She throws her paws up in the air sometimes

Hi everyone!

So, I can't believe that it's been more than three weeks now since I've had Juliette. I can't imagine life without her anymore. She is such a great little girl and we are so happy to have her.

Since my last post, we've had a few really big accomplishments on our end. First of all, Juliette is going to the bathroom in the house much, much less, which we are very happy about. Secondly, we have established a toy box for Juliette, and this morning, she started putting away her own toys before she took new ones out. Most of the time, she got the toy in. (Or at least she tried -- her favorite bone is by Kong, so it's a little bouncy, and she kept trying to drop it in, and it would bounce off the edges.)

She's also becoming more of a cuddle-bug (which she already was, but she is even more now). She really loves to get up on the couch with me and cuddle while I read or use my laptop, but she really doesn't like anything that detracts any attention from her. This evening, I was laying on the couch reading, and she actually walked right on top of me, laid down on my stomach and stretched her paws out over my shoulder, so I really couldn't hold the book up. And then she proceeded to give me lots of kisses and chew on my hair. But it was very cute! :)

The end of this week has been very different because the weather has been warmer and there are all kinds of new things for Juliette to discover. She's definitely an outdoor dog, and several times when I took her outside, she was happy just to lay down in the grass and let the sun shine on her and the breeze blow by. We had a little war over grass and whether or not she would be allowed to pull up my dad's yard, but that's getting better. Of course, we are scheduled to get another mountain of snow dropped on us tomorrow, and then it will be back to the status quo.

My parents have said several times recently that Juliette is the perfect dog for me. She's goofy, a little clumsy, but very congenial. She had recently taken to spending lots of time on her back while she either attempts to catch her tail (and she will talk to it while she tries) or play with a toy while she's on her back, paws up in the air. Here's a picture of her playing with her rope tuggy on her back:

So you think you can dance?

I can't believe that it's already been two and a half weeks since we brought little Juliette home. Today, I went shopping at Petsmart to stock up on more wet (canned) food for her. She's eating Nutro Ultra-Holistic Superfoods Large Breed Puppy wet food for part of her dinner. The same brand also makes a pouch food that has a chicken/salmon component to it that is good for her fur. I'm not replacing the canned food, but a few nights a week, she gets a tablespoon of this with dinner now. Also, we used to feed Daisy yogurt a couple days a week -- not a lot, just a little bit. Our vet liked this because yogurt is so good for everyone, even dogs. It's good for your immune system and digestive tract. She said it would be okay to give Juliette a tablespoon or two of yogurt a couple times a week. We started that late last week and she really likes it!

Juliette also continues to be mesmerized by different visual things. In addition to realizing that the people in my paintings and posters are real, she has been totally entranced by the screen-saver on my Mac, which is the brush strokes that changes colors.

As we continue to get to know our little golden girl, we are discovering more and more how much she loves all things musical. As I've said, we are a musical family. I am almost always listening to music -- if I'm studying, getting ready, just hanging out, working or even just playing with her in my room at night. She has a few artists who have really caught her ear -- Michael Buble, the Black-Eyed Peas, Lady Gaga, Train, Usher, Backstreet Boys, and yes, even Eminem.

Last night, when a really upbeat song came up on iTunes on my computer, she got very excited. She started dancing around in circles wagging her tails and jumping, so we had a little mini dance party in my room. She was very happy and it tired her out!

For the next couple nights, my dad is away in Chicago at the headquarters for his work, so it's just us girls. So far, things are going all right, but we know that she is missing him. She has been searching for him and we've had to take a few extra trips outside to look for him. However, we have learned that Juliette understands the concept of the phone. We did it with her my first day back at school and this evening when my dad called, we put him on speaker so Juliette could hear him. She got very, very happy. So happy that she licked the phone with such force that she hung up on him! LOL ...

Anyhow, things are going mostly well here! We are still having a few potty issues, where she will pittle when she wants something or is upset about something (like someone not being home or not being allowed to bring a stick inside, etc.). But since puppy classes start next week, I'm hoping I can get some tips then. Despite that, we love our little girl and are having so much fun with her! :)

--Heather

Chew this, not that

Hey everyone!

So, it's been a few days since I posted anything about Juliette, but that's not to say we haven't been incredibly busy!

Things are going very well with her here. The thing that we've been working on most this week is her puppy biting and teaching her what is okay to chew and what isn't. There is a series of books out there on weight loss and better eating called Eat This, Not That, and it's kind of been the same way around here, showing her what is okay and what isn't. At the moment, for example, Juliette is laying next to me on the couch and instead of letting her chew on my laptop, iPod, or (her personal favorite) my arm, I have her chewing on her blanket. She's not really a destroyer of anything, with the exception of napkins, so it's pretty safe to let her chew on the blanket.

Juliette has also started to become quite talkative. She likes to talk to us while we make her dinner or, if she's doing something she's not supposed to, she also gets a little sassy. However, it's never out of control or mean, she's clearly just voicing her opinion on it. My mom says she's like me.

We seem to have had a minor set back in potty-training -- she's had about one accident a day inside -- but we think this is probably because she is becoming a little more comfortable around here. Part of it is also that we are trying to learn her new signals for going potty. In her first few days here, she found she really liked to lay by our front door. She was also really good about going and sitting by the door and whining if she had to go out. But it got so frigidly cold and wet that we ended gating off our foyer so that she couldn't lay by the front door, so now we are learning new signals for her needing to go, which aren't always consistent. I hope I'm not speaking too soon in saying this, but she seems to be doing great today and we have yet to have an accident. Luckily, the few accidents she has had have been on our rugs that come up and can be washed easily.

Juliette is also starting to develop special games, habits, and things she likes to do with each person in the house. In the morning, she loves to sit in my mom's lap and cuddle for awhile while she reads. When my dad gets home in the afternoon and goes to put on the flip flops he wears around the house, she loves to sit at his feet and chase his toes. And if my dad is home when I've taken her outside, getting dried off by dad is a favorite activity and game.

We are having major breakthroughs with the crate this week. She is now really starting to accept the mid-afternoon nap concept. And, the past three nights when I've put her down in my room and asked her to go to her crate to sleep, she went in without any fight. Today, I did the same for her afternoon nap for the first time and she was happy to go in. This is really great. The first puppy that I remember having (my parents had one dog before I was born that was well out of the puppy stage by the time I came around), Midnight, loved her crate and treated it like her room. We want Juliette to love her crate just as much.

One downfall this week is a personal one. I have come down with some kind of bug and have been sick now for about eight days. I have been to the doctor two or three times now, and they believe I may have mono again. We have yet to be able to get a blood test done because I have been too dehydrated for them to tap my veins. However, I am not too worried even if I do have it again. Juliette has really warmed up to napping (and sometimes I even let her nap and cuddle in my bed in the afternoon). The biggest issue if I do have it again will be that I need to take a week or two more away from school, so I will have to enlist my Student Access Office to negotiate with my professors. I'm able to keep up with Juliette just fine, though, and of course my parents are a big help.

I am still really learning how to handle being a "puppy-parents." But my mom and dad have both had so much experience, so they have been really helpful. A personal triumph between she and I this week is that she is starting to come whenever she is called and if I say "No," to her when she's moving towards something at a distance (i.e.: the remote controls on our end tables which are some of her favorite toys), she will get away from them. She is also walking well with me on the leash around our yard. I'm confident that by the time the warmer weather gets here, I will be able to get her leash trained to take a couple walks with me a day.

The most exciting event for Juliette this week was that one of my best friends, Maggie, came over to visit her on Tuesday. Maggie is one of Juliette's many aunts and was very happy to meet her! Here are pictures from Maggie's visit:

That's all for now. :) I'll post more this coming week!

--Heather

Top chef

Today, Kyle headed back to CMU. I think it was one of the harder times for him to go back. He and Juliette got very attached to each other very quickly.

This weekend was one of both victories and some battles.

The main battle is that Juliette is now well into the period where occasionally, her puppy biting is a little too forceful. She of course isn't intentionally hurting anyone and really just thinks she's teething, but it does hurt. After a lot of research, I decided on a two-prong approach to it. First, keep something she can chew nearby to distract her when she goes to chew on a person (and of course scold her, but encourage the chewing on the toy heavily and praise her). Second, if she's really insistent, get up and move away from her and attempt to remove the temptation. This has worked and she is being much better about it!

We are also learning a few new things about Miss Juliette.

One of these things is that she is most definitely a kitchen-loving dog. I'm thinking that's probably because she spent a lot of time in the kitchen at the house where she was raised her first nearly ten weeks. She loves to watch anything that is going on and she is very well-behaved. She doesn't beg while we're cooking, she just wants to lay at our feet or watch. She of course also loves being near the dishwasher when it's running -- I think the noise is comforting and of course it's warm!

The biggest victory is that Juliette is now not only tolerating her crate but enjoying it, and tonight went there of her own accord to fall asleep! She also hung out in it a few times today while I was doing things. I'm so happy that she is growing into the idea that it is her place.

Tomorrow is Juliette's first visit with our family vet -- I'll be sure to update soon! :)

Snips and snails and puppy dog tails, that's what little boys are made of

I've never been excited for anyone else quite the way I was for both my little brother Kyle and Juliette last night. Kyle got home from CMU around 5:30 p.m., and right away, they took to each other. Juliette loves having a boy around, which is great -- all puppies need a boy to play with! Kyle loves to play fetch and missed that as Daisy was getting older, so he really enjoyed playing with her last night. It's nice to have the five of us together. She is of course enjoying even more constant attention than she already was.

This morning was a little exhausted. Juliette was a little more overwrought than usual and that resulted in a little more crate time mid morning than I would normally like, but she has since calmed down quite a bit and is now relaxing and enjoying a nice Saturday afternoon with us.

We are getting some sudden snow here this afternoon. It started as flurries less than an hour ago when I took Juliette outside for a potty trip. Within five minutes, it got heavier, and now it's a full on snow shower and my car has easily another inch of snow on it. Kyle and I are looking forward to playing in the snow with Juliette sometime this weekend, probably in the backyard, but I'm thinking of going to Walmart and investing in a pair of snow pants for the first time since I was maybe thirteen. I'm going through way too many clothes.

For now, I'm off to go to lots of homework I've been putting off. Tonight may prove to be an all-nighter for school, but she's worth it!

Separation anxiety

Tonight marks the end of my normal school week and tomorrow night marks one week since I have become a new-puppy owner. I am thoroughly exhausted! Of course, I didn't really have a full week this week. Thanks to Snowpocalypse 2011, I was granted two full days off Tuesday and Wednesday. Next week, assuming we don't get another load of snow dumped on us. Let's pray it doesn't -- the drifts of snow in the front of our yard are twice the size of Juliette, easily. This of course means that this is the thing most attractive to her in our yard, two and a half feet of dirty plowed snow. In addition, the streets of Royal Oak were seriously messy tonight for school -- left hand turn lanes were completely filled with three and a half foot piles of snow that were creating a median of sorts. I have been hanging out in Royal Oak for school now for over six months now for school and tonight was like learning my way around the city all over again. The name of the game there is Learn How to Get Everywhere Using Only Right Turns. I don't recommend playing!

One upside of becoming a new-puppy owner is that my time line is dependent on what she needs. This means that when 7:45-8 a.m. arrive and she wants to get up and is whining, it doesn't matter that my internal clock is begging me to go back to bed until noon. Of course, I'm exhausted all day, I'm drinking more coffee than ever (I've gone through more than half a bottle of my favorite White Chocolate Mocha creamer in less than a week), but I do actually get more done and I manage to stay busy most of the day. The downside is that I'm naturally a night owl, and I am not yet used to the fact that my body doesn't want to sleep 'til anytime before 11:30 p.m. yet (hence the past midnight posts). Part of this is that I haven't adapted my homework schedule yet -- I'm used to staying up all night Monday, Wednesday and Thursday nights to do homework and sleeping in Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. Since I'm getting up earlier, I should be doing homework throughout the day ... But Juliette does not understand homework and it's very hard to stay focused when you have a cute puppy discovering new things every second! (Today, she was very frustrated with my math homework detracting my attention from her, and she proceeded to try and take it ... I am much too old to be trying to tell my professor that my dog ate my homework!)

Something Juliette has decided she does not like much is the noise of crowds on the TV. We are a TV, sports and movie loving family and we spend a lot of time watching things together as a family and as such, we have a big TV and surround sound. We've always been more of a sit down in the living room to eat dinner and watch something than sitting down at the table. We love the Detroit Red Wings here (although my dad really doesn't get into it until Stanley Cup Playoffs) and Juliette experienced her first hockey game in this house this week. When the crowd cheers suddenly or a commercial is played that has a stomping/clapping/cheering background to it, she will bark at it for several minutes. She is incredibly smart though, because she did realize it was coming from a particular speaker more strongly than the others and started barking at it specifically. The same thing happens with cheering crowds on American Idol. However, tonight one of our funniest moments happened while watching Idol. If you watch, you know who Tornado Man is -- if you didn't, Google him. I'm sure there will be some viral videos in the next few days. Anyhow, he was dressed strangely and was very, very loud and dancing weirdly and singing weirdly, and Juliette decided she needed to bark at him. We were already laughing, and her barking at him confirmed how we felt even more!

Juliette does however like music, which is great, because we are very musical family. She loves the Jeopardy music and she will sit in bed with me and watch Gossip Girl or on the couch and watch Grey's Anatomy with me and my mom for a long time. We love good music around here, and we're all singers and we play instruments. My dad always sings, and she's shown a fascination with him singing and perks her ears up and gets happy when he sings (this happened for the first time within minutes of bringing her into our car to bring her home last week).

She is also already showing her protective streak. Last night, I took her outside and several of our neighbors had put out their recycling and garbage already, though we had not, and she immediately took notice to the garbage of the neighbors across the street and started barking at them. She also protected me from our wishing well in our front yard! It's so funny and silly, but it's cute already that she is protective!

Tonight, I had my math class, which is already pretty painful for me. I like math and my teacher is not great. Normally, in that situation, I'd use the time already in class to study the chapters on my own and do homework. But my professor likes to wander the class as she teaches to make sure we're doing the examples, mainly because she doesn't know how to teach them, so she takes our papers up to put on the overhead and instruct based on how we did it. She also grades on attendance and especially participation, so getting caught working ahead or differently is kind of frowned upon. (This is the professor who, on our first day of class, handed us a worksheet that was labeled, 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7. The next class, she handed us a packet, the first several problems labeled 1, 3, 4, 5, 8, 9 ... You get the picture. Today, she told us that if she'd added extra credit points to our test, our score would probably go up. She's not the sharpest knife in the drawer.) Anyhow, my little girl apparently really missed me. My mom conducted the experiment of letting her listen to me on speaker phone, and apparently it really got her perked up!

I think it's so cute that she misses me ... But it also makes me feel bad. I also miss her so much. I know that once we've gone through the schedule a few weeks, she'll be better about it. And I do think that my schedule is pretty perfect. She doesn't have any time alone, really, and my parents are so happy to have her and are very attentive. My schedule looks like this:

Mondays:
HIST 370, 9:30-10:45 a.m. at EMU
Break at home from 11:15 a.m. until about 12:25 p.m.
HUM 1900, 1-3:55 p.m. at Royal Oak
Break at home from 4:25 p.m. until about 5:15 p.m.
HIS 2520, 6-8:55 p.m. at Royal Oak

Tuesdays:
Free all day
Leave for Orchard Ridge at about 5:15 p.m.
ENG 2200, 6-9:55 p.m.

Wednesdays:
HIST 370 - 9:30-10:45 a.m. at EMU
Break at home from 11:15 until about 5:15 p.m.
BUS 1100, 6-9:55 p.m.

Thursdays:
Free all day
MAT 1150, 6-9:55 p.m.

My mom is home all day every day right now, and my dad gets home sometime between 3:30-5 p.m. most days, so she really has a full throng of people concerned with watching her around all the time. But I hate those few hours I have to be away. I was very grateful for snow days this week. They did make me procrastinate more than I would normally allow ... But she is so worth it.

Tomorrow, we are going to try an experiment: NAP TIME! I've decided that after she's had lunch and after I tired her out, I will put her in the crate for an hour or two to relax. She gets a little overtired in the evening and sometimes that makes her cranky with anyone who isn't me, and sometimes even if it is me. She loves to cuddle and sleep on the couch and stuff, but she gets woken up easily and tempted by other things than sleep. I'm hoping that maybe this will make her get a little rest and also give me time to clean up, nap myself, or do a little homework undisturbed. Obviously, I wouldn't do this on Monday or Wednesday, because she will be in the crate mid-morning anyway. We usually have lunch, go outside, play inside and then go outside again, and then she sort of naps wherever or chews on one of her Kongs or bones for awhile on and off. My mom did this with our first dog, Midnight, and she said it was really helpful. She also said she did it with both me and my brother, which of course makes sense.

For now, I'm headed off to lay down and relax. Tomorrow, it's a day of homework and puppy love and of course, my brother Kyle comes home to meet our girl! I can't wait to spend time playing with them both in the snow -- visitors and other people to play with (but not other pets yet) are welcome. :)

Every little thing she does is magic

I can't believe it's already been almost a week since I've had Juliette. This week has been a little strange because of the blizzard, which granted me two school-less days that I would not normally have had. But, this is also good for her to get used to me being gone a little more gradually.

For the past three nights now, Juliette has gone in her crate to sleep with no argument whatsoever. Last night, she went in at about 10:30 p.m. She woke up at 11:15 p.m. and whined, so I took her outside, then she went back to sleep and didn't wake me up until about 8 a.m. this morning, which was a huge achievement.

In general, she slept a lot yesterday, and she's definitely grown. Today, she's been a little fireball and running around getting into everything. The only problem is that she makes me laugh when she's getting into things, which is not good for disciplining, but she is getting better. Today was very exciting because my dad was home from work, too, and Juliette is absolutely in love with my dad.

Every day, there are little things she does that are incredibly fun and exciting and I can't help but want to watch her all the time! It makes getting homework (or anything, really) done quite hard, but I just don't want to miss anything. Yesterday, for example, she finally figured out how to squeak her moose toy. She's been watching us squeak it and kept trying and finally got it yesterday! These things may seem silly, but I don't want to miss a second of it.

Today had a few new firsts for us. The first of those was the first snowstorm that I've seen her witness. She loved it, of course. Having been born and initially raised on the west side of the state, she's no stranger to it, and she has loved romping around in it. The second of these was that my aunt Sue came over today and met her, so she has been our first guest and the first person outside of the people who live here and neighbors that Juliette has met, since Maggie wasn't able to come over on Sunday.

Right now, we are experiencing another first -- both my parents are out right now at an appointment for my mom. So, for the first time ever, I am alone at home with her. She was very sad that my parents left, of course (she's very clearly a people-puppy and loves to have and be a companion), but now, she's on the couch with me, her head is on my legs and she's asleep and dreaming. Her paws are going and her eyelids are twitching, and her tail is even wagging, so it must be a good dream! Anyhow, I'm incredibly grateful to have her here, because this was kind of the point -- I am a dog person, I don't like not having a dog, I hate being alone at home without a dog. I'm so happy to have her here with me!

Tonight's picture is of Juliette discovering my laptop last night. She is very, very interested in it and from the determination on her face, I swear she is trying to figure out what it does and how it works.