It's My Birthday - I'm Five! Let Me Shout that I'm Five!

Hi! Hi! Hi! Hi! "What's that black thing in front of your face?" "Can I play with it?" "Walk with me! Faster!"

Miss Krispy Kreme turns five years old January 20! What a cute girl. All enthusiasm and affection.

We'll be at "Good Manners" class first thing in the morning. She can't quite understand "down" -- she's already so close to the ground, seems silly to get closer! Strange thing is she does it automatically each time she's waiting to have her harness put on her. But try it with a treat, lowering it to the ground from a "sit." She just doesn't get it and up pops her fanny as she pursues the treat.

Latest quirk: Besides great fear of windshield wipers (a phobia discovered as the rainy season began here), her latest phobia is Fear of Frogs Croaking. Yup. I don't know the technical name for this serious disorder, but the sounds of the frogs going into their song in the evenings in the pond out back really freaks her out. Now, she doesn't react the same way as she does to the basketball bouncing or a beeping cell phone or smoke detector. She's just disconcerted and paces a bit. If she feels really bad, she'll crawl under my dresser.

I was so happy that Krispy and Quincy provided me with a second opportunity to document their shared bed use. This is the smallest one. There's hardly room for one of them in this bed, let alone two mini-doxies! I found them a few days earlier (but, alas, sans camera opportunity) in Quincy's favorite bed -- the blue one, a bit larger, easily shared by two. They looked so cute together. Here Krispy doesn't really fit, butt hanging out and all, but it is sweet.

Oops! It really is too small for both of us! "What is that black thing in front of your face?" Krispy queries upon rising from her repose.

A great irony of the "bed" thing is that she didn't like any of them for many, many months. Now that Quincy's visiting and uses beds all the time, she likes them. She uses the one in the bedroom and the one in the office.

The view I see most often on our walks. First, both Krispy and Quincy compete heavily for the right to squeeze out the front door first...literally squeezing between furniture and door opening. The tail wagging is a dead giveaway here; they are both blissful at the opportunity for a romp outside. (Recently this has been curtailed since Krispy made a daring, non-Stalig 17-style escape briefly -- in front of my eyes -- with the intention of attacking Tyler, the basketball shooting neighbor. Huge heart attack later, pre-fence repair, they are restricted to the indoors until the storms are over and fence repaired.)

Happy Birthday, Miss Krispy Kreme! You've become quite the little lady of the house.

Kisses for Krispy Kreme...Not!

Just 'cuz they roughly look like the size and shape of a dog treat doesn't mean they actually are! Sooooooo, one hundred-odd dollars later, Krispy is a bit lethargic (from the meds) and my wallet is thinner, all because someone went hunting in a very unusual place and found a leftover, open bag of Kisses from Halloween. (Sigh.) This was so NOT how I intended to spend a chunk of my busy Monday afternoon...but I did. Krispy was most cooperative.

I had gone off to the grocery store for a half hour and left her to roam the house freely. If I'm gone longer, I confine her to the bedroom so she can feel completely safe and snug. Big mistake!

I got home approximately forty minutes later to find Krispy Kreme in her usual, excited mood, happy to see me. I began unloading the first bag of groceries while I let her frolic between the front yard (which she loves) and in the house by me in the kitchen. When I brought in the next load of groceries and moved one item out of the kitchen, I noticed the telltale ripped bag of Kisses on the floor. (The teeth marks are a dead giveaway.) And as a general rule, I never leave any food on or near the floor for the Little Princess to consume on her own time. OK, occasionally I forget to take up the cat's food, and Krispy may eat it. But most of the time she only goes after her own food.

At first, marginal panic: 'How much chocolate did she eat?!' I counted out the remaining pieces and my memory of what had been left in the bag. Then I gathered the tiny bits remaining on the floor. Putting on my best Sherlock Holmes deerstalker hat, I examined the remaining bit of foil wrapping, chocolate bits and plastic wrap. Hmmmmm. Looked like she got part of one and most of another -- including the single almond inside and the white "Hershey's" flag streamer. Maybe not so devilishly toxic in such a small quantity. Hmmmm.

I called the vet, and after some discussion I agreed to bring Krispy in for monitoring and perhaps de-toxing. So now here we are a couple of hours later. She's sleeping under the file cabinet having been de-puked (not much, it turned out) and given active charcoal to attract the remaining chocolate in her system. Needless to say, the remaining Hershey's Kisses are now moved far, far away from anything she can reach.

Idiosyncrasies

Since I last posted Krispy has shown more and more of her personality. When left at home and I return from errands, she loves to greet me from the sofa near the front door with her little tail wagging. Very cute.

Since she’s quite the agile jumper, she loves hopping (with no effort!) onto the sofa and sometimes up onto the sofa back or table behind it. (This is discouraged! Too far from the ground – a dachshund’s natural territory!) She also continues to be quite a good hider. Since she’s frightened of loud noises (read: basketball bouncing noises across the street), she finds one of her safe places when she’s uncomfortable. Her #1 choice is the dirty laundry basket under my bed. Other favorites include under the dresser, in her crate, under the file cabinet. Here’s one of her favorite outdoor hiding spots:

Thankfully she’s gotten very good and coming right away when I call her from wherever she’s hidden herself in the yard. She knows now I begin to panic if I don’t see her right away. Often she’s out there eating the cat poop. Not particularly attractive. But obviously she considers it gourmet dining. (The joys of having feral cats in the neighborhood and Emily to keep providing “fertilizer” for the yard!)

Krispy’s most recent quirk to appear is fear of windshield wipers. We’ve had the first of our heavy rains. And she wanted to go out for her (nearly) daily car ride. (I am ridiculously indulgent!) And so I put her in her car seat. I turned on the wipers as I was backing out of the driveway and she nearly jumped out of her seat (to which she was tethered) to get away from the moving arms. Okaaaaaaaaaaaay, perhaps we will only use the ‘intermittent’ setting today…. This will take more practice. So I wonder what idiosyncrasy will show itself next?

Getting Good Manners

Krispy is on week #3 of Good Manners class. It is full of challenges. To start with she has no interest in treats as a motivator to follow commands. She ignores them when I hold them directly in front of her nose. She has yet to take even one during class, but she will take a few if she’s hungry when we practice…sometimes…. Second, she’s progressively less terrified by the other dogs in class with each session. She shook like a leaf through most of the first group class and always kept an eye on the exit, which she pulled hard towards most of the session. She isn’t the smallest one, but she’s definitely the shortest in the group. (The “down” command is completely foreign to her, and I can commiserate. I mean, really, she’s already down close to the ground! Why would she want to get closer?) And “sit” is hit and miss. Sometimes she will and sometimes she won’t. But this week she was a bit calmer with the classmates being in the same room with her. So we are making a bit of progress. And she always does well with the “Come” command since she wants to be near me. She even held her seat quite well for “Stay” as I walked around her.

The bottom line is that I think she’s very distracted by all the noises, people and dogs swirling around her in the foreign location. But she’ll have to get used to that. And she’s quite responsive of many of the commands (or does them on her own without command) on her own time. I think the biggest hurdle is translation: She’s bright and gets what she’s supposed to do instinctively. But now she has to translate what she knows to match the language of commands, which is very complicated to her. One day the switch will go on and she’ll get it all like Star Trek’s universal translator.

Roll, Roll, Roll in the Hay!

Krispy Kreme seems happiest while enjoying a good roll...in the grass, that is. Sorry, no video equipment for full documentation of this pleasurable pursuit. But you'll get the idea below.

"Roll, roll! Roll in the hay!"

Krispy's fondness for rolling always makes me think of Teri Garr's bit from Young Frankenstein. I have yet to figure out how to post .wav files here on the blog, but you can hear her line (and many other famous lines from Mel Brooks' fabulous movie) here: http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Set/4159/. (You'll have to scroll down through the files (alphabetical) to roll-in.wav to run the sound byte.)

Repeat steps 1. through 3. again...and again...and again....
I think I've got it now! Just once more to the other side again!

Ooooooooooooooo! This rolling stuff is just great.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhh, there's just nothing better than a good roll!
Mmmmmmmmm, this is sooooooooo relaxing!

I Love My New Collar!

Do you like my new collar?

I really loooooooove my new collar!

Do you really, really like my new collar?

Baby On Board!

Krispy came through her whole conehead ordeal with flying colors. There were only the first few days I really had to be concerned about her chewing or gnawing away at her stitches and staples during which she could have ripped open the incisions. After that Mother Nature seemed to have done her job. Krispy pretty much lost interest in them and didn’t mind the discomfort. She was even in and out of the vet’s office in the blink of an eye when it came time to remove the staples altogether. She must be quite cooperative with the staff! (The stitches were of the dissolving type and have slowly melted away.)

Only a day after the staples were removed Krispy got to go on a big adventure: She got to go on a long drive to the Vallejo Ferry Terminal to meet visiting family. She had expressed a great deal of interest during the past few weeks in the car – specifically, she seemed to want to go on car rides. She would actually go to the garage door and paw at it. When I relented and opened the garage door, she’d go to the passenger door, wanting to get inside. Very clear. So Ginny’s old car seat was dusted off and put into the car for Krispy’s use. This activity was very exciting for Krispy, getting to watch the scenery go by at high speed.

Now Krispy’s enjoying her new activity (car rides are frequently requested in the usual manner when she goes out) and along comes a boatload of visiting family. And she hasn’t been too keen on strangers from the get-go. But I’d done a lot of advance prep, talking to her about who was coming to visit and how long they would be staying. So she took to the extended crowd very well – even when she had to do it at my brother’s house for the large, party gatherings. Upon arrival she’d usually make a beeline to return to my car. But if she had a nice spot that was hers – under my chair, or behind me on a chair – she could relax and be comfortable not showing signs of anxiety. Here she is resting on the divan:

She looks a bit anxious, and she did get a bit freaked out from time to time. The biggest problem with photographing your own dog is that they have absolutely no understanding of the importance of pretending the camera isn’t there. As soon as she’d see me with the camera or come back from another room with it, she’d come running to see me. Thus, she’d completely wreck the candid composition I was trying to capture of her. *Sigh* Here’s a good example:

I wanted to get another angle of her relaxing on the sofa, but something else grabbed her attention and she stood up, ready to jump off the sofa. (Oh, no! Dachshunds shouldn’t jump off sofas! Yeah, right…. Like I can stop her every single time for the next dozen years!) Once she was looking over the back of the sofa towards the front door. (I was carrying a load of things out to my car.) I told her clearly (she understands English, right?) that I was coming back in to get her and not to worry. Well, before I could even turn ninety degrees to go out she’d leaped off the back of the sofa to chase after me. Well, guess a change in strategy was necessary. Needless to say, she went out to the car in the first armload – not the last one!