Little Dog Big Bark

My wife’s family liked to “go for a drive” to nowhere. My first real experience of this kind of an adventure was on Easter Sunday. I’ve gone places with them and we will usually take the “Scenic” route just so we can “see more country”, but we’ve always had a destination in mind as well as something to do when we got there. Easter Sunday was different. We loaded the trucks, yes trucks, kind of our own convoy, and off we went. Belle also go to come along for this journey. We left Snowville and headed “out west”. I’m not sure how we got there (I was doing homework) but, we ended up in Montello, NV – Middle of nowhere! By this time, some of the kids were getting restless and hungry, so we headed to Grouse Creek to have our picnic we packed. On the way we ran into some guys we know, they were “hunting” ground squirrels, so we stopped to chat. Belle wanted to get outside for a little walk and potty break. She was sporting her new Utes game day shirt, but that wasn’t enough…..it was COLD! Good thing we remembered to pack her coat. We learned something new about Belle on that little walk, she does not like the sound of guns, the first one she heard, she stopped dead in her tracks and wouldn’t move any further. We had to pick her up to even get her back in the truck. We finally made it to our lunch spot but the wind was blowing so hard and it was so cold that we had our picnic in the cabs of the trucks. On the road again…..we got back on the road and headed back towards Snowville. That was probably the longest six hour drive I have ever been on, but we made it back home and now I can say that I have been to Grouse Creek and Montello!

Small Dog Big Heart

One of Belle’s new favorite things to do is to go to my parent’s house and hang out with Batman and Smokey, my parent’s border collies. Their backyard is huge and Belle just runs around for hours. Whether it’s running along the fence with the neighbor dogs, chasing the birds, or playing fetch with Batman, Belle seems to be in 7th heaven there. Batman and Belle are pretty much best friends. Batman is a very mellow dog and doesn’t seem to mind that Belle is super hyperactive. When he is lying down, she likes to come up and try to jump on his head, keep in mind that Batman’s head is nearly as big as Belle’s whole body. After a while of jumping on him, she’ll usually just cuddle up next to him and they will hang out there until someone makes a sudden move….then she’s on the move again! Smokey, on the other hand, is not so mellow. He isn’t the biggest fan of Belle. He knows that it’s “his” house and he’s not going to let Belle just come over and take over. One of the best parts of our family trips to my parent’s house is that when we get home, Belle is all worn out and she is ready for a good nights sleep.

Belle the Snow Dog

Belle used to be scared of the stormy weather – if it was raining or snowing she didn’t even want to go outside. We would have to pick her up and take her out to the lawn for her to even go to the bathroom. She didn’t like to get her paws wet. Something has changed……she now LOVES it outside no matter what the weather. One of her new favorite things to do is chase the birds in the backyard. She’ll go out until she is soaked and then wants to come in and roll around on the couch to dry off. One night, it was snowing pretty bad and she went outside, when she came back in, she looked like a snowman.

Fast as lightning

Most small dogs are fast. Add that Belle is a puppy still that makes her fast as lightning. With being fast, she also likes to eat everything. She is like a Dyson on steroids. The time around the Marsh house we have to be most careful is mealtime. Yorkies have sensitive systems and certain foods set them off. Belle for instance can’t have any sort of shelled nuts. She is a puker.

Other times where her speed poses a problem is laundry time. Folding socks turns into stacking single socks until you catch her with the match. And yes she knows you want it and turns it into a game. Round and round the table, then just think when you got her she dives under the couch to hide.

It seems every time my wife and I get her games figured out surprise she adapts and evades us again. Lots of fun and I think I have lost some weight chasing her.

Who's bed is it anyway?

When we first brought Belle home with us, she really liked her kennel. When it was time for bed, she would go into her kennel and sleep for the whole night. Then came the “Great Haircut of 2009”. I felt so bad for her with no hair and I thought she would freeze at night so I thought it would be a good idea to have her sleep in our bed for the night. This would prove to be the end of my “good nights sleep”.
I thought we’d put her back into her kennel and she would sleep, but I think she knows that our bed is so much warmer and softer than hers, and she will just bark and bark, I’m sure for hours if we’d let her! So, now she has to sleep in our bed with us.

Things you don't think about......

If you’ve never had a dog before, there are probably a lot of things you don’t even think of when it comes to having a pet. All you need to do is be sure that they get food, water, and love, right? WRONG! This is something that my wife and I, mostly my wife, are learning everyday with the new addition to our home.
When we first brought Belle home, she felt it necessary to “tinkle” in almost every room of our house. At this point, Jacki, my wife, thought it was time to take her back. I reassured her that we would have the potty thing down in less than a week and that it was just because she was in a new home (it’s a good thing Belle is a quick learner!) We haven’t trained her on the doggie door yet, so we have to get up with her in the night when it’s time to “go”. Jacki has said that she didn’t know that she was signing up for sleepless nights and frequent trips outside in freezing weather when we got Belle.
We even had to “dog proof” our house, making sure that there was NOTHING on the floors because Belle absolutely loves to eat EVERYTHING! She loves attention and if you don’t give it to her…..she is not afraid to let you know.

The Haircut......

Everyone who ha s a dog chose the breed they got for one reason or another. One of the main reasons my wife and I chose to get a Yorkie is that they are hypoallergenic and don’t shed. There is a downside to having a non-shedding dog……..the haircuts! Who would’ve thought a doggie-do would be nearly twice what I pay to get my hair cut? The average price for a dog haircut is between $25 and $35, depending on the ‘Salon’ you choose.
After taking Belle to get her hair cut a couple of times, and being the “do-it-yourselfer” that I am, I decided that I was going to give this at home haircut a try. This would for sure save some money, how hard could it be to run a buzzer and maybe a couple of swipes with scissors?
I went to the pet store and bought some nice clippers and scissors. The fun was about to start.
I got all set up and took one big swipe down the middle of her back, then I realized, “Wow, that is short”, I thought no big deal, her hair grows to fast that this would just be a small hiccup in the at home salon experience. Once I got her whole body shaved, it was time for her legs. She does not like to have the clippers anywhere near her legs, so I would back off for a while and then see if her opinion of them would change in 5 minutes or so. This went on for about an hour. I finally decided that this wasn’t going to work. Belle’s body was shaved and her legs were still shaggy (picture an 80’s workout video with the awesome leggings).
When I finally came to grips with the fact that I was now going to have to take her to get a real haircut, I packed up the clippers and all accessories and walked back into the pet store to return them. When asked if something was wrong, I just showed them little Belle and said, “An at home pet groomer, I am not!” I returned everything and walked into the salon to schedule an appointment and they asked if she needed a haircut, I responded with, “No, just a half of one!”
A couple of hours later, I went back to pick her up and to my surprise, they had shaved her body even shorter than I had in the first place, they said something about evening it out? Her legs looked like little stilts, she has nearly no hair on them at all. She now looked like a little a Chihuahua with a cute Yorkie face.
Moral of this story, dog haircuts are not as easy as they appear, spend the few dollars and save a lot of headache by getting your pets groomed professionally.