A Heavy Heart

Oates and I are very sad this week.  It's with a heavy heart that we mourn the loss of not one, but two of our very close doggie pals.  We have had to sadly say goodbye to Colby the Lab and Chester the Boxer.

Remember when we got to have Colby  for the weekend?  Colby was about the same age as Oates and as you can imagine, we are pretty heartbroken by it.  He was taken from us too soon, and was always a good loyal dog to his mom, Shannon.

Chester faced a battle with lymphoma and hard as he fought, did not win.  He was a lover, and a slobberer and his mom and dad even taught him how to fetch a beer from the fridge. I hope there is beer in heaven for him to fetch!  What a good boy...

When things like this happen to your friends, you see and feel the heartbreak.  I cannot imagine a life without my little Oatesy... We all fall in love with our pets, and they are family to us.  Oates and me send out our best to Colby and Chester's families.  We are there for you when you need us!  You can get through this, and your loveable pups will always be loved and missed.

Movin on Up

This puggle no longer lives in Westwood Paradise.

Sad.  I know.

When Oates heard we had to move, he was pretty angry at us.  The house he grew up in. The house he loved to try to escape from.  The house he called home.

And when we moved in to the new place?  He was as shaken as I was.  It's no fun.

Seriously mom... where are the wood floors and the upstairs that I can sneak up!?  You actually think I can live here??  What about your blog??  You'll have to change the subtitle!

Mom and Dad kinda felt the same, but things are working out.  Yeah, we don't have wood floors, but Oates has a great new backyard with a deck so we can hang outside with him now.  And yes... I will have to change my subtitle... but what's in a name?  Oates will always be the Puggle in Paradise, now matter what neighborhood it is. 

Tonight, Oates and I went on our first adventure into the neighborhood and it was great.  Yeah, there is no park at the end of the street now, but there are plenty of dogs around and all the streets have sidewalks!  Tonight we met a black lab, and what looked like a red puggle.  They were friendly and cute.  Then we met another dog on our own street that was a chow boxer mix... which made me realize that the red puggle looking dog from before was probably a chow boxer too.  Very cute - very puggle looking.

Are chow boxers common?  Is that weird to see two within a block and 5 minutes of each other?

We had a fun walk, and our neighborhood now lets us walk past lots of shops and restaurants for some fun new socialization.  There's lots more flowers around here too it seems.  (Very paradismic!) It's crazy the difference a mile can make.

We will miss the old place, but we're settling in just fine.  And after plenty of elbow grease and some new paint, we'll be good to go, and Oates will be making this face in no time!  Paradise has found a new home.

Puggles and Geocaching

It was a beautiful Spring Saturday this weekend, and my boyfriend and I decided to try out this Geocaching thing that seems to be all the rage!  A perfect day for a long walk in the sunshine, and a great opportunity to wear out a rambunctious puggle.

We had a rough start trying to calibrate our Google Hero phones to be the perfect GPS location devices.  After unsuccessfully trying to make Oates sit with his leash on in a park full of dogs across from where we live, we headed up to a local coffee house for less doggie interference, some iced coffees and geocaching tutorials.

Being the tech genius he is, David figured it all out and we were headed off on our adventure.  Our first stop, we were total rookies.  We looked around so much we got the attention of the homeowner (a big geocaching no-no), and then still couldn't find the cache after he directed us right where to look!  Soon a group of neighbor dogs decided to bark at Oates and he went a little berserk about it.  He doesn't really bark back, it's more of a loud whine and extreme pulling.  Trying to make an exit, we scuffled down the sidewalk and managed to rustle up the neighborhood even more when 3 more dogs peered over a tall retaining wall and began barking.  Goodbye cache... Maybe we'll come back for you without the dog in tow.

Things got more calm after that.  We ran into a few people on our journey but not many.  Oates did his best to heel (which he never does a good job of), but his geocaching skills seemed a little subpar for an animal that follows this nose everywhere!  Maybe if there were treats in some of those caches, he'd be more inclined to help us find them...

We had a successful day finding 5 caches around our neighborhood.  I guess not too bad for our first try.  Oates was happy to make it home, lap up some water and curl up on the couch for a well deserved nap!  Mission - successful!

For the Sake of Research

This is my neighbor, Anthony, age 12.  We had a fun evening with Oates a few days ago to help Anthony with a science experiment.  We talked about hypotheses... and helped him set up everything with timers and toys.

The test was about dogs, and the types of toys they choose.  He had a variety of toys in 3 categories to set up.  Some were play alone, some were interactive and some were especially textural.  The test was to give the dog 2 minutes to seek out the toy of its choosing from a basket, and log which toy got the most playtime the most amount of times.

After three 2 minute rounds for each of 3 sets of toys, Oates decided he liked a stuffed squirrel, a stick and bright yellow stuffed bunny most!  It was really fun watching him be overwhelmed by the selection, sniffing and biting to find just the right thing.

We did somewhat of a tie-breaker with the favorites, and I wasn't surprised to find out that Oates' absolute favorite was the stuffed squirrel.  He just kept going back to it.  There is something he loves about stuffed animals that squeak!

How adorable... both human and doggie!  Anthony has a toy poodle named Belle.  Her favorite was the red ball.  Typical.  :)

Put a Puggle to Work

Ever thought of having a business that involved your precious puggle?  (Or other breed I suppose...)  Here is an article about a bedbug sniffing puggle.  I warn you, there is a gross part about feeding the bedbugs... but the second half of it talks about how Cruiser the puggle works to help people with infestations.  Go Cruiser!

I'd love to have a job where I get up and go to work with Oates everyday, but I don't know if i could feed bedbugs to do it.  My boyfriend had a bedbug bite once - it was not fun for him.

A Talk on Puppy Training

I just found this this talk from a TED conference on the Friday Puppy blog i follow.  Well worth a listen for all us dog people out there.  I've always meant to check out these TED conference videos and info. 

As a side note, if you dig the furniture on the stage, it's the stuff that i get to space plan with a lot, and that chair is one of my favorites called "sidewalk."  I work for a Steelcase furniture dealership.  Steelcase provides all of the furniture for TED conferences. Pretty cool!

Friday Puppy

I read a fun blog called Friday Puppy and decided to enter Oates' picture this week.  He made the cut! So please go give him your heartfelt votes.  His fragile little ego could be damaged otherwise. You know he's just a shy little puggle, so modest...

 

Click here to check out the blog post and and vote for Oates from the poll that is listed on the right! Oates thanks you.

Pets on Furniture

 

This isn't my precious puggle, but I happened to come across her cute little face on a blog I follow called designtoinspire .  They do a Monday feature called "pets on furniture" that is usually pretty adorable, and some great design pieces in there too!  It's a great break from the typical Monday dull-drums.  Check it out and enjoy!

One Year

One year ago today, was the day we brought home our darling little puggle!  Back then, they called him Marvin... This is how Oates came to be mine...

It was a cold February as I sat at my computer researching dogs.  I'd do this often wondering what kind to get, where I'd get it from and what it'd be like to finally have a dog of my own.  Growing up I had newfoundlands, and they were outside dogs.  Too big for my small humble home, and I wanted an indoor dog.

I thought about yorkies, I thought about pugs, I thought about long haired chihuahuas, but some way or another I stumbled upon puggles.  A dream come true!  I have always said I wanted a dog that looked like a puppy forever, and I felt like a puggle was pretty much the closest thing too it.

I started researching and watching petfinder for puggles.  I also really wanted to save one from a shelter, but i worried about finding that "perfect" one.  One day at work, I got a random email from a friend saying that she knew someone who knew someone who knew someone that found a puggle without a collar roaming the streets.  They had found a foster home for him, but the person keeping him could no longer handle him in his small apartment.


I immediately emailed the guy to get a picture, and when he sent it moments later, I was smitten.  He only lived a few blocks away from me, so I made plans to go over and look at "Marvin" that night after work.  I had no idea I'd be a dog owner in a few short hours.  I had planned to wait until spring when the weather was warmer, but fate happens, right?


When my boyfriend and I get there, the door opens and Marvin greets us with a happy jump and a lick.  He was excited, but no over the top.  Shortly after we came in, he calmly laid down on the floor.  I was amazed at how fast he just chilled out with us there.  After a few questions, I politely asked Marvin if he wanted to come home with us... He promptly tilted his head and wagged his tail in typical puggle fashion.  I was immediately sold.  "Can we take him now then??" I asked.  And we did.

No kennel, no dog food, no leash, no nothing - and I was a dog owner, just like that!  One year later, I couldn't be happier!  Of course we changed his name to Oates, being that he had to have a much smoother name to be a resident of Paradise... and he loves it here.  And we love him too!  Life wouldn't be the same without him.  


As an anniversary gift, I got him his first coat for outside playtime in winter.  He managed to break it in with a good sniff into the snow, and even a good roll!

How Cute is Your Puggle?

It's been almost a year that Oates has been a part of the family.  He's been there in good times and bad.  He's been good, and he's been bad, but we love him all the same.  Shortly after I got him I entered a Snapfish pet photo contest and my photo of Oates won honorable mention out of hundreds of entries!

We really wanted to win the home stereo system and blu ray player... well... I wanted the stereo system... Oates really didn't care.  But honorable mention was awesome out of so many entries!  And I happened to win a blu ray player at my boyfriend's company party this year anyway, score!

What a handsome little puggle...

Doggie Bed Triumph

So I think this is something like round 4 or 5 with the deal of a dog bed.  At $5.99, I told myself that I wouldn't care all that much if it got chewed up, but then I changed my mind because hey, that's 6 bucks!  Might as well save however I can, right?  So I decided the dog bed would be a new addition to my junk room, which I have been slowly but surely turning into a home office.  

I've got things set up enough that I can comfortably work on my laptop and other things, and Oates definitely needed a place to chill out in here with me.

So i laid a small rug down, and then put the doggie bed on it.  He has been introduced to it a few times in here, had a treat in it, and sat in it.  One day I left the door open and he appeared in the livingroom with it in his mouth, bad dog!

So tonight I decided to work in the office some, and he needed to come with me.  I gave him a treat, and then slowly but surely, the miracle happened.  He decided it was a cozy place to sleep!  He may be a little big for it, but he looks pretty comfortable to me.

Goes to show you that patience will pay off.  He also has been going potty outside like a good boy, but it's also no longer zero degrees or negative out there...

No Mas Poo Poo

Snow, snow, snow, and more snow.  Cold, cold, cold, and more cold!  I say, no more!

I think woudl Oates agree with me that a few inches of the powdery white can be fun in winter.  I'm sure it's fun to frolic in the snow and sniff after bunny tracks in the backyard, but what happens when the depth of the snow becomes greater than the height of your puggle?

No more poo poo.  That's what.

Can I blame him?  I suppose not.  Is it a problem?  It sure is turning into one!  Not only are we contending with all this snow, it's also subzero.  Single digits and negatives are not good for little puggle paws, and we can't manage to stay outside long enough to get the full tour of duty done on a single trip.  This photo is of Oates begging to let me back inside at the gate after only going number one.  I told him not until you number two! 

But, my heart is not at cold as this weather, and I just can't leave him out there for long. 

A few days ago I discovered something horrifying.  Secret Poop Land.  At some point, not under my watch, he has jumped the baby gate at the stairway and decided that our entire upstairs is his pooping palace!  "Why go out in that cold snow when I can stay warm and go up here?" he must be thinking.  Can I blame him?  Of course not.  Is it a problem?  Of course it is!

I'm not sure I'll figure out a resolution to this problem until we start to thaw out.  It's going to be awhile so says the weatherman, so I better just prepare to poop scoop my house when it's all said and done.  Gross!