Recreating Dickens

 

Please can I have more?  A certain someone in my household has become very good at licking the platter clean.  At one point she was a picky eater.  Now at 10 months, she's finishing both her "chow" and her kibble, and all her training treats.  No more whipped cream peanut butter bones to lure her into the crate!

Today's misadventures had to do with counter surfing and 'fridge stealing.  In my mind, Ember is supposed to look to me to give her approved things, both to eat and to play with.  Looks like I need some revised training plans about "choice"!

Ember got her head inside my fridge while I was making my own breakfast and stole a full bottle of water.  As you can see from the photo, I keep bottled water on a lower shelf in the door.  Naturally, her teeth pierced the bottle, resulting in minor flooding inside her xpen until I got her to bring the squirting bottle out onto the tile floor.  The only damage at that point is an extra laundry load of towels.

Guess that's on me, not managing her environment.  It's also on me because I have put treats inside empty plastic bottles as well as making puppy bombs out of toilet paper tubes.  I have given her these as toys to play with in her X-Pen.

The counter surfing was when I turned my back to do something else. Ember snatched a small scrub brush and proceeded to chew it to bits.  This was a tiny toothbrush sized one, several years old, but still being used.  I had left it out on the counter after its most recent use, and there it went!

On the plus side, all of this happened before we got to the dog park late this morning.  This was the best weather day of the week for it.  We were there for an hour and 44 minutes, working the springs of confinement and inactivity out of Ember, per RunKeeper.  The last 20 minutes or so of that were spent just convincing her to get to the car and get in!  I got assists from three sets of fellow dog-owners and their pups.  Clearly everyone has their own time schedules to deal with, so I was grateful to be able to use the exit of other pups for us to "follow".  Also, a fellow dog-dad whose rescue pup is older and also did not want to leave.  Between us we cajoled both dogs to their separate vehicles to head home.  

I ended up using the strategy of me crawling through the backseat, trailing her on leash behind me to get her into the car.  This time it worked! Ember hopped in after me, I praised her and clipped her in.  Seems that different strategies work at different times.

We got home and she went down for puppy nap #2.  I folded all those towels (laundry) while she napped, instead of napping myself.  Alicia called off our weekly sister visit, as both of us have had the cruds, and she was worn out.  I was fine with this, thinking I'm only just recovered myself.  If I am not coughing horribly in the morning, I expect I'll do my trainer workout.

Now it's not quite 7 p.m. and I shall post this before heading to bed.  Yes, dark outside... the sky is gorgeous with a sliver of moon and Venus shining brightly above it.  Ember went out for her "last call" about 6:15 p.m. and that's when I just savored that sky.

Life is good.  Spark on!