Just a few random things

Yesterday, John and David were over doing some tile work on Keeley's grandma's bathroom. After having a look around the house, they made a funny comment. They said that when they die, they want to be reincarnated as dogs living in our house because they can tell that Keeley lives a pretty good life.


Today I took down all the holiday cards that Keeley received in the DWB exchange. Thank you to all the dogs that sent Keeley a card! Keeley looked really sad to see them come down. We look forward to participating again next year.

If you're interested, you can click here to check out a video of Tara playing piano with her dad on YouTube.

Playdate with Tara Tru

Today Keeley had a playdate with Tara Tru. She's the Irish Terrier that was in our pictures on the post about Irish Fest from this past summer. She's so cute!
I told Keeley that a playdate with a show dog is like dating a super model.
Keeley tried to impress Tara right away with some marking. Unfortunately we were inside when he did this. I don't think he understands how embarrassing it is for his grandma and me. Tara's parents were really understanding though.
Keeley mostly just wanted to sniff everything in Tara's house. Tara did her play bow and tried everything to get Keeley to play with her but he was totally into sniff mode. However, they did do some running around outside together.
They also demonstrated what tricks they know. Tara knows how to do "roll over". While the best thing Keeley's got is "give paw".

We had fun and we really liked Tara and her parents. Next time we'll have to have Tara come to our house. Maybe Keeley will be more lively if he's on his own turf.

better late than never

Keeley's Unkie Rob is in town visiting from NYC. Keeley loves him and has been hanging out with him every day.
This was the first year that we didn't have to put a barricade around the Xmas tree. Keeley is so grown up now. He did really good this year with leaving the tree alone.
The first few mornings he would wake up and go bump his nose against all the low ornaments. Once in a while he'd open his jaws and hover over an ornament like he was considering biting it. He'd look at me with his mouth open and I'd say "No, no, no! Be a good boy." and then he'd go back to just bumping them with his nose.
Well I should say Keeley did really good except for one little incident. On Christmas day, he did eat the hind legs of one little doggie ornament. But it's not really all his fault. Keeley's uncle Ryan had been in the hospital all week and is very sick. And Keeley's grandma had been staying with him there too. Keeley had been really worried about them since he hadn't seen them all week. So I think he only messed up and ate the ornament because he was suffering from some anxiety about the situation.
Keeley even did a good job at leaving the presents alone when we put them under the tree. I could tell he really wanted to open them, but I told him he had to wait till Ryan came home.
Ryan was finally released from the hospital last night and we had our Christmas when he got home. Keeley did a really good job at opening his presents this year. He was much more into it than last year.
Keeley is acting more like himself again too. He's happy that everyone is home again and that Ryan is on the road to recovery.

Snow, Snow, and More Snow

Yesterday we got a foot of snow. And it's snowing again right now. We're supposed to get another 2-5 inches tonight and then more on Monday. This is insanity!
Keeley will play in the snow if I'm playing with him. Otherwise, he's not a fan of snow or cold.
The snow is so deep that I had to dig out pathways in Keeley's yard for him. He does his business quickly and then is more than willing to go right back into the house.
Keeping the driveway cleared is nearly a full time job. I'm really sick of shoveling already and winter has just begun!
This snow is heavy and sticky and it keeps getting stuck in Keeley's paws. He starts doing the 3 leg hop, but not his normal 3 leg hop where he stops using his bad hind leg. In this 3 leg hop, the paw that he's not using changes constantly. That's how I know it's a problem with icy snow build up in between his toes. It's better when we use the Musher's Secret but he's been sort of a brat when it comes to having that put on his paws lately. Since we haven't been walking much, I try to play with Keeley indoors.
He's got this squeaky Santa toy that he likes me to chase him for. Here he's trying to entice me into chasing him for it. (Yes, unfortunately that is how dirty my living room rug is. Before I got Keeley, I got all ivory colored living room furniture. Dumb move. The rug has never been the same since I got puppers. But I'd rather have this sweet pup than a clean rug any day!)
He also likes tug-o-war. Hey dog buddies, what are some of your favorite indoor games?

Love from the DWBs

Here's Keeley sitting nicely in front of the door to our unit which we've decorated with all the cards he's received so far in the DWB Holiday Card Exchange. Keeley is making that squinty face because he doesn't like the flash on my camera. There's still a week to go until Xmas so we might need to overflow onto the other side of the door like we did last year.
I'm so sick of snow. It's already snowed about a dozen times. Then it all melted and then it snowed some more. And we're supposed to get another 11 inches tomorrow night too! Arg! Keeley seems to enjoy it but of course he doesn't have to do any shoveling.

Keeley is the cure

Someone asked for more details about how Keeley cured me of my extreme fear of dogs. Here I will try to explain...

For as long as I can remember, I’d been scared to death of dogs. If I was walking down the street and there was a dog on leash walking towards me, I’d cross the street. If there was a dog off leash walking towards me, I would not only cross the street, but I would go several blocks out of my way to go around the dog. During the holidays when relatives would force their dogs on me, I would cry and climb onto chairs, tables, countertops, anything to get away from the dog. At one point I just decided to stop visiting relatives with dogs.

But it wasn’t just dogs, to a lesser degree I was also scared of gerbils, hamsters, cats, ferrets, basically anything with fur. Oddly though, I was not scared of frogs, snakes, or lizards. What a strange girl I was, scared of the cute animals and not the creepy crawlies. Some kids that I babysat for liked to torture me by sneaking up on me and putting their gerbil on my shoulder. It was horrible!

I think I became scared of dogs because my mom was scared of them too and I sort of learned it from her. Then my fear just spread to all animals with fur. As a kid, Ryan was scared of dogs too and he openly blames me for making him that way. But once he got his height (he’s 6’2” now) he wasn’t scared of them anymore. He still doesn’t like dogs, but it’s more like he’s just indifferent to them now.

Since I eventually want to get some kids and I don’t want to make them scared like me, I knew that someday I would just have to get over this extreme fear of dogs but I wasn’t in any rush.

Then our friends got a new puppy, Romare, the giant Airedale. We visited when Romare was just like 11 weeks old. He was so cute! I was still scared so all I did was observe him. He’d have a lot of energy for about 20 minutes and then he’d take a 20 minute nap. I thought, well this is a schedule I could get used to! Then we visited again about 5 weeks later. Romare had grown a lot and I was still scared. His dads told me a lot about how to train him, about puppy teeth, and stuff like that. That’s when I began thinking, well maybe if I started with a puppy, I could make him mine and get over this fear.

About a year after that, I bought a duplex with my mom. It needed a lot of work at first. But after about 6 months, I started thinking puppy. I knew that I wanted an Irish Terrier because I’d seen them at Irish Fest and thought they were adorable. I started to do research about them and there were lots of things that I really liked about the breed. For example, Irish Terriers are not one person dogs, they love their entire family. Also, Irish Terriers sometimes appear unfriendly or aloof when meeting new people. It’s untrue, they’re just reserved. I liked that because I’m often accused of this myself.

I also read some scary things. One website said something like: Irish Terriers get along great with other animals as long as the other animal is submissive or dead. Some other website said that they require very strict training and firm handling (but not too firm or you could break their spirit) and that they were not good dogs for people who weren’t experienced with dogs. At one point my mom tried to talk me into a Scottie or a Westie instead, but I pointed out to her that the internet says bad things about all the terriers. I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s just people trying to protect the breeds by scaring people away from them.

My mom found Keeley for me. His breeder, Stephanie Mars, just had a big litter of 10 born on St. Patrick’s Day. We told her that I did not want an alpha male, but instead wanted a sweet, playful, friendly, fur-boy. She sure did a good job picking Keeley for me because he’s all those things and more!

Of course I had to wait seven more weeks till I got him and in that time I think I read at least 7 dog books. One was a breed specific book about Irish Terriers, one was about how to prepare your house for a puppy, several were about house training and crate training and basic obedience, one was by Patricia McConnell about how to be a pack leader, and one was called The Art of Raising a Puppy.

I think during the whole puppy search and the waiting period, I was already getting over my fear of dogs at least a little bit. By learning the correct way to raise a puppy, I finally understood why some dogs were so scary. It wasn’t their fault really, they were just raised poorly.

When I finally got Keeley, I was more scared than ever! I was scared because here was this little life that was totally dependant upon me to take good care of him and raise him well. That’s an awful lot of responsibility and it was very scary at first.

I had read about crate training and having to be tough and ignoring a puppy’s cries at night. I tried to be tough and leave Keeley alone in his crate the first night. But I ended up sleeping on the floor in front of his crate.

Keeley’s first several car rides were to the vet and so he didn’t deal with car rides very well at first. He’d fidget and nip at my hands. There was one car ride where he bit at my mom’s hands so much that by the time we got home they were a bloody mess. However, she loves Keeley so much now, she says she doesn’t remember this incident.

Also, Keeley gave me a bloody nose once by nipping at me with his sharp little puppy teeth. He really got scared when I started crying though. I know he didn’t do it on purpose but I still got really mad and punished him by putting him in his “house-y, house-y” (the kitchen pantry with a baby gate) for 30 minutes. My mom said that the punishment was too harsh but after that he really understood having a gentle mouth.

We also made a big effort to get Keeley socialized. I set a goal of having Keeley meet 100 different dogs by the time he was 21 weeks old. And another goal of having him meet 100 different types of people by the time he was 13 weeks old. People of all ages, races, etc. People with facial hair, people in uniforms, etc. I know we did this really well because Keeley loves all dogs and people too.

Raising a puppy is a lot like raising a kid. The way to have a happy and well behaved one is to make sure that all their needs are met. They just need the right amount of food, exercise, rest, play, attention, and love. And if you don't want them to be scared, you have to expose them to a lot of stuff when they're young.

I think I was cured of my fear of dogs after about 2 weeks. Once I understood them, they weren’t scary anymore. I’m 100% unafraid now. It took my mom a little longer and she’s about 98% unafraid now (she says a little fear is healthy).

Visiting Romare in Madison

We took a trip up to Madison yesterday to visit Keeley's best buddy, Romare and his dads.
Keeley really loves to play with other dogs.
Romare's pal, Arnie was there too.
Sometimes they played bitey-face and other times they just sat around observing the yard.
All three of the boys were very well behaved and played together nicely.
At some point they must have found some burrs to get into. Romare and Keeley had to be de-burred. Romare was covered in them!
Here's Keeley running with a rope in his mouth. I always think he looks so smart when he's carrying something.
Everyone had a good time, especially Keeley.
And they really tired each other out. Romare put himself to bed in his crate before we had even left. And Keeley slept all the way home.

Bark For Barack

Today was the Bark For Barack dog walk for dogs to raise money for Obama.We met up with the other Democrat dogs at the start of the walk at the Bradford Beach Pavilion. There was a pretty good turn out.
Some dogs had signs that read "POOP FOR PALIN". And some were dressed like bees because they said "B for Barack!"
Here's Keeley "paling around" with a fellow terrier.
The walk route was marked by these Barack Obama heads.
We decided for Keeley to not wear his Democrat donkey shirt because we couldn't figure out what to do with his harness without obstructing the shirt. Instead Keeley's grandma made him a "Dogs for Obama" bandana. And of course, he also go a "Bark for Barack" bandana for participating today too.
Keeley did really good on the walk! We walked up North Avenue and then up Oakland and then turned on Newberry and then down Downer Avenue to end at the Obama Headquarters.
We found that he likes to be the leader of a pack.
Sometimes, he was so far out in front that it looked like he was walking alone.
Cars driving by would honk at us and the people would stick their heads out the windows and cheer. A kid was chanting "BARK FOR BARACK! ARF!"
It was cold this morning but by noon, the weather had turned nice. What a great day for a dog walk!

Keeley has bunny on the brain

Last night at 11pm Keeley caught his second bunny. Usually, if we go outside and find a critter, Keeley has fun chasing it out of the yard. It's been over a year since he's caught anything other than insects. But last night this bunny couldn't seem to find its way out of the yard and Keeley cornered it against the chain link fence.
The bunny was desperate and so it decided to try to squeeze itself through one of the links. This was a very bad decision. It was able to get half its body through but not its bottom half. The bunny was so very stuck. While it was trying desperately to squeeze through to get away, Keeley was desperately trying to pull it back into the yard to have some more fun chasing it.
Every time Keeley would bite the bunny's butt, it would let out these horrible screams. It was really awful and I felt terrible for the bunny. I couldn't take it anymore so I carried Keeley out of the yard.
I had to wake up Keeley's grandma to help me. She tried to free the stuck bunny but it was REALLY stuck. Finally we gave up and left it there in the hope that once it knew Keeley was gone, that it would unstick itself.
It wasn't there when we woke up this morning so either it was able to unstick itself or something else came along and ate it.
Keeley has had bunny on the brain ever since. He keeps wanting to go out to the the yard to look for the bunny.

Dogs for Obama

Keeley and I were on our normal weekend morning walk at Lake Park today and we caught wind of some kind of dog walk to support Obama. When we got over to the area where a bunch of dogs play off leash, the dog people asked us if we were going to attend it. I said we would but so far don't know any details about it. Well, that's all it took. Seconds later they had given me a flier all about it. (See Below)(click the image to enlarge) It's called BARK FOR BARACK! And it's next Saturday at noon here in Milwaukee. We think it sounds like it's going to be a really fun event and so we're spreading the word to all the dog people we know.
The flier also said to have fun dressing up your dogs for the walk. So today we went to Metropawlis to find Keeley some Obama garb. Kirby told us in Chicago there's dog gear for sale that says "I love Obama" and so we were hoping to find something like that. We had no luck with that but we did find a democrat donkey shirt for Keeley. It looks good on him so it will do just fine.
Boy, until I saw this picture, I didn't realize how badly Keeley needs to get groomed! He's looking mighty scruffy!

On a related topic, back in August we reported about how the AKC set up a poll to vote for what breed dog would be best for the Obamas after the election. Well, we heard that the standard poodle won but that Michelle Obama announced on TV this past week that they've decided to adopt a dog instead of buying a purebred.