Something strange is going on with Sunshine...

Yesterday morning she tried to eat her way out of the crate. Did a pretty good job on those metal bars. So we left her loose for the 2nd half of the day and she didn't get into anything. Then we left her loose today while we were gone for 3.5 hours and she didn't didn't get into anything, or have any potty accidents. Maybe she's just trying to tell us she's tired of that crate and finally ready to be a full member of the family? It's so exciting!

Tomorrow Chris and I will be gone all day, my Dad is going to come watch the football game down here so he can walk the pups during 1/2 time.  Hopefully they will behave for him and Sunshine won't be too freaked out. Out of all the 'strangers' in the world she knows him the best since we lived with him in the mountains for a week.  Meanwhile Rainy is practicing her pitiful looks to get Grandpa to feed her endless cookies.His own dogs are heathens so these pups always seem like angels!


Sunshine 1/2 Roaching last night while the pups and Mom were in bed


Sunshine's nighttime crate (The only one she still likes) Not many pups get a layer of memory foam in those crates.

Happy Pumpkin day!

Back to crating at night!

It's obvious Sunshine has not yet drawn the conclusion that the bedroom is a big crate since I was cleaning up more pee at 5am this morning.  Rainy is also being a PIA! Not sleeping through the night and whining to go on a potty walk at 2-4am.  I have a feeling it's because they haven't been getting any exercise. Bad puppy parents! Tonight I am taking the pups on a 2 mile walk while Chris stays home and sets up another crate for the bedroom again. I hate crating Sunshine at night since her moving around in there wakes us up. If we crate her in another room she cries and I can't really blame her for that! I wouldn't want to sleep alone either.  Such is life! Some day this dog will be potty trained! If Rainy starts whining tonight she is getting the squirt bottle. Mommy needs sleep.

Onto the cute pictures

For some reason I think they may be too tired to walk?


Sunshine stretched out like she's done this all her life


Getting up is hard!


Silly pic of Rainy


Even sillier one! :)


They sure do love the bed


We got a new memory foam topper for the mattress, and I think they like it! This was 2.5 hours past normal potty walk time and 2 hours past suppertime! No one even moved when Dad got home...

Sunshine... the master of the roller coaster!

That darn pup sure knows how to toy with our emotions! After eating 3 remotes (I swear every Verizon rep will know me soon) Sunshine then moves into good cute little cuddler mode. She took such good care of us while we were sick. Then I was all excited on Saturday because she walked up to the front door and whacked the handle with her nose. How much more clear can she get? So we race outside and pee like good pups. Then Sunday morning at 2:30 AM the little brat is peeing on her dogbed!!!!!!!! Of course not on the bed that I had wrapped in trashbags... I wake up yelling, Chris starts yelling at me since I'm yelling at 2am, we could have been a comedy act.

Sunday Rainy and I went in search of a new dogpark in PA. We found it but there is only a 4 ft fence which is not going to work for Miss Sunshine the leaper. Parents pups came to play which caused our first walk of shame ever! Their 2 dogs couldn't behave and started playing too roughly with some other pups which set their 3rd dog off since she took the play seriously. I was able to call Rainy over to me before anything happened, then I was able to grab Miss Belle (The fun police) meanwhile some lady is screaming "Oh God No" over and over again. Yeah lady like that is helping anything! LOL They weren't even fighting once I had a hold of Belle it was just a matter of lack of recall from the other 2 dogs who wanted to keep playing.

 After that we all decided to leave, 5 minutes after we got there. Yup everyone in the small dog park knew we were doing the walk of shame. It was not MY perfect pups fault! :)

 Makes me wonder how dogs see each other though. Belle (Parents insecure nervous alpha) will go after any strange dog who escalates the intensity of play. It's her way of protecting her pack. She never has done that to Rainy or Sunshine though... Which makes me wonder if she somehow knew they were family instead of some strange dog she was meeting? Definitely gives you stuff to ponder.

Our new problem is that Sunshine seems to have gotten used to us being sick and home fore the past 2 weeks (Chris was in bed the first week and me the second) When Chris came home on lunch today Sunshine had pooped/peed all over her crate! Hello Separation anxiety 101! I had hope we missed that with her since she has so many other issues. My solution instead of freaking out and worrying about it, is to go out to dinner tonight so she can have some more quality crate time. LOL See I'm even getting better!

Greyhounds have big teeth!

Always have to learn stuff the hard way, don't we?

We were warned before we brought Sunshine home that she has a thing for pillows, down feathered things, and remotes.  She hasn't shown any interest in chewing on any of these until Sunday. She destroyed a remote! The pups haven't been getting enough exercise with the weather and us all being sick, so we shrugged it off. Took them to the dog park on Monday night and ran them around until they were exhausted.

I usually only muzzle Rainy when they run since Rainy is the once that gets nippy with whoever she runs with.  Sunshine likes to grab the balls and run around with them so I leave her un muzzled. Sunshine got a bit over excited, jumped up, and bit my arm! Hard. I had to unlayer to make sure she didn't break skin. I just have a lovely bruise.  So no more being unmuzzled for her. Darn little puppy.

Fast forward to Wednesday... I went to take a shower and remote #2 was killed. So I called Verizon again and ordered 2 more remotes so we would have an extra an an hour later I went to pee and remote #3 was killed!! in less than 3 minutes! Quick little chomper. Then I was in bed with the laptop, Sunshine jumped up and I reached out to pet her. She grabbed the mouse and made a run for it. She needs to start chewing on acceptable things before I get the duct tape out. 

Good news is that I had to go to Concord pet today and I took both pups with me. Sunshine's first trip to a pet store since we got her and she coped better than I expected. There was shaking, tail to the belly, etc but no fear pottying! Progress is wonderful.

Perfect puppies!

You never really appriciate how well behaved your pups are until you have a crazy one in your home for a day.  These girls are so well behaved!  We are not crazy high energy dog people. Onto the pictures!

How did they both get into that crate?


Sunshine passed out on the bed



Then one day Sunshine decided to flop down ontop of Rainy
 

It didn't go over too well... Rainy snarled snapped, and eventually gave up falling asleep with her teeth showing!

Pretty pearly whites for a 5 yr old!


Of course as soon as I order $70 of PJ's for Miss Sunshine, she decides that she like to sleep right here

And she was there for the entire night, I had to pry her out for that morning walk.

Cuddling with Daddy later on that morning



 On Tuesday night went went for a 2.5 mile walk in the dark at the park. The most lights were burned out but we had my parent's pup with us. No one is going to mess with them! Sunshine got to wear a pretty blue coat since it was chilly out. Here she is in the elevator right after I let her get her head smashed by the closing door. How the hell did we become puppy parents again? Maybe we will someday get her comfy in the elevator...


 Sleepy pups after a long walk




This past weekend we had happy pups at the dog park


Today Daddy is home sick so the pups are making sure they keep that bed warm for him

Sunshine's 2nd appointment with Jackie Weaver

We had an animal communicator app today that was very interesting.

Sunshine started off by saying that she didn't think taking food out of our hands is stealing.  She does stand off a bit and not approach us until we have the treat down there for a bit.  But she also has stolen food out of our hands while we aren't paying attention! LOL little piggy... :)

Then she told Jackie, "I'm very different now and Rainy has helped me tons"  She is a 100% completely different dog! Crazy little red pup. Sunshine says she like walks now since she knows she coming back with us.

Then I asked about her fear of strangers, since this is the main reason for the appointment.  Sunshine says that strangers revert her back to a silly childlike behavior. I assume the shaking fearful behavior is what she is referring to. She will stay at the farthest part of her leash and just visibly shake. Sunshine then said "We're worth money you know." She doesn't want to be sold and sent back to the kennel.  We are supposed to tell her "You're retired & that's the way it's going to stay" whenever we see a stranger around.  Throughout the entire conversation Sunshine kept saying that she wanted to be told she wasn't worth any money.

Sunshine then said that Chris thought she was a girly type dog! She says that when she gets nervous he uses a sing song voice to help calm her and calls him her protector. How cute is that?

Then I asked about the elevator since Sunshine is scared in there.  She said that it's a lot like a kennel and the wobbly feeling is the most awful thing in the world.  I guess it's small cramped and echoy so it would be kennel-like.  I then explained that we live on the 5th floor and stairs.... well are horrible! So we are supposed to tell Sunshine "This is to save our legs so we can walk further, It's perfectly safe!" every time we are in the elevator. 

Then I asked about the Lobby since she gets very fearful there. Sunshine's response was "We don't have to use it right?"  I said that sometimes we need to get the mail so we do have to go there. "I don't need the mail" was the response! LOL little brat! She says that people come unexpectedly from all different directions there and it makes her nervous. So we won't try the lobby again for another 6 months or so. 

I then asked about the car sickness. She said that Rainy gets all excited about the car and takes everything in from outside. Sunshine just lays there like, "well I'm now in the car." Sunshine gets queasy when we stop moving and the car has the slight vibrations.  She asked if we could give her some rescue remedy to see if that helps her.  Says that she tries really really hard not to get sick in the car, but sometimes she can't help it. She says they always know where we are going since we tell them. Amazing what they understand isn't it?

I asked if she likes the dog park and she says sometimes she feels skittish there with so much going on, but likes going. 

I asked if she could be brave and go to Dewey next weekend. I explained there would be lots of greyhounds and people there and we would be going to show everyone what great family members they make so we can get more dogs homes.  Sunshine said that lots of people looking at her does worry her and she showed Jackie her cowering at the end of her leash.  I asked if she could maybe stay really close to us instead of cowering and the response was "Can we wait and go next year?"  So we will wait! We were only driving down for the day anyway.

Sunshine says she likes to pick up one toy shake it squeak it, then toss it aside and find another one. Almost like "Got that one! Next!"  Guess this explains the new decorating scheme we seem to have!

She said she never thought she would be this happy and will work on her bravery. She also said to tell Daddy that is he puts his shoes in the same place everyday he wouldn't have to walk around looking for them all the time! LOL That is too funny! I complain about him doing this all the time because I stub my toes on his big old shoes. 

The last thing she said was "I'm truly grateful for what you've done. You think it's an everyday thing, but it's very special and not many people would help me like this."

Aww.... we really do have the best pup!

Gotcha day activities

The puppies were so good today! I shuffled everyone into the car at 3am this morning for an hour drive out to Gap PA to meet a dog food distributor. I order from this guy every 3 month and fill the freezer with puppy yumminess. Chris wasn't thrilled about me going to meet him in the middle of the night, but I was going to take Rainy. Then I got to thinking... Why not take Sunshine too? It will be a bit cramped on the ride back, but we have to socialize her somehow.  Poor Sunshine was so bewildered when I made her get out of bed at that time, but she was a trooper. We even walked around at the rest stop that was our destination. Wasn't too many people around in the middle of the night, so it wasn't too stressful for her.  The best thing was... No car sickness!  Guess she was too sleepy to upchuck.

When we got back home it was still dark out and we all went back to bed. This is what I woke up to around 10am.


We all crashed! All three of us are terrible partiers.

After waking up and pottying (outside) both pups got a special Gotcha Day Celebration surprise.


Rainy loved her meaty beef neck


While Sunshine slept with hers

Sunshine's milestone today was that she actually let Daddy know that she had to pee! AND held it until they got outside! It sure is a special day.

I couldn't figure out what to feed for dinner that would be special and out of the ordinary since the pups are so spoiled anyways so I settled on


Green tripe, Venison, and Chicken necks.



Rainy enjoyed and had to get the good juices out first. Then she refused to eat the chicken necks, instead she redecorated the Apt with them... Brat!

Sunshine the good little piggy that she is inhaled everything.


Digesting after a huge dinner



Tomorrow we go play at the dog park bright and early! Maybe we can get some good pics if it's not raining out.    

Rainy's 1st Gotcha Day!

Saturday Oct 3rd is Rainy's 1 year Gotcha day! Doesn't feel like it's only been a year since the greyhounds have totally taken over our lives. Chris still claims it's a cult but he's content to be cultish. We can honestly describe Rainy as the perfect dog. Has impeccable manners most of the time, although that's changing as she's being corrupted by Sunshine. She's content to hang around home and relax, but it always up for a car ride and new adventure. Of course all our neighbors are put on this earth to pet her. She's never met a stranger!

This single pup has completely turned the vibe in our home around. I am happy to get home after work to have her greet me at the door. Life is much more relaxed and happy, and she's even helped mend some thing in our marriage. Can't understand why we went this long w/o a greyhound!

We worked through her seperation anxiety (with the much needed patience from our neighbors), her food allergies, taking a chunk of fur out of Frizzle, socialization with non greys, with some minor bumps and bruises along the way. We wouldn't trade that experience for the world and will continue to spoil this girl rotten for the rest of her life on earth!

From her very first night at home


To Meet & Greets


To meeting other local greyhound owners on organized walks



To sleeping in the grass



To playing hard enough at the picnic to get her first booboo


To hanging out in the pool



And even getting a new sister
 


Rainy does everything with class and reminds us all what the important things are in life! Thank You GEGR for brining this perfect pup into our lives!

Can't teach an old dog bad habits?

Oh yes you can! Ever since we got Sunshine, Rainy has been behaving more and more unlike herself every day it seems. I caught her in the trash licking out the cat food can. She started barking and chasing Sunshine through the Apt. Then this morning the most astonishing thing happened! My quiet nice mannered 5 year old who likes to cuddle with Mom and sleep in an extra 30 mins in the morning turned into Kujo!



I was laying back in bed and a pup jumped on the bed, started walking on me, spinning like crazy, barking, biting at the blankets, rolling around, etc I thought it was Sunshine since this is a normal thing for her. So I reached up to pet the pups neck and realized it was RAINY! Going crazy at 6:45 in the morning! This is unheard of! She is a very reserved pup who has a great respect for personal space and politeness. It was so cute! she was barking centimeters from my face. Only it wasn't a high pitched bark like she normally does it was a nice low gumbly roo. Should have just stayed in bed today!



Sunshine has started being a wild child! She has settled in 100% and is sleeping in bedroom with us w/o a crate. Both pups get gated in and no one really moves around at night. Sunshine likes to zoom around in the mornings emptying the toy box then settle in for a good chew while I get ready for work. So far we haven't really caught her chewing too many thing that she shouldn't be. We have to get some videos of her playing with those stuffies. It's too funny.



In the past week Sunshine has tried to eat my wedding ring off my finger! Never had a dog even think about trying that one... This morning she was chewing on my arm! I think it's called knitting? It pinched a bit but was cute. She stopped as soon as I pulled my arm away. She loves her peanut butter spoons and she now eats them much faster than Rainy can. We have to work on the jumping up at people sometime... The good thing is that she's too scared of stranger to jump on them so we are her only targets. Getting better at eating those chicken thighs even though the other food tastes so much better! Sunshine still has little interest in chewing on a marrow or beef neck bone. Rainy doesn't mind eating for two.



Sunshine sleeping 2 nights ago



How is this comfy?





The pups cuddling with Mommy on the bed





So hard to find the bed sometimes





Hard to end up completely on any bed actually...





This is how we help Mom put away the clean clothes





All warm from the dryer

 



Sleeping in a sunbeam, in your forever home, on the big bed, with a toy underneath you... What could be better?