Cotton Balls

Wheatie's been pretty good about not waking me up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom recently. This is great since it gives me a few more hours of sleep. He didn't even wake me up this morning to feed him...I automatically got up around 5:30. I was really surprised since he will usually nudge me around 4:45 or so to get up and feed him. I ended up falling asleep on the couch and forgot to close the bedroom door. He ended up getting into the bathroom and into my pad bag. LoL He ripped the pad up so bad that there were cotton pieces all over the bathroom floor. It was partly my fault because I had left the bag on the floor...it is now safely sitting on top of the toilet. All I could think was..."At least the pad was clean." Yuck.

A Year Old!

Wheatie's birthday was yesterday. I can't believe how time has just flew by. BFC and I have managed to keep him alive for 8 months now. Surprisingly, last night was the first night he didn't want to be taken out in the middle of the night. I did end up waking up at the normal time to feed him though.

This morning, it was pouring outside, but I knew Wheatie would have to use the bathroom. We went outside and he initially wanted to go on his normal route to the main road, but by the time we got between two of the other condos, he looked at me with a look like, "What the hell are we doing out in this rain? I want to go home!" So we turned around and he practically pulled me back to the stairs. Then he promptly ran up the stairs and shook himself. I was happy that we didn't have to go wandering around in bad weather since he used to do that when he was a puppy. It didn't matter that it was raining hard; he still wanted to explore.

I hope this is just the start of how things will be like from now on.

Happy Birthday Wheatie!

Printer Woes

I have been in Texas for the last several days and have missed BFC and Wheatie a lot. BFC was pretty thoughtful and even sent me some pictures of Wheatie to show me how he was doing. When I texted him yesterday morning I got an unusual response from him. Apparently Wheatie had been terrible on Friday night and had not let BFC sleep and had bitten through the cable wire. I was pretty shocked since it had been a while since be had done something that naughty. I just hope that the printer is not just ditting there taking up space. Maybe I shod look on Amazon to see if they have any cheap printers.

Almost a Year Old

It's been a while since I've wrote anything about Wheatie. He's become a little monster over the past couple months. I've grown accustomed to sleeping for only 4 hours straight a night because he wakes me up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom or to be freed from his kennel. At first, I was a real grouch, especially at work when school first started, but I've gotten better. BFC is still trying to adjust though and we had a few problems with sleeping in the same bed since Wheatie's neutering. We decided to let him jump in bed with us, but he seems to prefer the floor over the bed. He'll be content sleeping in front of the sliding door.

He'll be a year old in December. I can't believe that we've had him for 8 months and there haven't been any real problems. The vet says he's in good shape and we've been good at walking him every day for about 45 minutes or so. He still has some quirks that need to be improved, but overall, I still love having him as my pet.

Cone of Shame

Poor Wheatie got neutered yesterday. He was pretty much out of it yesterday and is still kind of out of it this morning. He has to keep the the cone on for 10 days...well it may be less depending on how the area heals. I'm hoping that he will be better as the days go on. I wish that we had gotten it done sooner, but the vet suggested that we wait until all his teeth fell out. Grr...if it had gotten done before school started, I wouldn't have to worry about it while I'm at work. BOO!

Dog Park Pt. 2

BFC and I took Wheatie to the tiny dog park on the Humane Society grounds again this morning. We didn't really expect any other dogs to be there since there weren't any the past two times we went. To our surprise, as we walked up to the tiny dog park, we saw another couple with their dog there! We were happy that Wheatie would have another dog to socialize with. The couple ended up being really nice and the two dogs played together for a little while until ANOTHER couple came in with their two dogs. So the four dogs started playing together. Another couple came in shortly after that. I was surprised that there were so many people there at all. I guess Sundays are the day people want to get out of their houses and do something. A little before we left, a couple with a French bulldog came in. She was kind of aggressive and was playing rough with Wheatie. He ended up lying down on the side near us after a while. All the people were pretty good about watching their dogs and making sure that they were playing nicely. I hope that if we were to go back again, there'd be that many people again as well.

BFC and I actually are going to make plans with the first couple we met to socialize our dogs again. It'll be nice to have another dog for Wheatie to play with since there aren't really any other dogs he interacts with here in the neighborhood.

Let Sleeping Dogs Lie

I've noticed that Wheatie has been really lethargic the past couple days and has been sleeping in various positions. The funniest ones have been when he seems to be sleeping like a human; either on his back or on his side. I noticed that while I was lying on the couch this afternoon and had to shift to my side, he did the same on the floor. He loves sleeping by the shoe rack curled up in a little ball near the kitchen counter. He also tends to put his head on a stuffed toy as a pillow. I'm a little worried about what will happen when I go back to work, but I'm sure he'll be able to adjust his bathroom schedule when the time comes.

Tails of Hawaii Pt. 2

BFC and I decided to board Wheatie again this past weekend because we went to a concert on Saturday night. We went into Tails on Wednesday to book him for Saturday to Sunday and then for Wednesday to Thursday since we're going to PCC to watch Ha. So, when I went to drop Wheatie off on Saturday, he didn't seem as anxious to go in as he did before. I watched the screen and saw that he went to play with the other dogs as soon as he got to the room. When BFC and I went to pick him up on Sunday, he smelled like pee. I think he must walk in it or lie in it. The smell was much stronger than the last time we boarded him. Anyway, when we got home, I took him downstairs to use the bathroom and he had to poop THREE times! I couldn't believe it. It was like he hadn't pooped at all while he was there! I was a bit worried about that, but he seems to be back to normal. I'm hoping Wednesday night will be better for him.

Dog Park

BFC and I took Wheatie to the dog park near the Humane Society this morning. We've been talking about taking him out to different parks to give him a change of scenery. We found out that there was a little fenced area behind the larger dog park for smaller dogs under 25 lbs. We took him to that area and let him run around himself for a while. There were quite a bit of dogs in the main dog park and we saw several mounting other dogs, so we decided to avoid that situation altogether. Wheatie saw some of the other dogs who were being put up for adoption and tried to interact with them through the fence, but they all just barked at him. He was pooped out on the car ride home and fell asleep in my lap. He's actually sleeping on the kitchen floor right now. He's such a cutie!

Dirty Dog

This morning after my walk with Wheatie, I had forgotten to bring some treats along with me, so I ran up the stairs not thinking he'd run into the dirt under my stairs. It had rained hard last night, so as he ran up the stairs, his paws and underside were totally caked with mud. He was super excited, so he ran into the house and then tracked mud all over the living room carpet. Since my carpet is off-white, the dirt stains really shown through, especially near the front by the entrance. I was super upset with him and had to give him a bath because he was so filthy. After giving him a bath, I had to work on trying to get the stains out of the carpet. I have to remember to buy a better carpet cleaner formula tomorrow.

Then, during puppy class today, we worked on some agility exercises and games to help the puppy practice some of the skills they had learned earlier. Of all the classes, I felt that this was the one I could have missed because we didn't really learn anything new. BFC wasn't able to come with me either, it was hard trying to carry everything by myself. I'm hoping next class will be better and then Wheatie has graduation the following week. I'm looking forward to seeing what that will be about.

Steps

A few weeks ago my neighbor downstairs had his apartment cleaned. I didn't really think anything of it until the following day when Wheatie didn't want to go up the stairs back to the place. I thought it was kind of weird, but decided to just carry him back up the stairs. This went on for a few days and even happened with BFC a few times. One afternoon, I decided to let Wheatie smell around below the steps to see if he'd dig up anything. All he did was get dirty.

BFC decided to try something the other day to see if Wheatie would come up the stairs. While he held the dog downstairs, I ran up to get to get his food bowl. I filled his food bowl and then put it outside the door. It worked! Then I tried it again today and he came up by himself again. Hopefully he'll be able to come up the stairs independently from now on.

Six Months

Wheatie makes six months today! It's hard to believe that I've had the dog for nearly two months now. As a birthday present, BFC and I are taking him to the groomer today. He'll have a short cut again. I'm just looking forward to him having a bath. I can't even remember the last time we bathed him.

He's been getting better overall, but I'm still having a difficult time walking him in the mornings. He's so interested in pulling and eating crap on the ground, it's hard to really have a hold on him. I'm hoping that the more we continue going out and practicing, the better he'll be.

Viva Las Vegas 2010

I took a break from Wheatie Watch for a week when my mom and I traveled to Lost Wages this past week. We left on Sunday and returned on Friday. I've never been so happy to come back home than this trip. It turns out that VH added one more day to their normal packages "forcing" people to stay one more day. I guess there are pros and cons to staying longer, but I don't like the idea of losing more money with the extra day. So here's a blow-by-blow report of how my trip went.

Day 1: Sunday
Mom and I reached Vegas safely that evening and caught the bus to the CH. We then made our way to the ABC store on Fremont Street to buy our bottled water. That first night was something else because the line for the CH cafe was so long that it was near the Redwood Grille door! I'd never seen it that long before. Mom and I decided to go to the 777 Bar in the MS instead, but it was evident that many others had that idea as well since we ended up having to wait for a while there too. We finally got to eat at 2:30 a.m. Vegas time. I think we ended up gambling for a little while before returning to our hotel room and falling asleep.

Day 2: Monday (Memorial Day)
We had heard from the waitress the night before that there were going to be some huge sales because of the Memorial Day holiday. Mom and I decided to go to the Premium Outlets located near downtown. We were expecting to simply catch the City Ride shuttle and get to the outlets quickly, but soon found out that the City Ride had been canned due to lack of funds. We were both disappointed and decided to catch a bus to the mall and a cab back. By the time we left the casino, it was nearly noon, so I knew that the mall would be crowded and hot. I was right, but going was worth it because of the sales. I spent a lot of money at the Ann Taylor Factory store and the LeSportSac outlet. We spent quite a while at the mall and returned to the hotel a few hours later. Tried to go to the Cal cafe again, but the line was long AGAIN, so went to the 777 AGAIN, but this time there were no tables, so we were forced to sit at the bar next to this Hispanic couple and an old man with a young wife. The pizza is really good there though, but sadly, the spinach and artichoke dip has gone down the tubes.

Day 3: Tuesday
I wanted to go to Bath and Body works to pick up more waterless anti-bacterial soap, so Mom and I went to the Strip to Caesar's Palace. I also wanted to eat at the new Serendipity 3 restaurant. I had heard good things about their frozen hot chocolate and wanted to try one. We caught the complimentary shuttle to Sam's Town, which eventually took us to Harrah's, which is across the street from the Forum Shops. We walked through the Forum Shops and ate a cup of gelato from the Trevi restaurant in the middle of the mall. We then made our way to the B&B Works near the Cheesecake Factory. I bought quite a bit of stuff and happily, most of it was on sale! We asked the cashier where Serendipity was and found out that it was located on the OTHER side of the casino. I thought it'd be a pretty far walk because the B&B Works was on the far end of the mall. We trekked off in the other direction and eventually found the restaurant after walking through the casino and lobby area. Fortunately, we didn't have to wait too long for a table. There were lots of overpriced items on the menu, but I knew I wanted the frozen hot chocolate. Decided to get a chicken sandwich with sweet potato fries (which were somewhat better than the Counter's) and the frozen hot chocolate for dessert. After eating, we went into the Mirage casino and played there for a little bit and made our way back to Harrah's to catch the shuttle back to Sam's Town and downtown.

Day 4: Wednesday
Mom wanted to go back to the Premium Outlets today because we weren't able to make it to the Quiksilver store on Memorial Day. We walked to the bus depot and made our way to the mall. When we got to the mall, we noticed this weird-looking bus stop across the street and decided to investigate. We found out that stop was for the ACE bus line. The ACE bus was a faster route through downtown (vs. the Deuce) and would end up at the Las Vegas Outlet Center. I wanted to be adventurous and convinced Mom that we should get all-day passes to ride around on the ACE. It took us an hour to get to the mall from the Premium Outlets and we had seats all the way down. The LV Outlet Center was basically the same as the Premium Outlets except that it was indoors. I didn't really buy too much, but it was nice to get out of the sun for a while. We went back to the Premium Outlets to eat at Makino's for dinner. It was a great day!

Day 5: Thursday
On the last full day, Mom and I went to the Strip to eat lunch at the Wynn. I had been on Yelp and found that the Wynn buffet got good reviews. I was happy with the decision to eat there. There was so much different kinds of food to eat! I was in heaven. For dessert, I had a little candy apple with some dessert cups. Afterward, we went back to the hotel to pack and settle down for a bit. Mom wanted to go to the casino to play more, but I was hesitant since I was so down from my original amount. I decided to go down with Mom since it was our last night in Vegas. I actually ended up getting quite a bit of my money back on a couple of the machines.

Day 6: Friday
I didn't really do much on this day except eat breadsticks at the Vegas airport. I was happy to return back home. My skin was starting to get too dry.

I'm not really looking forward to going on another trip....but I wouldn't mind going to Japan.

Shock Value

I've been having a hard time walking with Wheatie for a week or so now. At first, I was trying to hold the leash so that he'd be at least next to me or a few steps behind me, but he was pulling so much that I pretty much gave up and let him pull from the front. This was a mistake (of course) because he'd be eating everything that he saw in front of him and would often pick up leaves or flowers. I decided to switch back to how I was originally holding the leash where he would need to be on my side. He didn't like that at all and would pull nearly the whole walk. My hands would hurt afterward because of having to hold on to the leash.

I knew that I needed to get him a new collar or something else to train him to walk better. I asked my dad if he had any of Shin or Aki's old collars. He ended up giving me a bunch of harnesses and an old chain collar that one of them used to wear. Last night, BFC and I decided to try the chain collar to see how Wheatie would react to it. Let me tell you, that was the BEST thing that we decided to do since he was great on the entire walk. At first, he was a little shocked about how he couldn't pull as hard as he could with the regular collar, but he got used to it and was able to walk at a nice pace with us.

I told BFC that Wheatie walks way better with him than he does with me, but BFC said that Wheatie actually walks better with me because he'll actually follow me. Apparently Wheatie plops himself down when BFC tries to walk him. I have yet to see that, but I told BFC that if the chain collar doesn't work after a while, he could try using one of the harnesses Dad gave us instead.

Tails of Hawaii

Woke up to Wheatie's crying at about 3:45. I was surprised that he'd be crying so early since he usually doesn't make any noise until he hears my alarm go off. He kept crying, so I decided to take him outside to use the bathroom. I noticed his paws were wet as I put on his leash. Took him down, came back upstairs to investigate his kennel, and found VOMIT there! He had vomited right near the entrance of his kennel. Of course, I got over the initial sick feeling in my stomach and put him in his pen in the living room. Took a while to clean up everything and by the time I was done, it was already 4:30. I decided to stay up since I feed him a little after 5 in the morning. We went through the normal morning routine and I even did all my laundry.

I was looking online at random stuff when I came across something about dog boarding. Tails of Hawaii, which is really close to my house, was ranked pretty high among the other dog boarding places. I found a coupon in a pet magazine I got from the Pet Expo a few weeks ago. I told BFC we should check it out so we can see if Wheatie is "fit" to board there since they actually do an evaluation of the dog before boarding it. I guess this is to weed out the really harmful dogs. Anyway, BFC and I went to Tails this morning to see if we could get Wheatie evaluated. They were able to take us right away and we were able to watch how he was in the small dog room right from the waiting room since they have cameras set up in all the rooms. It was pretty funny because as we watched him, we noticed that he quickly jumped off the worker's lap and began sniffing the other dogs. He looked very happy. We needed to leave him there for a few hours to see how he'd be with the other dogs. BFC and I went out for a few hours and returned to pick him up. The staff said that he had been a great dog, so we were really happy about that. We actually made plans to have him boarded there in the future. When we got home, Wheatie was pooped and has been great since then. I'm glad we decided to take him since it's raining down here now....don't think he'll have a walk this evening if it continues.

5 months and 1 week

I've noticed that Wheatie has been acting like a major brat recently. He actually tried to bite me this morning when I was trying to touch his paws. He did have something in his mouth at the time too, so I knew he was protecting that object. I knew I had to do something about that because I don't want that behavior continuing.

I've been reading blogs online about what to do with Wheatie and how to prevent him from further damage. I've been letting him run all over me. BFC and I are now on a new regime to make him a better dog. Wish us luck!

Last night, BFC and I had a really hard time with Wheatie. I think he must have been pretty wild because he didn't go out for a real walk at all yesterday. I've been trying to be good at taking him for walks at least three times a day to keep him active and also so he'll be able to sleep at night. I made sure to take him out for a long walk this morning since I won't be home until late tonight. It's funny how one day, he'll be the most mellow dog in the world, but on others, he'll be a holy terror. It's hard to stay really mad after looking at his cute face though.

Wheatie

I've always been an animal lover and when I moved out, I always thought about getting a dog. I would drag BFC to various puppy swap meets and pet stores to look at the puppies. I always liked to look, but never really settled on purchasing one since I didn't feel ready.

BFC and I decided to get a puppy a few weeks ago. The first few days were the worst! During that first night, I didn't get any sleep and the puppy didn't want to sleep in the kennel that we bought him. Fortunately this was on a Friday night so I could sleep for a few hours on Saturday after work. We decided to name him Wheatie because the majority of his fur was the color of wheat and we were thinking of the cereal too. That Friday night/Saturday morning, BFC and I took shifts sleeping while the other watched the puppy.

Now, things have gotten better. I've been able to sleep more regularly and have been going on more walks than ever now. He's actually a great puppy. He was really good in puppy class and usually sleeps around during the day. He gives cues when he needs to go to the bathroom. The only humbug part is that BFC and I have to walk up and down the stairs whenever he needs to go. I've been thinking of buying this litter box for dogs that has fake grass to put in the living room...

Wow! I thought I couldn't remember my password for this site, but it actually worked. Lots to blog about, but will write everything down later. Have been super tired for the past few days and actually got a full sleep last night with some minor distractions. Hopefully I'll survive the day.