Continue reading... "how this freaky site works..."

Here is my baby with Icy at her mercy. I am so not kidding when I say that I would recommend her to teach karate classes.

She is very sensitive to restraint, a gentle pull on Sumi's collar sends her into a frenzy of "get away from the monster that is going to eat me!!" so I still haven't figured out how to get her to be okay on a leash, she doesn't mind having it on, as long as I'm the one following her.

She loves shoes, but only because Icy taught her how, now they play tug o war with those inexpensive chinese slippers we have lying around the house. I'm teaching her not to bite them through the following method: Pulling her gently by the collar, when she knows she did something wrong, she will go into SUPER SHIBA SCREAM mode the moment I try tugging her into my lap. Why? I don't really know. How? I have no idea how her voice box can be strained to make that high pitched of a sound.
Putting her into my lap and telling her firmly while showing her the shoes and speaking one level above her screaming, and explaining that the slippers are not for widdle fluffmunchkin pookie pie because they are for human feetsies.
But she REALLY gets the idea when I start smacking myself over the head with the slipper. Yes, I kid you not, I slap myself over the head with the slipper and with each slap to myself, she lets out a horrified howl. She seems to think the slipper is killing me and therefore should not be trifled with. When I finally defeat the evil slipper from hell, she runs over relieved and starts trying to induce me to play with her just to make sure I'm alive. She doesn't really go near the slippers anymore, but my dad's leather shoes and my mom's boots are fair game. I don't think I'm that suicidal yet so I haven't really slapped myself with the boots.
Otherwise, she is extrmely well behaved and knows how to give "paw" which isn't really a result me training her, more like she trains me to shake her paws each time she lifts those cute teeny feet up into the air. I am a very good student. She still wakes me up the same way every day, not that I mind, she keeps me on time for school. So... that's all the updates for now, if anything else interesting happens, you'll be the first to know.

By the way, I am still sleeping in the crate.

see Josie's other entries, including the ones of her other, other, other dog, meatball, here...

Josie has been writing for this site since I helped train her dog, Meatball last year. She's 16, or maybe 17 now, and she writes like how I wished I could write when I was 16. See her other entries here...

behold: the shiba inu

Well, we got two new gates, you know, the oen where it swings open and hits you smack in the toe for the first few weeks until you understand you're suppose to open it a tad slower than how you have been doing to prevent a world of hurt that peels the skin off whatever toe is unfortunate enough to be the victim. Wow, I think that is one long run on setence, my english teacher would cry is she knew how I talk online. I am missing my "n" key on my keyboard so excuse the typos that come from that.
And.... and..... I got my Shiba Inu puppy!!!! her name is Sumi, meaning something in japanese that I have not cared to remember because I am just too darn excited. Okay, this puppy has dispelled any and every stereotype I have ever held in my heart for puppy dogs, and I will name them now.

Continue reading... "josie the run-on sentence..."

Here's another rant from Meatball's owner, Josie Wu. Best 16 year old living on earth right now-

Her chewing is slowing decreasing but she occassionally slips slightly. We lost a telephone wire to her jaws just yesterday and my dad was shouting into the telephone thinking that the reception was bad. Gee, was he surprised when the phone in the other room still kept ringing. So I had to run into the kitchen and I almost slipped on the little perpetrator stretched out in all her fat furry glory on the floor. She must have realized what she had done because the moment I came back to find her, she had dissappeared, scrunched behind the big black chair. We're now trying wasabi, which is probably the only really big repellent because listerine wears off and so does hot sauce. (Hot sauce, which reminds me, she doesn't bark unnecassarily anymore.=D)

But we have extra telephone wires because we know this nasty little habit of hers.

Meatball Wu.

We also tried getting her a new squeaky toy.

Continue reading... "meatball series 2005..."

An update on the infamous Sophiedog...

Hey there. I just thought you might like an update on your former student. She has really grown into her own. She roams the house freely without incident. (Well, maybe the occasional chewing incident, but it is rare). She is getting to be a pro at heeling on a leash. She still gets excited when she sees new people, but she is getting better. Still wanting to jump sometimes as well, but we are working on it. We took her on a week long trip to RI, VT and Maine, and she was perfect. Did fine in the car, hotels, on the ferry, with other dogs, etc.

And, to make sure that her dad and I were not entirely worry free, she sat on a pile of fire ants and had to have her butt shaved and treated. Typical.

Amy & Sophie

Here we are at the end of a long road, at times it was rough but we all got through it alive and contented. Swanky is now officially a member of the society of well-behaved dogs and he has a diploma to show all visitors who come to his swanky apartment overlooking New York's coveted Long Beach spread. He no longer humps legs OR arms, knows a handful of commands and their hand signals, is somehow mysteriously a hundred times cuter than the first time we met, and his once bad decisions are turning into better and best decisions.

Continue reading... "Swanky #6 (graduation time for Swank, time for Swank to graduate...)"