wiped out? Not so much. Hardy's dog food, Solid Gold Wolf Cub, is made of bison and fish. So we ordered some bully sticks made of bison. Hardy is loving those!!

Today Hardy was being pretty naughty - eating tanbark and nonsense in the yard - so we went and borrowed Sunny from the Ornsteins. Hardy was mostly interested in chewing on Sunny's ear, and Sunny was mostly interested in eating grass! An interesting play date. All went well, though.

He takes meaningful walks, which is outstanding. I gained almost 8 pounds during Wil's illness, and Hardy can go a bit further, and more enthusiastically, than Wil could go in that final month or two. We miss Wil every day, but you go, Hardy! Super walker! Phewf. I thought I was going to become really LARGE.

He is enjoying Molly. Talks to her, in fact. And he still likes his naps.
And Meadow has taken to baiting him. She dances around in front of him, then runs away, but only runs as far as she needs to in order to still be seen!

Brownies Not

Molly was making brownies, but no matter how much Hardy howled, he didn't get a single lick.

Long Walk

Hardy took his longest walk today. Two full blocks up, around the corner, and back. Nice! He met a friendly half black lab/half dalmatian named Spencer. They played for a bit.

Hardy's already down for a morning nap - a bit early, but it gives me a chance to blog. Oh, we played morning chase around the dining room table with his purple dog, so perhaps that's what did him in, along with the long walk.

Waiting for Molly

Yesterday afternoon Hardy napped, and then we were hangin' out, waiting for David to come back from picking up Molly at the airport. She's home for a few days of Spring Break. First Hardy napped a bit, then we waited in the front yard (on a leash.) He loves to lounge around out there, watching the world go by. I can sit on the ground with my back up against the pillar and read my book.

Calamity Hardy

No post yesterday. We recuperated all day from an exciting morning. Hardy was hassled by a dog on our walk, and was very scared, so we went over to Sunny's house to ensure Hardy remembered all dogs are not mean. While playing with Sunny, he tried to climb up on a pot, which promptly fell over, and Hardy ended up tipping over behind the pot as it gave way, and had to be rescued. Then Sunny decided to dig up a sprinkler pipe, and Hardy happened to be standing right behind her, and got a face full of dirt! Once we staggered back across the street, exhausted (at least he was exhausted), he had to have a half-a-bath and a good grooming. That pretty much did him in for the day.

Today is another day! We had Sunny over to our house to play for over an hour. Hard to believe we could wear Sunny out, but after playing non-stop for all that time, even she was tuckered out. Here are a bunch of pictures from the play date today.

Another Den

Can you tell I'm on vacation? Clearly I have a lot of time on my hands! Yup, I'm on vacation. Here is Hardy relaxing after dinner under my desk. He looks like he's in prison, but I promise he maneuvers himself into that spot whenever he can.

Nice quiet afternoon

Hardy played with Sunny this morning, so we had a nice quiet afternoon, with puppy taking a long nap. Here he is relaxing on the back stairs.

Morning Exercise

We played chase for a long time this morning. I cut the original version of the video down to a few seconds, but you'll get the idea. He played this game tirelessly. Well, not tirelessly, as when he got tired, he ran under the dining room table where he thought I couldn't reach him, caught his breath then played again.
If you want to see a different one, that is regular length, here is the one I posted on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oevBkiPAjHc

Singing for (Our) Supper

Hardy's mom, Zoe, talks. We'd seen it on her litter's blog. Hardy talks, too. Here he is while I'm stuffing the turkey, asking nicely if he can have some, too. (No.) I put this one and another one up on YouTube. Here is the link to one of them : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZnIubwLfEE and another one at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cR5CIfThJNg

Enjoy!

Lemon Cake

Hardy had a good time standing at my feet waiting for me to drop things today, while I was baking a cake. In the end, I relented and let him have a couple of egg yokes, mixed with a bit of his food, so he got his lunch an hour early. He had never been given anything from us that wasn't his dog food, so he thought this was pretty exciting. Of course, then he stayed by my feet asking for more! Um... I did let him lick the egg white bowl.

Here are a couple of videos from yesterday's escapades at our neighbor's house. Their back yard is so beautiful and serene. The first video is of Hardy and Sunny playing, and the second is of Hardy when he discovers the lovely waterfall on the hillside up behind their pool.

Too Much Fun

Hardy really plays hard and naps less. He is sleeping perfectly at night, and waits until we get up to ask to be let out. He can walk all the way down the block, across the cross street and 2 more houses after that before complaining.

We are working on "walkies" - trotting properly on the left side. He knows what it means, and is getting pretty good at it. There is a house down the street, though, that has two big avocado trees right on the street; he likes to hop over their giant hedge (it is about 3 inches high, made of ivy) and frolic under the avocado trees looking for stuff - I know not what.

He likes everyone, and is confused when someone comes out of a house and gets in a car to drive away without first ooooo'ing and ahhhhh'ing at him. He cocks his head as if to say, "How can you ignore me when I am SO cute?"

When he wants a nap, he does not choose his crate. He either plops into the middle of his toys, or snoozes in some other "den" - the master bathroom, under my desk, under David's desk, or under the rolling butcherblock table in the kitchen.

Ears Up

Both ears are up. Very cute. This photo was taken last night. This morning, the right ear is staying up, and the left is pretty much staying up. Manana they'll both be up for good, I think.

We are working on "walkies" - trotting along on my left side. I messed up and forgot to stick treats in my pocket so he looked up at me quizzically several times this morning when he was doing things right. He had to make due with hugs and kisses. Not quite the same thing as a treat. Oh well.

Gotta get ready for work.

Training

Another fun day. Hardy had a bath at a do-it-yourself doggie wash. We have a fabulous groomer, but he's so little, it is fun to do it ourselves. He looks beoooooooooootiful.


His right ear has been "up" most of the day. I presume by the weekend, they will both be up full time.

Now, here's the big news. We get two newspapers, the Wall Street Journal and the Daily Breeze (oh that esteemed paper that broke the Geraldine Ferraro story last week...). Hardy likes to help bring in the papers, so we thought we would try to get it on video. Here is a link to YouTube where I put a hysterical video of Hardy doing a fabulous job, but then stopping on his way to the front door because nature called. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rlXw2KSON8

Here is a very short one, with no stop for nature's call.

Water, water everywhere

What a day. First, Hardy was running down the same stairs in the video and took a tumble, and limped around for awhile. Didn't last long, and he is just fine. Then this afternoon, he went across the street to play with Sunny (the yellow lab) and fell in the pool! He was just fine then, too (that's why they call it dog-paddle) but having little wet paws, and then digging behind our avocado tree, resulted in little dirty paws.

Hardy also stole Molly's stuffed tiger. He had gone into her room several times and really tried, but the tiger was under a giant stuffed dog, and he would pull and pull and couldn't get it out. He finally worked it loose, so we quickly emailed Molly to make sure she didn't mind Hardy appropriating it for his own enjoyment. She wrote backing generously donating the tiger to the cause (of keeping Hardy happy and not chewing on my pant leg...).

Making up for substandard blogging

I have some time and some fun pictures and videos so I'll rectify my shrimpy blog entries of the past few days now.

Meadow is finally getting a bit more comfortable with Hardy, so there is a marked reduction in hissing around the house!

Today is a beautiful sunny day, but also very windy, so the waves are huge down at the bluffs. For those of you not from PV, the drive to the bluffs takes about 2 minutes. Here we are in the car driving down to the bluffs. Matt is home for the weekend, so he came too.












And here is a video of us at the bluffs.
We didn't stay long because the grasses were taller than Hardy, so when he was on the path, all he saw was the yummy new stuff to grab and chew. When we got back, he still had a little pent-up energy, so we went out in the backyard for a bit. When we first brought Hardy home, he was too little to go up and down the stairs by himself, but now he is a big boy, and can easily do both. Here's 7 seconds of him demonstrating his big-boy stairmastering prowess.

He played a bit in the backyard, but when he looked finished, I finally snapped some photos of him awake, and not chewing on a bully stick. A miracle!



Such a cutie pie.

Sorry!

Sorry I missed yesterday. It was actually a pretty exciting day. Hardy played with a yellow lab named Sunny and a giant Bernese Mountain Dog named Quigley. These are both neighbor dogs, well known to us. He had a very good time. The vet gave us the OK to get him play-dates so off he went.

Matt came home last night, so he and Hardy had fun today while I was at work. He's sacked out here at my feet:

New Friends

Hardy slept straight through the night again, which was great. Even I slept this time. On our morning walk, we still only go 4 houses. That's about our limit, as he is still unsure about going so far from home. I think tomorrow we'll live dangerously, and go 5 houses.

Our young neighbor, Rachel, came over today to play with Hardy. They hung out under the avocado tree.

I tried out the frozen kong. He could tell there were yummies inside, but he thought it was too much effort to get it out. Perhaps he'll like it better in a couple of months, when he's teething.

Kongs

Hardy had his vet appointment today. He had his second set of shots, and was weighed. He now weighs 16.75 pounds. David reports he was happy sitting in the passenger seat of the Corvette.

The vet suggested freezing some wet food of the same brand as his dry food (Solid Gold) into a kong, so he can have fun trying to get at the frozen yummies inside. His puppy food doesn't come in the wet variety, so I'm getting out the Cuisinart, to make my own Solid Gold wet food to stuff into the kong and freeze :) Hooray for Cuisinarts.

Look! A picture of Hardy with a bully stick. Something new and different.

10 Hours

Yup, 'tis true. Hardy slept 10 hours last night without getting up. Of course, I woke up at 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, wondering why he wasn't waking us up. Yes, there was an earlier post celebrating 9 hours of sleep, but that was a one time deal.

Our wonderful neighbor, Ira, came over to bring us some yummy cupcakes from his delightful wife, Mary, and he couldn't believe all of Hardy's fun tricks - like pee on demand ("Hurry up, Hardy"), coming to the sound of a pill bottle rattling, sitting, and Ira taught him how to do "paw." Didn't I say he was a smart doggie??? He is also well-loved. He was placed up on our bed tonight, not to spoil him, but to keep him from chasing Meadow.

He is a real cupcake. Think I'll finish posting this and then have one (of Mary's cupcakes.)

Table for 2

Hardy has decided to use our good ottoman for a table. Hard to see, but he is eating his bully stick like a little gentleman at the "table."

Computer Crash

My computer has died for good. BUT I happen to have backed up everything onto an external drive just last Saturday, so phewf... only a few days of stuff gone. I'm glad I uploaded to YouTube all the videos from the Scottsdale dog show, or they would have been lost. You can find them on YouTube by typing in the search box: Scottsdale dog show. Once you have found one from Mattuvok, then just click on Mattuvok and they all come up. Talk about timing!!

Molly's old computer was here in the house, so I'm making do until Matt tells me what to buy. He's skiing in Utah, but hopefully the phone will ring soon. In the meantime, nothing exciting to report, except Hardy is growing :) Well, what did you expect? Oh, he had another accident. See? Another potty story. I laughed out loud, as Kristi said no sooner does she think her puppy is housebroken when - poof! - an accident. The exciting news is that we caught him in the act, so were able to tell him in a loud voice that we didn't appreciate it. He said, "Whatever..."

9 Hours!!

Holy Toledo! Hardy slept for 9 straight hours last night, without a peep. And Meadow finally returned to sleeping in the crook of my arm. She's almost done adjusting, but boy, was she annoyed with us for bringing home an invader in white.

Hardy slept so soundly that I kept waking up and wondering what he was doing in there. Snoring, basically.

David did the math, and determined that he has been left alone (in his crate with no one home) 55 minutes out of 10,800 minutes.

Let's see... what did he do yesterday that was exciting? Oh! He did ask to go outside to pee. That was an exciting moment. (Was that a potty story, after I promised no more potty stories?) He has only had 3 accidents since arriving here, so we're pretty much all set.

Today we walked 3 houses. Yesterday he said hello to a neighbor. He's very happy and friendly and loves the attention. He's also good at giving kisses, but usually just in the morning when he is let out of his crate. Here he is playing with his long purple doggie toy. He likes to drag it away then lie on top of it to chew on. I'm not supposed to end a sentence with a preposition. Oh well.
Update! We just went out again, and there was a lady walking by and he decided to follow her, so we walked 5 houses! He presumes everyone wants to talk to him, but at first she wasn't paying attention... so he kept scampering after her until she turned around and ooooo'd and ahhhh'd.

Growing every day

Every day is a new day. Hardy's on a workable schedule. He takes a nap in his crate in the morning while David is taking his. Hooray. In the photo to the left, he is in his new favorite position. It is called, "Please scratch my belly and I will love you forever." He gets sleepy in the evening, as he plays hard all day. I came home from work today and all his toys were all over the house. He had clearly taken out each and every one and played happily with all the wonderful options. It is hard to even identify a favorite, as he enjoys them all so much.

Lots of Toys

David made fun of me for getting Hardy so many toys, but I didn't know how to be sure which ones he would like. Here is a photo of him with some of the ones he likes:

He likes his crate a lot, but he also loves the bathroom floor. Wil loved that floor as well. Hardy plays hard, then gets tired in the family room and trots off to the bedroom and plops down on the floor of the bathroom for a snooze.

He is doing really well. David survived his first full day without me at home, and did super. When I got home, Hardy definitely let me know that he was not thrilled that I left at 7 and didn't return until after 6.

We went for a short walk of 2.5 houses. We walked the 2.5 houses, then ran home. He liked that. For those of you who are reading this who picture some long distance between houses...um... NO. We have little ranch houses all right next to each other, so believe me, these are microscopic walks.

What a difference a day makes

Monday brought lots of firsts. He had already learned that a slight pull on the collar by hand means please come with me, not sit down and pull back. And David had put his leash on him and let him see what it feels like. So yesterday afternoon I put his collar on him and took him for a walk on our front walkway, and out to the driveway (our very short driveway) and around the car and around the car. Late in the afternoon Molly and I took him for a walk two houses down and two houses back. That was plenty. We'll stick to that for a couple of days, then take it up to two and a half houses. We want to stay away from any dogs until he's had all his shots.

He also expertly detected a hidden, brand new gopher hole on the edge of the grass. Wil was really helpful finding those hidden ones, and we were worried about how we were going to find them (when they have no dirt mound.) We need not have worried. Hardy's on the job.

A couple last items, then I need to get ready for work. He got tired at around 8 in the evening and went into his crate on his own and went to sleep! As I said in that early, early post, we had never used a crate, and had no idea he would learn to love it so quickly! I was shocked. He got up to pee at 10 (he is very, very excited about his water bowl - he bounds across the room like a rabbit many times a day, to celebrate that wonderful bowl), then slept from 10 until 5 this morning.

The smartest dog ever :)

Being outside with him was an exhausting game of grab-the-tanbark or leaves and chase (and he's very fast!!!), since I didn't want him eating either tanbark or leaves. We played this game all day yesterday and this morning, and then POOF - he learned that if he grabs leaves or tan-bark they just get taken away immediately (after the fun game of chase) and he STOPPED!!! I was shocked. I thought we were going to be in this for the long haul, since chase was so fun! Did I say he was a genius? Now we're going to work on not eating the fringe on the carpets :)

He then had a truly enjoyable hour and half outside running back and forth happily, running, running, running, and now he is sacked out on the couch.

Update. Molly just took him out after his nap (waaaaaaaaaay too short a nap given all that running around) and he grabbed a piece of tanbark and ran across the grass. Well, so maybe he isn't a genius, but he is a very smart boy.

Its been quite a day

Hardy has had quite a day. He has taken naps and played hard.
He has had several visitors today - neighbors - who have enjoyed meeting him. In both cases, he was snoooooooozing with no interest in engagement. I put him in the playpen this morning when I wanted to shower, and he fell asleep for almost 3 hours. Here's a very short video of him after I thought he had awakened from this mighty slumber. You can see what he thought about getting up just then.... NOT.

Hardy comes home

We got home without any accidents, and when I put him down on the grass, he performed instantly. What a smart doggie. He had some supper, then explored a bit.



After exploring, I put Hardy in his crate so we could eat dinner. He complained very loudly for about 20 seconds and then lay down for a nap. After dinner, I opened the door to his crate, but he stayed in there happily. I was tired, so I lay down in front of his crate. He came out almost at once, and lay down to cuddle in the crook of my arm. It turns out he is an expert cuddler.
We were both so exhausted by our big day that we fell asleep instantly - me in my bed, he in his crate next to the bed. Kristi had told me he would wake us up when he needed to go out, and sure enough, he slept from 10PM until 1:30AM when he announced nature calling. He dazzled us with his promptness, and went right back to sleep. He woke a couple more times after that, but settled down when we weren't terribly responsive (except to let him know we heard him, but weren't going to get up at 3AM and 4:30AM, thank you very much.)

We got up at 6, went out for a quickie (ta daaaaaa!!), he ate some breakfast, played for 15 minutes and then out again for serious business. I think he's a genius. OK, I promise no more potty stories (except to say that it is 9:45 AM and he has gone out a couple more time and performed exactly as expected. OK, NOW I'm done with potty stories.)

Meeting for the first time

Well, here we are at last.

Ah... a fascinating video of Hardy eating a tree at Susan Davies's house, where he stayed with 5 of his brothers and sisters.

After playing hard for some time, he got pretty dusty and dirty, so Kristi gave him a bath. He's had lots of them, so he didn't complain at all. We readied ourselves to leave, and then I put him in his carrier for the plane. When we got in the car, and seat-belted in, he screamed bloody murder for hours. Well, it was really only 60-90 seconds, but it seemed like forever. He then didn't make a single peep the next 4 hours on our journey back to the rental car lot, from the lot to the airport, through security, onto the plane, under the seat, out from under the seat, under the seat again... all the way home. What a total sweetpea.

At the show

Hardy's dad and grandpa were entered in the dog show in Scottsdale. What pretty dudes they are. Maverick "made the cut" both Thursday and Friday, so Kristi was very pleased. He is young to be competing in Best of Breed. Here's Maverick (daddy):

And here's grandpa Tug: