Champion of My HeartA dog blog, where everything is a work in progress, by Roxanne Hawn

Over the weekend, I got the chance to visit those golden retriever puppies born in our neighborhood. I saw them the first time when they were just two weeks old. Now, they are five weeks old, and MUCH more mobile. So … for your Monday dose of happy, I present another round of puppy porn.

They’ve graduated from puppy mush/gruel to dry puppy food, but Nadi still nurses them briefly a few times a day.

They fed just a bit when I first arrived, then they played for a while, then they sacked out. Being a puppy is very hard work.

This is the one we call Fatty, sleeping next to his puppy-sized ball.

I’m not sure which one this is, but the cheeks are to die for.

This is as-yet-unnamed girl with the pink collar. When families reserve their choice, they pick out a collar for their new baby to wear so that my friend can keep them straight.

I’m not sure who these two are, but the tummy as pillow was just too sweet.

Several of them already have nice predictable potty schedules. They nursed. They nibbled a little bit on their food. They pottied. Those of us visiting praised each one for picking a spot well away from their bed to go. We startled one little girl puppy, though, when we all clapped at the same time. She seemed to recover OK, so I’m not to worried.

Next weekend, if it’s warm enough, a bunch of us are going to help supervise some playtime outside. It’ll be good for them to get out and experience new things.

There are five adult dogs, I believe, in the house, so they get the chance to be around them as well for short stints.

I’ve never raised a litter (nor do I plan to), but I wish I knew more about when to introduce various experiences, just to know, just to better understand those early “fear periods.” Still … I figure it cannot hurt for them to be handled and talked to and such. I gently held their feet, looked in mouths and ears.

I even asked one to SIT, and he did. He was getting ready to SIT anyway, but I figured I’d say the word and praise him.

I might bring a clicker next week, just so they can hear that noise.

When we told the physical therapists working with Tom’s mom about Lilly being able to roll a therapy ball around like a circus dog, they were excited to see it. So, on Monday, we took Lilly down to the residential physical therapy place so that she could visit her Grandma, see some of the residents, and show off. It went really well.

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Last week, I decided to try a friend’s dog bathing strategy of taking Lilly into the shower with me. That’s probably TMI. Yes? Well, it worked remarkably well. (No photos, of course.)

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Last Friday on Twitter, I posted a Mini-Rant that prompted a few people to ask what on earth had happened. There is NO way to tell that particular story in 140 characters, so here is the full-sized rant.

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Thanks to diligence on my part, Lilly is MUCH better about the toenail thing than Ginko. I take the tiniest bit off of each of her nails once a week, both so that they don’t get too long and so that she never gets out of practice with this grooming task. We jokingly call it Turkey for Toenails, but most times I use cheese instead. One toe, one hunk of cheese. It’s a good trade.

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When I first explained the ideas and emotions behind Champion of My Heart, I waxed a little poetic (I hope) about our new-found interest in dog training beyond the basics.  A condensed version of that post now lives on its own page in the sidebar. It’s called Why Champion of My Heart?

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During the long, cold, snowy winters, it’s hard to find a good time for a real deep-soaking, heavy-sudsing bath. So, we sometimes resort to the famous “snowbath.” Observe.

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It’s been a couple of months since we got our Therapaws mat from Soar Pet Products as an experiment for Ginko’s arthritis. Since he had a major swelling/pain flair up right after New Year’s Eve, I’m not sure we’ve had the chance to give it any kind of quasi-scientific go.

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I shot a little video earlier this week of Lilly and Ginko playing chase and jaw wrestling games. For those who know Lilly’s noisy play style and stunted social skills, I’ll ask you to pay attention to how quiet this particular play session is. Ginko does many things to ensure Lilly continues to play, which is very smart and polite of him, I think.

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I get all kinds of interesting alerts via email. This includes tidbits from something called Packaged Facts. Today’s missive touts a 5% or $2.5 BILLION increase in pet-related spending in 2009 — despite the recession. Those outside the dog world might be surprised by the data (which is used to promote a whole, big report on the pet market), but I am not. It’s really quite simple.

For people like me, our dogs are NOT discretionary.

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