Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Well...I can see the E...

With the advice of fellow bloggers, I beleive reading with Sasha a normal novel is impossible. Arms length does not work well. Anything I have in my hands is lunged for violently. The other hand only does so much and when I have him pinned, I'm concentrating so much on keeping the squirmer contained I can no longer read my book. Nevermind I'd need large print to read like that.
Yeah, astigmatism stinks. So slight I've been told I don't need glasses. But strong enough distance takes a lot of squinting.
Hubby has found an old friend thru SeaPerch who he's discovered just had a little girl 1 month before Sasha was born. They live nearby and so the two have decided we need to be friends so we can commiserate and maybe swap babysitting sometimes.
Sounds good to me.
KerryGirl has been feeling her oats lately, as they say. The consensus is this is the effect of really feeling fully good and healthy for a little while. Not a side effect I was looking forward to, but now she's really acting like a Kerry Blue. Dominating, stubborn as hell, and slightly dog aggressive. We're doing all we can to nip it in the butt. Thankfully, the Hound hasn't been interested in the attempts to start fights and has walked away. And thankfully she's about 4x as fast and infinitely more agile so avoiding it is easy. She also doesn't care if she's top dog. The Hound is happy to have a Puppy Status for always and forever and knows that in my eyes that's what she has. End of story. No need to fight for "who's top puppy". A little NILIF and strict reinforcement of the House Code of Behavior is helping a lot. The occasional overtly dominant gesture is needed on my part, but it's getting easier. She's realizing that the rules dont change just because she finally has the energy to push the limits. Everything is the same.
The Hound's just been happy that I've now gotten my schedule worked out right so they both get a grooming every night. She loves being brushed and combed and so forth. And she's also loving that now that Sasha is happy to play on his own but not really alone per se I spend a lot of time on the floor and she can come and play too.
What I'm not loving is the fact dogs don't understand property ownership. To the Hound, Sasha's toys are Sasha's toys when he has them in his hand. When they are untended accross the room they are up for grabs. And this is why the little balls that go in his train are all missing now. Chewed up. It's not that she's a bad dog. She'd never take a toy away from him and would happily hand him hers she was using (and does). I just need to watch better.
KerryGirl plays a little, but lately is more interested in displaying her superiority to the Hound (she still brings the baby her Ducky all the time and lets him climb on her)so she's had to be sent out a lot.

2 comments:

caramama said...

Sorry about not being able to read! When the Pumpkin is especially squirmy, I have to put the book down, so I understand.

I'm glad KerryGirl is feeling better, but the side effect does suck. Dogs!

As for the toy thing, we were worried about that, but it's really not been an issue for us. When we got our dog, we already had the cat, who had a ton of toys. We were able to teach the dog to only take her toys as a puppy, so it was pretty easy to teach her not to take the baby's toys. Mostly. Good luck!

Oh, and I'm totally with you on the squirt bottle training. That is what we use on our hound dog, and it works pretty well for her. Thanks for you insight and advice on my dog issue!

caramama said...

p.s. I tagged you for a meme on my blog! :-)