The Dogs of Jackman Ave

Sorry to be MIA...came down on Sunday with the Stomach Flu. Poor dogs had to be cooped up in the house with me for 3 days. By today, they felt they had given me enough "therapy" (aka snuggling with me on the couch) and were chomping at the bit.

Thank you to Laura for the info on Charlie's ears. Ironically, Lola's ears have pretty much healed (almost...after of course, I bought 2 economy size packs of gauze!). My friend Annette suggested cutting off the sleeve of an old t-shirt to wrap around her head & I thought that was just genius. We may try one or both solutions should we need them. The more Boxer people I talk to, the more common I'm finding this problem is. I've hear horror stories of kitchen walls splattered with blood!

Pappy's fella had a question on Lola's training progress and if I understand correctly, he wanted to know if she settled down once the dog had past. The answer to this is yes, but what I'm trying to accomplish with Lola is for her not to woof at all. The ultimate scenario would be for her to see a dog & look at me for direction. HA!!!...yeah right, you say. Well, it takes time but it's definately possible. Penny was very reactive to other dogs & I've gotten her to the point where 85% of the time she can see another dog & when I tell her "Leave it", she looks to me & ignores the other dog. Ideally I wouldn't have to tell her anything, but I'm OK with where things stand now. Lola is most likely going to take a while to get to that point b/c I haven't done as good a job with her as I thought. We're basically starting over & I've got a lot of work to do.

Another trio of dogs has tagged us for our 2007 New Year's Resolutions. Well, I've already listed out my goals for '07 (kind of a resolution), but I'm going to list out some resolutions for each dog (kind of a little twist on the game!)

Sherman - lose 2 more lbs (hey, I was down 2 in '06!)...be nicer to the girls (& maybe even share my toys with Lola)...get serious about my hunting.

Penny - stop thinking I'm fat & gain 5 lbs...make Mom's life easier & have nice leash manners 100% of the time...do more fun training stuff & maybe give Rally a try.

Lola - no more Woofing at other dogs...become a Canine Good Citizen...get out of my stupid crate while Mom & Dad are at work.

We're only going to tag Splash, b/c that's the first blog Mom ever read & she thinks he's funny.

Training progress:

Nada - back to work tomorrow!