Snout out the window!

Do your corgis like to stick their heads out your car windows? Normally, Finn can't reach a window enough to get her head out, which is why she likes to jump on top of my back bench seats and balance up there, staring out the rear window :)

But this weekend Finn went to a neighborhood gathering to help support efforts to save some 100 year old palms that PG&E wants to cut down, and then ran some errands with my dad and me. So she got to sit on my lap in the front seat, and really enjoy the view! And boy, did she... she tried to hang the front half of her body over the edge of the car window, like she does in the back seat! I don't think she knows how long she is.... She has no concept of toppling over when you balance like a see-saw. Anyway, we had a good time driving around!

I rolled the window up here so she would stop trying to hang out it, but so she could still get her nose out and look at everything. 

Here we are a little later, with me replacing the raised-window barrier with my arm. See my death grip on Finn's ruff/collar? :)

How do you and your corg (my bestfriend calls finn The Corg all the time-- anyone else call them corgs, too?) get around? Do they have a kennel in the back, or a car seat or seat belt? Do you have one of those blankets that makes a hammock-like area in the back seat? Perhaps a side car on your bike? or a corgi backpack?

Happy Weekend!!

I hope you all have a sunny, warm, springy weekend worth of a nice, icy drink. Maybe lemonade? :)

Finley's not sure what she thinks of ice...hehe

Amazing Puppy Lessons!

Guess what?! Finley and I have both started puppy classes!!!! YAYY!! I am so excited. For a little over a week, we have been getting up in the morning and heading over to the home of a family I have known for a long time now, and hanging out with them for a day of puppy training and garden work! The mother, we shall call her J until I ask if she cares if I use her name, has trained guide dogs and non-guide dogs for years, and has experience beyond anything I can comprehend-- I think she exudes dog-love, and Finley is absolutely, head-over-heels in LOVE. It's the most wonderful thing to watch. Not only is J wonderful with Finley, but she is kind enough to let me endeavor to pay for lessons with yard work, since I am quite broke these days. I cannot say enough good things about how it's going and how much I enjoy our time there. Here's Finn "helping" work in the garden:

For our first few sessions J had us practice on recall, since that is my #1 priority and she agreed-- knowing Finn will come when I call is probably the most essential thing. If she were to only learn one command in her whole life (ok, beside potty training!) that would have to be it! I had to learn how to do it, too, so J had to train the both of us! I have learned that good treats = Power. :)

This week we started working on having Finn walk alongside my left side, first off-leash and than with a loose leash on. She takes to it well, since that is similar to herding behavior!

And, speaking of leashessssss...guess what Finn did Monday morning!? She could tell I was ready to go somewhere, and Westly was in the yard, so she knew she probably would get to go, but like normal, she saw me open the drawer with the collar/harness/leashes in it, and began to jog away, watching me over her shoulder. Only...she stopped!!! She got to the kitchen doorway and stopped, and then trotted back toward me and sat in front of the door outside!! I slipped the collar on, and we rushed out and she ran straight to the car, jumped inside (with a little boost) and waited impatiently all the way to J's house! Then she ran up the garden walk and when J opened the door was all wags and happy squeaks and greetings!! I was so, so happy.

It seems a combination of putting the collar on and than immediately taking her outside and visiting neighbors, which she loves (she is SUCH a people dog), lots of treats while wearing the harness or collar, and getting to go see J and play and hang out has really begun to turn the tables on the Collar Wars!! I don't want to jinx it, but I am really feeling good about things.

Here is one of J's dogs, Deacon.  He's wonderful. Growing up I always remember him being a part of their house, and always think of him as a kind of Fortinbras-type dog, if any of you are familiar with A Wrinkle in Time (if not, you should read it! it's wonderful.). He is wicked smart and very mellow and kind. He's getting pretty up there these days, and doesn't care to move a lot, but he likes Finn and comes to lie in the sun when we're out front gardening :) He shares domain with a big blue standard poodle who I call Poodle, but whose name is Dazzle, but I don't have a picture of him yet. They both can do some amazing commands and tasks; I love to just watch them practice with J. Here's Deacon:

I will keep you posted about our progress!! :)

Corgi in the Kitchen Sink!

Bath time!!

September, 2009

Today, March 29, 2010

Finn had her first bath of Spring today! it is so warm out I am just letting her air dry after a vigorous towel rub down, which turned into a fun attack game vs. the towel :)  Look at how much she has grown!! My, how time flies. She actually tried to jump out of the sink, too, which took my by surprise. I was bending down, to look up at her looking over the edge and before I could click the button I saw through the view finder a foot coming toward my face! AH! I hope you all have a good weekend!!!

constant vigilance

These last few day have been glorious here, and Finn and I have been going on walks all around our neighborhood with Westly and various friends and their dogs, all happy to venture out into the new warm sun. I hope you all are getting invigorating signs of spring, too!

I take photos with my iphone wherever I go, of all kinds of things...things I like or want to remember, things that are good textures or interesting colors, things make me happy, things I need to show someone, etc. and this weekend I snapped this as I was going into a fabric store. I liked that both of them were waiting for their people:

Aren't they each cute?? They were with different families, and both of them were very focused on occupying themselves while waiting-- be it maintaining constant vigilance over the location of their person, or reading. I loved it! That little bull dog could not be swayed-- he was locked in on his human and did not want anything to do with anyone else. Endearing, no? Do you leave your dog waiting outside stores or shops ever? Did you practice somehow? I'm very curious!

Happy Friday!!

Our weather has hit a bipolar streak...yesterday I laid on the back porch in the sun with the dogs after finding them sunbathing out there; it looked too good to pass up! It was beaaa-utiful out, and smelled like blossoms and warm earth. The dogs were in a frenzy-- I think they have spring fever, too.

But, today it is rainrain raininggg. And West is back to not wanting to get her feet wet, whereas Finn came inside with her undercarriage all sopping :) Here is little Obi Wan Finley, wrapped up for bed! She really enjoys twisting her little self up in blankets! hehe

bon weekend!

or would it be bonne?

beautiful weekend

My favorite part of the whole week is Friday and Saturday, when my whole family is home and we're all doing stuff. It's not even necessarily together, it's just all three, in the same place, windows thrown open, doing things. Finley loves it too! She runs between all of us, nub wagging like crazy, jumping up and hitting you in the back of the knee just right if you aren't paying attention, wanting to sniff all the new thrifting treasures and upset when we're somewhere she can't be. And yesterday was divine-- it was one of those slivers of spring you get en route to spring itself. We all went and got ice cream at our favorite place and I now have a new favorite-- black walnut. SO so delicious.

I made tortilla soup for dinner and here is Finn, staring down the part she got to try :)

I hope you all are winding up a great weekend, too!

Corgi to the Rescue!

Corgi heroes!! Amazing. Check this out, my cousin, who lives in Santa Cruz, sent this to me this morning: A 10-month-old corgi in Santa Cruz, California (near us!) spooked a robber out on the street! Talk about good dog instincts-- they know when something bad is going on!

Via the Santa Cruz Sentinel's website:

Puppy spooks armed robber on Santa Cruz's Westside

"SANTA CRUZ - The spot-on instincts of a Pembroke Welsh Corgi pup are helping police track the suspect in the armed holdup of a Westside music store late Tuesday afternoon.

Butch Cassidy - a small, 10-month-old herding dog - and his owner, Kyla Rowe, were sitting outside Falafel of Santa Cruz on the corner of Mission and Trescony streets when the robber ran down ran out of a music shop just up the street with a reported $5,000 electric guitar around 5:40 p.m.
Known to be a little protective, Butch rushed into action.

"My dog freaked out and jumped into the sidewalk barking and growling," Rowe, a fourth-year psychology student at UC Santa Cruz, said.
The panicked robber dropped his cell phone near Butch, then fled down Trescony with the high-end guitar.

But Rowe said Butch isn't as threatening as the robber may have thought.
"He has a pretty scary bark but the guy must have  not actually looked at him," she said. "He's 25 pounds. His bark is definitely worse than his bite."

Rowe picked up the phone and walked back, with Butch, to the shop. The employees had locked up after the gunpoint robbery, but gladly opened the door to accept the recovered cell phone to turn over to police, Rowe said.

Officers are still searching for the suspect, who brandished a semi-automatic handgun at employees during the holdup, Santa Cruz police spokesman Zach Friend said.
Detectives hope the cell phone will generate some leads in the
case.

"Investigators found a couple of items of evidentiary value at the scene that we are hopeful will lead us to the suspect," Friend said.
Meanwhile, Butch - named for a notorious Wild West train and bank robber played by one of Rowe's favorite actors, Paul Newman - is redeeming his moniker.

"My housemates are jokingly calling him an American hero now," Rowe said.
The robbery suspect is a Latino man, about 5 feet 10 inches tall, 180-195 pounds, 25-27 years old with brown hair and brown eyes. Police ask anyone with information about the holdup call the Investigations Bureau at 420-5820 or the anonymous tip line at 420-5995."


Whooo Hoooo, GO BUTCH CASSIDY!!!

:)

Spring Fever! and Round 2 of The Collar War

I've been back from the east coast for a week, but it feels like forever. Andrew isn't in the navy for tooo much longer (comparatively), and I've decided it's like junior year of high school, when you get senioritis early and then the next year can seem torturous and evil. He's out, floating around in the Big Blue, if I may borrow the term from Nemo, a lot these days and I wish he were here! Alas, woe is meeeee.

So, to combat this, Finley and I have started our spring cleaning/gardening early! You're right... it is still raining out here, but it's just water, right? ...and mud. ah the mud. Finley LOVES mud. She has been a very busy little dog, following me around and poking her nose into the dust and dirt and plants and strange things I unearth, clean and then plant. She also likes to step on my succulent garden! the nerve. I like to imagine their little prickly edges feel good on her tough foot pads. a massage, if you will!

Here, she's waiting for what's next! We were taking apart an old potting table, which I cannot wait to fully disassemble and reassemble come dry weather, and cleaning it. It's so old it has square nails! I love it.

After our extended weekend of planting and weeding and in Finn's case, getting her snout all cobwebby and walking all over my pooor baby plants, we were exhausted. Finley expressed it best: This was my view looking over the edge of my bed :) You think all the blood would rush to her head!

And the eye. Wondering the the heck I am doing! hehe

Collar update: thank you all for your comments!!! I was really at a loss and you gave me great ideas. We've only had one collar venture since last week's crash and burn, but here is what we did (I made a list :)

• We took a collar break for 3ish days. 
• I left all the tags off, like you recommended, so she wouldn't have the added stress of rattling sounds and things bumping her chest. 
• I tried to just leave the remaining one lying around so it wasn't only out for walking events only; she has started not to give me The Wary Eye when she sees it now. 
• After a few days, I showered her in delicious beef liver treats from Trader Joe's (whoaaa big hit!) and slipped the martindale-style one on, and gave her lots more treats and talked in a super happy voice ("ooooooo, what a pretty dog! Oh, good girl! such a gooood color on you! ohhh gooood girl, yess, you are such a good dog!! Here, have more treats!"). 
• Immideiately we went outside, where Finn was distracted from her plan to freak-out by seeing our neighbor and smelling all the new-rain smells. She is a people dog more than a dog dog, so this worked out perfectly: she was SO EXCITED to see someone, and he loooves corgis (they have a scotty named Angus! he and Finn haven't met yet though), so it was a very happy distraction. 
• Then she snuffled around and looked for the cat next door with the bell, and I tried really hard not to pull on the leash at all, so that our first outing would be as low-stress as possible. I think it went well!! 
• We went back inside and she got lots of treats as I took the collar off. Whew! 

I will let you know how the next ones goes, after it stops raining we are heading out asap. Fingers crossed. But so far all your advice has totally worked!!

Sam: 1 15-minute successful collar outing, thanks to Corgi Advisors and 1/2 a bag of expensive dog treats!
Finley: 1 dead collar, per last post.

The odds are looking better! We'll see how it goes! hehe