A Few Little Updates

This post is SUPER late. My family came to visit a few weekends ago (and they've actually been up to visit again since then)! Bailey was SO excited to see everyone and they couldn't believe how much she's grown since they saw her last. Every  time I talk to my niece, without fail, she asks, "How is my Bailey Bear doing, is she bigger than me yet?" Haha. So cute!

This was a fun but very busy weekend. Here are some highlights...

We got our new bed! I'm SO excited about this. The inspiration for this bed is Pottery Barn's Stratton Bed. Obviously, we didn't want to spend that much money on just the bed. I found Ana White's plans for the knockoff. I posted about this a little before, but Josh and I were planning on building the bed ourselves. My dad volunteered to do it for us! I'm SO glad. At the rate we're going, we would still have a pile of wood sitting in our garage. We saved a LOT of money this way too. We got the bed, a TV stand, an awesome new mattress set and a frame for the guest bed...ALL of that for less than just the bed at PB. We still have to paint the headboard and TV stand (they have been primed though), so this isn't quite complete yet. The bed is SO high. I guess it isn't much higher than our old bed, but quite a bit higher than the frame we had before this one (now the guest bed frame). Josh loves it being that high. I'm still trying to get used to it. We'll be replacing the bedding soon. I have to decide what kind I want, so we'll probably have this one for a while. The one we currently have on it is a king and its too big. If we put a queen on it though, the boxspring will definitely show all the way around. A bedskirt isn't an option since we have the drawers. I wanted to just go without the boxspring since the bed is solid, it would provide the support the mattress needs. Josh doesn't like that idea. I'm not ruling it out just yet.

We got some more painting done! YAY for 40% off at Sherwin Williams! The upstairs hallway is White Raisin. We had originally decided on Anjou Pear, but I talked to a designer and she thought it would be too dark. I picked up a sample of the White Raisin to try it on the walls. At first, I didn't like it at all, but once it dried completely, I loved it! Now we have to paint the downstairs stairway. We bought too much of the White Raisin, so I may lighten it a bit and paint my craft room a lighter yellow than the hallway.

All of the ugly fans are officially out of the house! Daddy has changed them out either for fans we like or for lights. Right now we have a plain light above our dining table. There used to be a REALLY ugly fan there. The light isn't permanent. It's just there until we find the right chandelier for the space :-) It's still much better than the old fan. I really like our bedroom fan, but it hangs too low right now. We're going to put a 12" downrod on it the next time my dad visits. I'm really excited because the fans in our bedroom and the State Room both have remotes (I'm still trying to figure out exactly how they work though).

 A bad pic of the old master bedroom fan

Our new fan in the master

We had plans to finish the back yard, but it was WAY too hot to do that much yard work. With a heat index well above 100, we decided against that project very quickly.

We got a few other repairs done. My dad fixed our lazy susan cabinet. The one we had only had 1 shelf and it was cracked. We found another one for free on Craigslist. Daddy took the lazy susan insert out and put it in our cabinet. He doubled my storage space in that cabinet!

Bailey got play time with Kila!

 Kila just wanted to nap...Bailey wasn't having it.

Luckily, Kila is possibly the most patient dog in the world.

Bailey's Progress Report

Yesterday was Bailey’s half Birthday! I can’t believe she’s already 6 months old.  On top of my normal Friday post, I’ll recap a little bit…this one might be long. J

I first saw Bailey when she was 5 weeks old. She was one of the puppies of a stray that my dad started feeding. My dad told me she had puppies while we were on vacation in February, but I wasn’t interested. Josh and I wanted a dog eventually, but we wanted an American Bulldog and we wanted to wait until next January. We knew we would be buying a house soon and a new puppy would make a very busy time in our lives even busier. At the same time, the “old me” kicked in.

 That's little Bailey running like the wind!

I’ll tell you a little story about the old me. As long as I can remember, animals have been my passion. One night, not long after I got my license, I was on my way to my dad’s house. I noticed some puppies running in the road. They were probably 9 or 10 weeks old. The mama dog and one of the puppies had been hit by a car. There were no collars on any of the dogs and they looked so skinny. They were a mile or more from the closest house so I was sure they were stray. I don’t remember for sure how many there were, but I think there were probably 4 or 5. I went to my dad’s house, picked up my sister, went back and made her help me round them up. The whole time she kept telling me that daddy was going to kill me. I didn’t care; I didn’t want any more of the puppies to get hit. Needless to say, my dad wasn’t happy. He told me I had a week to get rid of them or they had to go to the dog pound. We fed them and I started working on finding them a home. Some lady came to my dad’s house a few days later and started yelling at him for stealing her puppies. I have no idea where she lived, but those puppies were nowhere near anyone’s home. My dad obviously gave them back to the crazy lady who doesn’t know how to take care of dogs.

Anyway, when I saw that cute little puppy running around near my dad’s house, I had the image of the mama dog and the puppy in the road stuck in my head. My curiosity kicked in and I picked up the puppy to see if it was a boy or a girl. The puppy screamed bloody murder so I put it down before the mama dog, “Pretty Baby” is what my niece has named her, attacked me. That little pudgy puppy took off running much faster than I would have thought possible. I think I knew I had to save her then. Her mom was clearly a pit mix. In the area my dad lives in, dog fighting is unfortunately very common. If the wrong people got their hands on that cute little puppy, she would be used for bait…that’s even worse than getting hit by a car in my opinion. I just couldn’t let that happen to her. I hinted around at Josh and we talked about it for all of 20 minutes before we lost all rationality and decided that we would take the puppy. We both knew it wasn’t financially the best decision for us…but that puppy needed a good home. With a few sacrifices, we could easily provide one. I called my dad not long after we left his house and told him we wanted the puppy if he could catch her. My parents were coming to visit in 3 weeks for Easter so the timing was perfect. We had a male and female name picked out before we got back home. Once we got back to MD, I called my dad probably every other day to see if he had caught the puppy yet. She needed to be vaccinated and de-wormed. I wanted to make sure she was healthy. Josh and I continued to talk about it and we decided maybe we shouldn’t get the puppy. If he hadn’t caught her yet, maybe it wasn’t meant to be. We were about to spend a lot of time and money on a house. It would be better if we waited until we were settled in. I was about to call my dad and my phone rang. It was my dad. My dad never calls me so I knew he had caught the puppy. I picked up the phone and it was actually my niece. “Aunt Kiss…Papa caught your dog! It’s a girl! Can we name her Daisy Duck?” Haha. I let her down easy and told her we were naming her Bailey. Despite having decided literally 5 minutes before that we weren’t ready for a dog, I couldn’t have been happier to get that call. My dad had been looking every single day for Bailey and he had finally caught her. She was scared of course but it didn’t take her long to warm up to my family and their dogs. She was a little over 6 weeks old when my dad caught her. Of course, this is a little earlier than ideal for her to be away from her mother, but we thought it was the best alternative. Bailey’s mom came to my dad’s house on a daily basis to eat anyway, so my dad let her in each time so she could visit with Bailey and nurse if she wanted. My mom took her to the vet the next day. Aside from having a ton of worms (which we expected) and a hernia, she was a healthy puppy! We started puppy proofing and shopping for dog supplies right away, we had less than 2 weeks before Bailey came home!

 This is Bailey the day my dad finally found her. 

 Barely bigger than her daddy's basketball!

Too cute for words. Her first weekend home.

Bailey has come a long way from that scared little puppy. She's a STAR puppy now, she greets us every day when we come home from work. Her tail wags so hard that her whole body shakes and sometimes she even hits herself in the face with it. It’s so adorable and it always makes my day just a little bit better J

We’ve been able to teach her:

Her name (obviously)

Sit

Stay

Down

Come (still struggles when distracted or hyper)

Go to Bed

High Five

Play Dead

Roll Over

Shake

Wave

Heel (for the most part)

Leave it

And…she’s partially potty trained. We still average an accident every week or 2 L

We’re currently working on:

Take it

Give it

These are the first steps of teaching her to retrieve, which she needs to know in order to put up her toys and bring Josh a beer.

I can’t believe we’ve already had Bailey for 4 months. She’s growing into a great dog. Of course she’s headstrong, but we expected that. She’s definitely going through a rebellious stage right now. It’s frustrating but it’s part of having a puppy. It’s been a long time since I’ve had a puppy and I forgot how hard it can be sometimes. She’s well behaved for a 6 month old pittie mix. Of course she’s super energetic, but we knew we were getting into that.

The biggest issues we’re trying to address right now are:

Potty training – she’s shown a ton of improvement in the past month but we still have accidents. She’s just catching on to the poochie bells. She will ring them when we’re on our way out with her, but she won’t ring them by herself yet. She still just sits at the top of the stairs. I know she’ll catch on eventually.

Jumping – She LOVES people and other dogs. We’re working really hard to try to get her to stop jumping on them when she’s so excited.

Nibbling/Biting/Pawing – Bailey still tries to nibble, bite and paw when she’s playing. Now that we’ve taught her to wave, the pawing is more frequent, but she isn’t actually slapping us as much…she just waves randomly when she wants a treat or something. Haha. She only really tries to bite when she gets super excited. I think she forgets it’s bad. We just have to be consistent and hopefully it won’t take much longer to break her from it.

 Walking her around a creek we found close to our house. She doesn't care to get in it, she just wants to drink from it. 

I think this is her..."Mom, PLEASE stop taking pictures" look.

Toys

After Bailey ripped the baseboard off the wall last week we decided we definitely had to get her some more long lasting chew toys. We decided to get her a deer antler and a bully stick. We’ve gotten her a bully stick before and it lasted all of 2 days. This time, I decided to get a larger one. I ordered both items from bestbullysticks.com. We give her the bullystick to chew on when we’re home and the antler when we’re at work. The bullystick is over halfway gone, but it’s lasted much longer than the last one. The antler looks barely touched! We’ll definitely be getting more of these. I just bought one of each this time because I didn’t know how much she would like them or if they would last long enough to be worth it. She hasn’t touched the baseboard since we’ve given her the antler and it still has plenty of life left in it. We’ll buy several the next time to cut down on shipping cost. They have flat rate shipping and it’s free when you spend a certain amount. 

This is Bailey checking them out. She was scared of the antler at first. She barked at it. Now she loves it.

Bailey's Progress Report

Watching Dogs 101


Potty Training

Bailey only did OK this week. On Sunday, she had 2 "accidents". The first time, Josh was playing with her literally 15 minutes after she came in from a walk. She just stopped playing and squatted right in front of us. She definitely knows better and she didn't even have to pee. It was just a tiny dribble. We took her out to correct her and she just sniffed forever. The second was very similar. she had gone almost 2 weeks without an accident and she has 2 in one day. We're trying to make some connections to figure out what's causing this. One thing we have noticed is that her accidents are always either on the weekends (when we're home during the day) or when she's in an unfamiliar environment (either at a new place or we have visitors at our place). 

I did finally finish the poochie bells. We're using them, but Bailey hasn't quite figured them out yet. We sit her in front of them and make her hit them with her paw, then we treat her and say "outside". She'll catch on eventually :-)

Bailey's Victims

This is the worse one yet. Remember when I said she hadn't really done any damage to the house? (Except the vinyl we're replacing anyway? Well...not anymore. See the evidence below.

She is very used to being home alone during the day and she's never done anything like this. This is the first time she's been left alone without her bone. This happened on Wednesday. I came home and there was chewed up wood all in her crate (I didn't think to get a picture of that). It took me forever to figure out where it came from. This is Bailey in time out.

Don't worry...this week hasn't been all bad.

Training

Last week, we had just introduced "shake". This is the first step to teaching her to wave and do several other tricks that involve her paws. She picked up shake very quickly and she knows the verbal command now! A few days after we realized the understood the verbal command, we started on "wave". It was tough at first, because she would try to switch between paws. Eventually, she got it. She's doing very well now. She is rarely putting her paw down between waves so it looks really good. She still tries to switch between paws when she's very excited. Sometimes she appears to be bored with this one, but she doesn't know the voice command yet. Her voice command is "Say Hi" (I'm more of a "hey" person than "hi"...but hi rhymes with bye, so we will be able to use either of them). After doing a bit of research, I found this video on YouTube. This is exactly how I taught Bailey and I was amazed at how quickly she picked it up! I think she actually does it better than the dog in the video since she doesn't do that weird jumpy thing the other dog does :-). We've got a long way to go, but she's doing so well!

We've decided to switch Bailey's food again. There were a few things I wasn't completely happy with in her old food (Blue Buffalo) and I found a better food for the same price (Taste of the Wild). They had several flavors and they sent me 2 samples of each. We narrowed them down based on calories. Since she's still very active, we wanted to choose one of the 2 higher calorie recipes. I didn't have a preference between these, so I decided to let Bailey choose. I made her choose 3 times and I switched the sides the foods were on each time...she kept going to the same one :-) I let her choose between Wetlands and High Prarie. She chose High Prarie.

Why I Love Meal Planning

One of my goals for 101 in 1001 was to start meal planning again. I started meal planning when we moved up here and I sort of just stopped after I got my current job. I'm not sure why I stopped, I just did. 

I've been back at it for several weeks now. This is probably one of the first things I completed on my list and I'm SO glad I did. So, why do I love meal planning so much? 

* It saves us money because:

 - I'm forced to use a grocery list...this reduces impulse buys tremendously

- I better utilize food we already have in the house (including leftovers)

- We throw away much less food

- It keeps us from making several trips a week to the grocery store to pick up 1 or 2 items for dinner

* It saves us time because I only make 1 trip to the grocery store a week and I don't have to figure out what's for dinner every day.

How do I go about meal planning?

First, I look through my fridge & pantry to see what I can make with what I already have.

Second, I look at the sales papers for our local grocery stores. I compare their sales with my coupons. We have a Weis near us and they double coupons like Harris Teeter. We do have a Harris Teeter, but it's not close to us so we wouldn't save any money by going there. Anything that I have a coupon for that is also on sale, goes on the grocery list. I take out my cookbooks and find recipes that I can make with these ingredients. 

Last, Josh and I will fill in any blanks with whatever would like to eat for the week.

Once I have 7 meals, I figure out which day we'll eat each meal. I plan this based on the amount of time I'll have to prepare dinner, the amount of leftovers I'll have for lunches the following days and if I can utilize leftovers to make another meal later in the week. 

Of course, I don't always stick to the list 100%. We may have Wednesday's dinner on Monday or we may decide to go out for an unplanned date.

Now that we're meal planning again, I've been looking for a more attractive way of keeping up with our meals. Right now, I just write it on a dry erase board that we use for random to-do lists and other things of that sort. Several weeks ago, I found this menu. You can buy this exact one, but I want to make my own because there are a few things I would like to change about it. Here is my inspiration. I hope to start gathering supplies for my own soon.

Bailey's Progress Report

We had a big improvement with Bailey this week. She can be a pain sometimes, but she’s such a joy to be around. I really love coming home to her. Sometimes I’ll have a bad day at work or I’m just in a “blah” sort of mood. Josh has those days as well. Of course we lift each other up and it’s great to see each other, but no matter what kind of day we’ve had or what kind of mood we’re in…Bailey is ALWAYS super excited to see us when we get home. Used to, one of us would walk her when we got home in the afternoons (usually Josh), and the other would wash lunch dishes or do whatever needed to be done. I realized it only takes a few minutes for us to walk her together, so now we do. J It’s really enjoyable to walk her together and start to unwind from a long day at work.

Training

Bailey’s STAR Puppy Certificate and medal came in!

We’re starting to work on a new trick now. We’ve decided to teach Bailey to wave. After some research, we realized we should probably teach her to shake first. This is one of those tricks I didn’t really care for. I’ve never been horribly impressed by it. I suppose it’s cute though, and it’s actually the first step to a few tricks we want to teach her. It was very easy to teach her this one. She likes to use her paws a lot and we’ve actually been trying to discourage it. She’ll try to knock treats and toys out of your hands if she’s very excited. She doesn’t mean to hurt you, but she has large paws with large claws…so it sometimes does. I hope teaching her how to shake doesn’t reverse any progress we’ve had in that area. Anyway…she picked this up almost immediately. She sometimes doesn’t recognize the voice command still, but as soon as you hold your hand out, she knows what you want. When she’s very excited she sometimes nibbles at her foot or your hand, but we’re working on that. J She’s getting bored with this already, but I don’t want to try to teach her to wave until she knows the verbal command well.

Play Time

We’ve started hiding Bailey’s toys when we play with her. It’s something we can do when we’re doing little chores or getting ready in the mornings and she really seems to enjoy it. We pretty much have 1 toy that we do this with. It’s actually part of another toy that has been thrown away. It’s a rubber piece that used to be around the rope. The rope was very worn and Bailey was able to pull the strings out really easily. I didn’t want any blockages because of her eating a ton of string, so we cut the rope and took the rubber piece off. Now, it’s pretty much a rubber tube and it makes a great toy for teething. For hiding, I’ll make her sit and stay, then go in another room and hide it. I’ll tell her to “come find it” and she’ll get so excited. I still have to make it pretty easy. If she doesn’t find it soon, she’ll give up. I started by just putting it behind my back. At first, I didn’t think she understood what I wanted her to do. I hid it behind her toy box. She sniffed and dug through her toy box looking for it. I expected her to just pick up another toy and bring it to me to throw for her, but she kept looking until she found the tube! She’s so smart!

She put her squeaky bone in her water bowl the other day. She's so silly :-)

Potty Training

Nothing to report :-) YAY!

Bailey’s Victims

Just one…a flip flop. It was a flip flop I liked very much…probably my favorite black pair, and I still have no clue where she got it from, but it was a cheap flip flop. I don’t get super upset when Bailey chews stuff. Of course I’m not happy about it, but she’s been SO much better than Kila or Dakota (childhood Pits). She’s still very much teething, so hopefully this stage will be the worse of the chewing. When Kila was a puppy, we came home to something new chewed up every day, so once a week, and sometimes not even that much, is a real blessing. This is one of the reasons we had decided not to get a Pit, but once I saw her…she was mine. J There was no walking away from that pretty little face. Anyway, enough of the mushy stuff…here’s the evidence.

Along those same lines…in the past few months, we’ve talked about dogs we’ll get in the future. When we’ll get another dog, what kind of dog we’ll get, etc. I’m not sure when we’ll get a second dog, but it will most likely be after our kids are a few years old and definitely once we’ve moved back to Raleigh, or wherever we end up, and have a larger yard. We haven’t for sure decided on a breed…if we did, we would probably change our minds anyway, but we have decided on a group. We agree that we want to stick with a bully breed. I’m young, but I’ve had dogs since before I could walk. I’ve had all sorts of breeds. Pits, a Boxer, a German Shepherd, a Lab, several Chihuahuas, some mixes we never identified, Min Pins…blah blah blah. All of my favorite dogs were the Pits (and maybe the boxer). I know they may have a horrible reputation, but I think that’s part of the reason I have a soft spot for them. No, I don’t want a dog that will rip my kid’s hand off and rip my other dogs apart. But that’s not who they are if they’re raised properly. I’ve seen first hand what some of these dogs have gone through, and I would be violent if I went through those things too. If you use any dog as bait, beat them, abandon them, cut their ears with scissors, and do all sorts of other things I can’t even imagine…they are going to become fearful and aggressive. I wish that I could save them all, but I know I can’t. However, I know I can raise the ones I do have to be great pets and members of our family. That’s enough for me.

So…why the mini rant? I get tired of the way these dogs are treated because of their breeds. Bailey doesn’t get it as much (so far)…maybe because she’s so cheery, but she does get it. It’s really irritating. Someone will come up to her, all happy and “what a cute puppy…what breed is she?” We get 1 of 2 reactions. 1) “I’ve had a Pit-X mix…she was a great dog”, “They’re really good dogs, I wish people didn’t give them that reputation” Something along those lines. OR 2) “Oh” blank stare. Yea...my little 5 month old bundle of joy who is so happy to meet you that she might beat you with her tail is going to rip your face off…you should run. Ignorant people really get to me. Josh mentioned that we should maybe list her as a Boxer/Lab to avoid anything like this, but I didn’t want to. No, she can’t go to doggy day care at PetSmart just because she’s a Pit mix, but that doesn’t matter since we don’t go there anymore. :-)

OK…I’m done now. Thanks for listening to my little rant.

Beach Trip

Josh and I have been spending a lot of time working on the house (I'll promise I'll post pictures as soon as we actually finish one of the 50 projects we're currently working on). On the weekends we've been painting, doing yard work, gardening, organizing, unpacking the random boxes we still have in the garage, you name it. Last weekend we decided we just had to get out for a day. We decided to take a day trip to the beach so we would be forced to have some "us" time. Our last few dates have been great, but short. We needed a full day. 

This wasn't a very well planned trip. We juggled beaches and decided to steer clear of Ocean City since it would be the most crowded. We decided that we would go to Fenwick Island, DE. I think we finally decided to go here on Friday night. We had never been to DE before other than driving through on the way to NJ or NY. I didn't do very much research. Leaving here, I thought we would pay $6 for parking, dogs were not allowed from Memorial Day to Labor Day and alcohol was allowed on the beaches. We left around 10:30 or 11:00 (I know, we should have known better, but it was only a 2 1/2 ish hour trip), stopped to stock the cooler with Corona and hit the road. 

On the Bay Bridge

The majority of the trip after the Bay Bridge, our speedometer looked something like this...

Obviously...we were not thrilled about this. I think it took more like 4ish hours. Next time, we'll either leave before 7 or plan to stay overnight.

I always love driving through little beach towns. I prefer them over the really busy touristy areas. They're less crowded, usually cleaner and so cute and quaint. This place was no different. I should have taken more pictures :-/ There was this cute little country store I wanted to stop at (I read online that they had amazing fudge), but we didn't. We got to our area and it was $8 to park (not a big deal...they had a shower house and bathrooms...this made it very much worth it) and there was a sign up that said alcohol was prohibited. We changed in the shower house then walked on the beach to scout out our area. We noticed that just outside the area with lifeguards there were lots of Solo cups...and several dogs. We decided to pick that area. We went back to the car to get our stuff. We sat on the beach and ate the sandwiches we had packed and sipped our Coronas. We started up some music and the iPod died halfway through the first song. We both brought books to read but I think I read all of 3 pages of mine. We just enjoyed talking and people watching. There were 2 English Bulldogs, a Lab that looked just like an older Carter, 2 Jack Russels and a few other mixes around. We could have brought Bailey after all. It was probably a good thing we didn't. It was very hot out and since she doesn't like to swim we didn't have a good way of keeping her cool. And we didn't know it at the time, but she had an upset stomach. That could have been a very ugly situation on the beach!

After we had been there a few hours, we decided to go shower and go out to eat. We went to Harpoon Hanna's, a place we saw on the way in. It was very crowded but we asked to sit outside next to the water so the wait wasn't bad at all. We sat down and a girl came around with a basket full of different breads. I chose a coconut corn muffin. It was AMAZING! I have to try to find a recipe. I ordered a shrimp salad sandwich. Josh decided he wasn't in the mood for seafood and got a burger instead. Both were very good. We enjoyed eating and watching the boats come in. 

A nice lady at the table next to us took this picture. Not the greatest pic, but it's the only one I have of both of us from the trip. 

After dinner, we headed back home. Luckily, there was no traffic going this way. We had a great date away!

Bailey's Progress Report

This week has been a rollercoaster for us. Bailey has had great days and horrible days. She was still sick at the beginning of the week, so she had a bad accident in the foyer. Luckily, my husband is amazing and cleaned everything up while I took our sick Bailey for a walk. She's all better now :-) Now...I'll start with the bad and end with the good. 

Bailey's Victims

Josh and I leave for work around 7. One morning this week, a strange number kept calling my phone shortly after I dropped Josh off for work. I ignored it the first few times then I answered. It was Josh, but his regular work number wasn't showing up for some reason. Anyway, he told me that he needed me to go back home because he left some CDs on the stairs. He can only listen to CDs for music at work, so he checks them out from the library. Well, by the time I answered, I had already passed all the exits that I knew could get me home. Of course, I reached for my trusty Garmin, just to realize that I left it at home in another purse. I made a few guesses and after recognizing absolutely nothing I called Josh to get me home. He told me where to go. Well I found Gorman Rd. which was supposed to get me to another road I know. I went down Gorman Rd. for a while and when I came to a farm, I knew I wasn't going in the right direction. I called Josh back. I was supposed to turn down Gorman Ave! Anyway, I finally got back to our house at 8:15. I was a little too late. I didn't take pictures of the actual mess. I had called and told my boss I would be a little late. I was already 15 minutes late and I had to clean up and take the 30 minute trip to work. I was in a hurry. I picked up the mess, vacuumed up the little pieces so Bailey wouldn't eat them, grabbed something for lunch because Josh accidentally took mine out of the car, and left. 

When I got home at 8:15, so just over an hour of Bailey being alone, she had chewed up 2 CDs and their cases, found all the treats we had hidden for her, and eaten all her ice. I was thinking the ice lasted her most of the day and that it would take her a while to find all her treats. She had even eaten all the frozen PB out of her kong! 

Another day in the week, I knocked at the door when we got home from work to see if Bailey would bark.  Finally, after lots of knocking and like 2 minutes, we heard her bark. Josh thought then that she had figured out a way to get over the gate. Nope...we forgot to put the gate up like idiots. This is what we came home to.

 These were NC State basketball poster. We have some more and I'm really hoping these aren't the ones that Kay Yow and Sidney Lowe signed. I haven't looked at the other ones yet. My mom brought them to us a few weekends ago and we still hadn't figured out what we wanted to do with them. They were just rolled up in the living room. She also peed on the carpet while she was up here, so that ended her longest streak as far as potty training goes. (I didn't count her accidents while she was sick because I know she couldn't help it). 

This is Bailey in time out while we were cleaning up her ridiculous mess.

Now for the good...

Bailey and I have been getting up early in the mornings to run this week. I have a new workout routine and I just completed my first week. 3 mornings a week, I run. 3 other mornings a week, I do 100 pushups (that's the name of the program, NOT how many pushups I do...not yet anyway). I'll rest on Sunday. Bailey has been a great running partner so far. She is definitely in better shape than me! Our runs (and by runs I mean short, slow jogs) are a little too short to get her tired right now, but I'll catch up with her eventually! I have been really impressed with her behavior while running with me. I do have to slow her down to my pace at times, especially when we're headed back home. That's really the only thing I've had to correct. This morning we saw a group of ducks and she didn't pay them any attention at all. We also saw a few geese. One of them hissed at us and she didn't pay them any attention either. There's a small nature preservation area and we run past that. I like that she gets the opportunity to see different types of animals. I think I might take my camera with me next time. We saw a woodpecker and some other very tall bird this morning. 

Training

We're still working on using voice commands when we're walking. We just give her a lot of slack so it kind of simulates no leash. She's showing a lot of improvement with this. As far as tricks, we're trying to decide what we'll teach her next. I think we're leaning toward "wave". We're going to work on retrieval tricks once she's finished teething, so we have a while to go for that. 

Her ears are doing much better. They're back to normal now, but I'm going to keep giving her meds for a few more days to make sure everything is completely cleared up. She's not scratching them anymore except right after I give her meds. We set up an appointment for Bailey to get spayed at the beginning of September. We'll  take her in the morning of the 8th and pick her up that night. Josh is off that Friday, so we'll have a long weekend with her. 

We Found the Culprit!

A few weeks back, I posted about a rabbit getting into our garden. It was eating our lettuce, zucchini and tomatoes. I was SO irritated. 

Well...last weekend, we saw the culprit. It's not a rabbit at all. It's a groundhog! He lives under our neighbor's deck. 

 Josh saw him eating a tomato this weekend, but he chased him off. I knew we had groundhogs around here, but I assumed it was a rabbit because I've seen them in our yard several times. We've seen several groundhogs around where we walk Bailey, but we've never seen one anywhere near our yard. There's not much we can do about it. They can burrow under the ground and climb fences. We bought some stuff to sprinkle around the garden that is supposed to keep them away. We put that down the day before Josh saw him, so that's clearly not working. Too bad, they're so cute! 

Bailey's Progress Report

I know this is a bit late, but this past week & weekend were both very busy! Bailey has been making a lot of progress in pretty much all areas!

Vet Visit

This past Friday, Bailey got her first bath at a groomer. The groomer said she did great, even with the nail grinder. She has been doing a lot better with her baths and blow drying at home, but I thought she might mis-behave in a strange place. Yay for being wrong! She also got micro-chipped. She yelped a little, but other than that, she was really good. She didn't like when the vet tech scanned her chip. I think the little wand thing freaked her out a little. We had the vet check her ears while we were there because they had been red for a few days. She had a bacterial ear infection. We got 2 different ear medications to give her. We got ear cleaner that we have to use twice a day and drops that we have to give once a day. She HATES the ear cleaner. I finally figured out the easiest way to clean her ears with the wash after 4 days! We tried holding and petting her, bribing with a treat in front of her, etc. It didn't work. I finally figured out that I need to give her the treat then hurry and squirt the wash in her ear before she finishes.

Her little personality is growing SO much! She's starting to become protective over her home. She used to not bark at all when Josh came home from basketball. Even after he opened the door and started walking up the stairs, it was like she didn't care at all. Now, she will tell us if she hears something. I was starting to think she wasn't going to be a good watch dog at all. She's proving me wrong again! She's starting to cuddle a little more. We have started to lay with her on the floor at night while we watch TV since she's not allowed on the furniture. She was so adorable the other night with Josh, but she moved before I was able to take a picture. She did have her head on the brown pillow, but she sat up when she heard me grab the camera. Sneaky sneaky! 

Potty Training

Bailey has been great this past week or so!  We don't have to take her out to use the bathroom as much as we used to. She did get sick Saturday while we were gone to the beach for the day...but we know she couldn't help that. 

Training

Bailey is doing really well, but she's starting to test her boundaries. She finally knows the difference between play dead and roll over. She can do them both correctly. She has started this new thing...when we're training her, if she's tired of doing a trick she'll grunt. It's adorable. We're trying to use only verbal commands when we walk her and she does OK with this. We're working on this to help with off leash training. She knows commands and she usually listens, but she doesn't listen when she's distracted. It's going to take a while, but I know she'll eventually get it :-)