Sunday, May 1, 2011

A Tired Puppy

Vladdy today at Town Square
Yesterday's morning walk was awesome!  Just me and the Vladdy-monster trotting along beside me.  He walks with confidence and pride and he doesn't feel the need to stop and sniff everything like Piper does which is liberating to a degree I could have never anticipated.  He still has moments where he will suddenly slam on the breaks for no apparent reason but a little tug and some encouragement will get him moving again.

Last night Snackers volunteered to join us on the walk so that we could take Piper too.  We took a new route away from the apartment and looped a huge circle from one main road to another.  By the time we got home Vladdy was whimpering just a little bit because he was tired, Piper had lost the usual bounce to her step and my the muscles in my shins and ankles were feeling tight.  We jogged a lot and Snackers and Vladdy ended up really kicking up their heels and getting their hustle on.  It is so much fun to watch Vladdy run because he lopes like a horse and for such an awkward, uncoordinated pup, he's an excellent runner.  I felt more comfortable jogging in public with him because I knew that he looked so impressive I probably wouldn't have to worry about anyone looking at my big hiney bouncing around.

Vladdy today at Town Square
So Vladdy slept through the night!  NO KIDDING!  That walk pooped him out so good that he didn't wake up once during the night to whine.  SAWEET!  He still doesn't know his name though and I've discovered that he has a very low food drive and only a moderate play drive so training is probably going to be difficult.  Maybe it's just because he's a puppy but with Piper, when I had food I had her undivided attention.  With Vladdy everything is more interesting from a blade of grass to a plastic bag blowing in the wind.  Maybe he's got ADD lol.

Vladdy Out Cold!
Today we met up with Tia, her hubby, and her Rotty at Town Square here in Vegas to walk and socialize.  Tia gave us some training tips which we were all too eager to receive because her dog is so well behaved it's shocking. We had Buddha the Rotty, Vladdy the Dobe, and Piper the Min-Pin and pretty much everywhere we went people were wanting to stop us to play with the dogs.  Each dog seemed to have their own fan club and it was really fun all the times that we got asked "Is he a Weimaraner" when people would see Vladdy.  Nope, he's a Dobe.  We're 100% certain that he's 100% Dobe but yes ... he is a very uncommon color.  Buddha has gotten HUGE!  I've known a lot of Rotty's in my life and he is easily the biggest dog I have ever known, in every way.  I mean ... he looks bigger than some of the bears that I see on the Discovery channel ... he could eat a person if he had a mind to but, on the contrary, he is an absolutely perfectly well behaved doggy with a beautiful personality and superior intelligence.  After Tia worked with Vladdy, then worked with Snackers and I as we worked with Vladdy ... the poor pup passed out.  I picked him up and instead of struggling to be let go he snuggled in and even started to snore in my arms.  As we continued to walk around I ended up carrying him for quite awhile just like I am in these pictures as he continued to snooze deeply.  He finally did wake up long enough to walk back to the car, went back to sleep in the car, woke up to eat when we got home, and is now sleeping again.  He's so precious!!!!


P.s. This morning I weighed in at 238.5 still.  WAHOO!




Food:
8 glasses of water
1 cup of coffee w/creamer
1 can mango flavored H2o
1 Mediterranean breakfast sandwich
1 pesto chicken salad
1 piece of baklava-substitute
-----------------------------------
Daily Caloric Intake: 1,105



Activity:
6 flights of stairs
5 loads of laundry
2.5 - 3 hours intermittent walking/training

6 comments:

  1. he's a pretty similar color to the doberman we had in germany, she was called a white or silver doberman, also called a ghost doberman. its not an albino treat, just a recessive color trait, he may darken still, she was pretty much all one color and the same color he is around the mouth.

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  2. Shrink him down to 3 lbs and change the coloring and you have mine. Hahaha Good job!

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  3. Kay: They call his coloring "Fawn" here. He's kind of a silvery-brown color though there are white Dobes but they are white-white ... like poodle white.

    Swan: 3 lbs ... what do you have? We have a Mini-Pin (no relation to Dobes other than Mins were created by crossing German Pinschers with Daschunds and Dobes were created 500 years later by crossing German Pinschers with about 5 other breeds) but she's 12 lbs. I can't imagine a 3 lb puppy ... that's Codee's size. Wow.

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  4. It's a Chihuahua :) Husband does not want any more human babies and my youngest just turned 3. So this is my new baby. LOL I don't think he will get much over 6lbs which is what I wanted. Small enough to snuggle. He sleeps on my arm every night which I LOVE. My boys (human) were never snugglers so now I have something to snuggle. lol

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  5. Aaaaah I gotchya. My Min-Pin is a big time snuggler. She will lay on her own if I don't let her in my lap but at any given moment on any given day she will jump on my lap without hesitation and stay there for as long as I allow it. The first day that I got her (6 years ago) I laid on the couch on my side and she curled up in a ball on my hip and stayed there for the entire 8 hours that my ex was at work because I just didn't have the heart to wake her up. When he came home I said "HURRY take the puppy, I have to pee so bad!". As soon as he picked her up she peed all over him ... apparently I wasn't the only one who had been holding it. lol

    Vladdy is a daddy's boy. He'll lay at my feet all day while Snackers is at work but as soon as he comes home Vladdy sticks to him like glue for the rest of the night. If Snackers gets up to get a drink, go out for a smoke, or to use the bathroom Vladdy will wake from a dead sleep and jump up to follow him. Last night at softball Vladdy would whine and start to howl every time Snackers went out onto the field to play. I'm a little bit sad about that because Snackers is the cat person and I am the dog person but, at the same time, Piper is glued to me in the same way and it has always kind of been hard for Snackers to be second fiddle in her book so I am glad that he is the top dog in Vladdy's eyes.

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  6. :)

    We have a beagle that is my hubby's mini me. A beagle/dach that is no ones. Although my 5 yr old is starting to claim her. :) (both are pound puppies)

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