Keep Reading!

Just wanted to add a tiny ittybitty post about a blog. This blogger is way better at writing then me and can make anything she does sounds like an adventure.

Even though it isn't a dog blog, check out her blog sometime!

Brain Storm


P.S. Oh and don't think because you read this tiny post you can avoid the next one. That's right, keep scrolling.

What do I do with Charlie when I leave?

I had a tournament in the cities this weekend and I just got back tonight. I entrusted my brothers with the one thing in my house that I would grab if my house were to burst into flames. They were taking care of Charlie.

Now my brothers are older then me and have graduated from highschool, but here's the thing. My oldest brother is, in my opinion, extremely irresponsible. If you ask him to do something he might half try and leave. Unfortunatly he is home all of the time. My middle brother is extremely responsible. He will not, in any situation say he will do something if there is the smallest chance he wont be able to do it. When he says he can do something, you can count on him to find a way no matter what. Unfortunatly he does not live at home. Fortunatly, he lives only a 5 minutes away.

So when I found out I was going to be gone for the weekend I immediatly went to my middle brother and asked him to take care of Charlie. He said exactly what he could and could not do and at what time. Fortunatly he could come home at the times I feed Charlie and he would be able to stay to let Charlie out 5-10 minutes later when Charlie has to fertilize the yard. My oldest brother would be letting Charlie out whenever he could... or would.

So Charlie survived the weekend. Sadly it was without walks, rollerblading, biking, running, and skateboarding, but he did get to play some fetch!

Usually this is how my weekends away go, but I always worry about longer trips or trips when my brothers can not stay home. What will I do with Charlie? I can't just drop him off at any kennel or doggie daycare. He might bite one of the workers, then what?

Charlie gets along okay with my grandparents and they can pet him but I don't think my grandparents see how much Charlie is more tolerating them, not really enjoying the company. They do not understand Charlie's body language and they laugh when he growls. I love my grandparents, but I definatly do not want to leave my dog with them. Not that I doubt he wont be well taken care of, I just don't want Charlie to bite my grandmother or grandpa.

I don't even know how Charlie reacts to strangers outside of our property when I am not there.

Another option would be to take Charlie with us, but honestly think this could only end terribly.

I do not see a trip in the near future that would require me to find a place for Charlie to stay, but I still worry about it more often then I should and I have yet to find an answer to this puzzle.

-

While I sit here, still pondering the question of what I will do with Charlie, here is the latest video of that very mutt. Charlie has tried for endless hours to catch this fly, at first jumping up to snatch him the second he saw the little black dot. In this video you can see the fly walking towards Charlie and Charlie just watches him (i'm not sure if you can see his eyes following the fly).

I haven't seen him try to catch any flies since this video.

P.S. The Taco Bell Chihuahua is a rescued dog named Gidget.

Thundershirt Storm Night 1

So if you read my last post you know that I got an awesome Betta named Jaws and he is still doing wonderfully. You also would know that I ordered a thundershirt and it arrived and that, amazingly, it fits Charlie perfectly.



So last night was the first night to test it out. I put it on and Charlie just stood there. I had put the thundershirt on previously and it hadn't effected Charlie at all and he was still walking around like usual, but I'm still wondering if he just froze there for a minute because he was uncomfortable, because Charlie only wears clothing when he is about to go outside in the cold weather. (Which is definatly not the weather we are having recently.)

So after that minute of stillness Charlie began to shake again during the big thunder booms, but he was not panting and drooling all over the place like usual and he relaxed enough to lay down between booms, which he normally refuses to do during storms.

I thought it was going pretty well until the tornado sirens went off at 4am and Charlie started panting and pacing and acting as he normally does during storms.

Overall I think the Thundershirt went better then my expectations because I was just expecting an overpriced, too tight, unnecessary article of clothing for my dog that is just another thing to add to the laundry. Because of the subtle change I noticed I plan to try this shirt every thunderstorm for the 45 day trial time and if it gets better I will definatly be keeping it.

P.S. I can not find Kale anywhere in my city.

It's getting frustrating.

New Family Member?

When my mother was growing up she had fish, bunnies, rats, cats, a dog, and more! My dad had Cats and dogs. So why was it so hard to convince them to get me any sort of pet? I don't know. Neither of my brothers ever seemed interested in having any pets. When my brother was 6 my uncle bought him a couple gold fish that lived a long time and traveled all the way from where we lived in Washington State to North Dakota and still lived a couple more years! but since then nobody in my family, other then me, ever had another pet.
Throughout this post keep in mind that from the time I could talk to the age of 14 when I got Charlie I asked for a dog at least once a day (I still occasionally bring up a second dog even though I know I'll never get another as long as I have Charlie).

So here we go!

In 1st or 2nd grade my best friend convinced my parents to let me get a hamster. So for my birthday I got Fluffy. My very first pet. (there was a naming contests) Fluffy was a genius. He got out of his cage almost once a month, and everytime he got out we'd find out how and make sure he couldn't do it again, but he always found another way. We ended up getting him a fish tank with a lid so he couldn't use his super smarts to escape!

Mosquito fish- only about 1/4 inch long

Right before Christmas 3-4 years later Fluffy died. He was pretty old for a hamster and I was expecting it, but I was a small child! I was broken up about it., so about a week later for my Christmas present my parents bought me a fancy new hamster cage with the promise that I can go pick out any hamster I wanted the following week. One week later "Junior" comes to live with me. Junior wasn't an especially smart hamster, so he lived just fine in his cage. He was my favorite. Everytime anybody came over they got to meet MY hamster, junior. My grandmother, who is deathly afraid of any rodents, loved that. He lived even longer then Fluffy!

This is pretty much what we kept the fish in at school.

In 5th grade science class we had an eco system with plants and insects on top and mosquito fish and snails on the bottom and at the end we could take them home. My partner said I could because she had a ton of fish already. Most people brought their fish home in the plastic bottle we had them in and left them their until a month later they were all dead and the snails over reproduced and it wasn't pretty. Well not me! I left the top outside for the insects to go free and I brought my fish home and spent my own saved up money to buy them a 5 gallon tank and a gold snail for 3 tiny mosquito fish. Well, they reproduced to about 30 fish at a time in that tank for about 4 years when they all (very suddenly) died. We still aren't sure what happened.

And of course, I got Charlie about 3 years after I got my fish, but that was all! So getting any little tiny pet is a big deal for me, so any pet is treasured. Maybe that's the lesson...

Anyways (wouldn't be a post by Jessi without this word)

The moment you've all been waiting for.. The new member of my family...



Jaws!



Jawesome, Jaws for short. After a lot of research and a lot of convincing (it shouldn't be that hard to convince your parents to get a fish, should it?) I went out and bought the tank, decoration, food and fish just yesterday!

I went in with the attitude that I was getting the biggest brightest bluest betta fish in the store! Well, I came out with the smallest, and most pale... but the coolest looking! He was the only one in the store this color.

Jaws seems to be adjusting to life in the corner of my room pretty well!



I became slightly worried when Charlie started licking the container Jaws was in, but with his love of water lacking I don't think Charlie will be going fishing anytime soon.
Oh look, a random sock. My mother would love me for putting this picture up.


He lives in a pineapple in a fish bowl, Jaws the Betta!


-
Now a hello from a couple of my favorite dogs.

Teddy



Bleu

And it wouldn't be a complete post without an adorable picture of my absolute favorite dog:


Charlie



P.S. After months of sceptically researching and hearing about it I have finally done it. I purchased Charlie a Thundershirt. The vet, the trainer, friends, family... They all wanted me to try it and I caved!

There hasn't been a chance to test it yet but hopefully soon we will get some rain and thunder.

So far the Thundershirt is recieving positive marks from me and Charlie because they had a size that fits Charlie perfectly, which is very difficult with everything I buy him because he is in between all the sizes. His back pack is too big, collar has to be tightened all the way, his winter clothing hangs down from his belly (he has a sweater because he has short fur, NOT because I dress my dog, thank you.), and everything is just a little off his size. Even the treats we buy are for smaller dogs (he usually gets hotdogs or something tastier anyways), but the Thundershirt fits him perfectly!

One long P.S. later,

Have a good night!

Well... Good day!

:)

On lack of sleep I'm writing

Charlie isn't very good with storms or fireworks so I didn't get much sleep the last few days and I'm half asleep right now so I apoligize for any obvious errors I'm positive I will make and not notice.

Normally Charlie will stay occupied with his Kong toy filled with frozen peanut butter during storms but for some reason he would not spend a single minute on it this 4th of July weekend. He didn't eat very much either. I started getting worried because when he should have eaten 4 times (friday- night/saturday- morning and night/ sunday morning) he had eaten half of one of his bowls.

I eventually got him to eat some, but as soon as he'd get started, of course, a firework would go off. You know, I never really cared if people ignored the law in my city saying you can not light off fireworks in town. Until I got Charlie, of course. By Sunday night I was ready to march right up to the idiots and tell them whats what. I didn't, of course. I'm no extravert. or... whatever.

Anyways. GUESS WHERE I WENT TODAY! How about I just tell you.

I reschedualed The Trainer's visit with Charlie for tomorrow because I had to opportunity to go back out to the vet clinic for another day!

Of course it started out with giving a horse shots. I've always been a fan of horses, I leased a horse for about a month and I love to ride horses but... I do not want to be the vet that deals with the horses. They are too big. My vet actually got trampled on monday by her son's horse, and let me tell you it did not look pretty.

So after that horse gots shots another horse came in that had a big cut in his nose so I watched them sew that up. Afterwards I watched more surgeries. Let me tell you, if your dog has something growing on its eye do not wait a week to take them in! A little puppy is now blind in one eye because the owners ignored it.

Continuing on to appointments- I met this awesome rottweiler, a daschund, golden doodle, yorkie, cats of all sorts... There was one golden doodle left on a doorstep of a vet tech that worked in that clinic who found a home for this dog and they were both there at the same clinic today. 13 years later. The vet tech walks in and says "I told you I'd find you a good home."



Caesar!



Speaking of good homes - If you live in ND and have lost your black pitbull... he's at the pound. And buy a better leash you have a pitbull not a chihuahua! That leash was like a piece of yarn, no wonder it broke.

Anyways. Went to the humane society, brushed a ton of cats but, fell in love with a cat named Caesar. Remembered I had a dog that chases cats and a dad that despises cats and started telling all my friends about this orange cat that they should adopt so I can come visit him. At the moment there are no takers, but i'm confident he will find a home very fast.

I'm not actually sure his name is Caesar since there were approx. 4 other orange cats that looked very similar but they all had very different personalities.

Anyways... I've probably been all over the place with this post. Is it even done? I don't know. I think I'll take a nap or... go to sleep or something.

P.s.
One of my stitches fell out this morning. Hopefully the remaining will follow.

Bringing You Up to Date

So I realize I forgot to update last week, but I was super busy so I'm updating it now on both weeks. Last week we continued to work with Charlie on going to his bed, and he is almost to the point where he can go from another room, though he does (for some reason) get confused with his bed in another room, that I do not remember calling "bed." So that is what we worked on through last week and will continue this week. The Trainer brought her own dog and we went outside to practice Charlie passing other dogs, and focusing on me when I ask and not on the other dog even if they walk right next to eachother.

This week we are still working on Charlie going to his bed. Since it was almost 100 degrees out and our air conditioner happens to be broken we took it easy. The Trainer also decided not to bring one of her own dogs because she did not want to leave her dog in the car when it was so hot. We worked on how you start an agility run and Charlie's focus on me. Afterwards we worked on the trick that I've been working on with Charlie for a couple weeks now... Doing a handstand. Charlie is to the point where he can go up against the wall with no books and when he tried to do it yesterday he accidently missed the wall and he did a handstand for a whole second on his own! We also brought Charlie outside and another dog passed us and Charlie didn't bark or growl, or show too much interest in the dog. (yeay!)

P.S. I got stitches today in my lip. It was probably the most unpleasent experience of my life. Do not hurt your lip.