On the prowl...

At night, I tend to walk Max just down the street and around our small community. Our nightly walks are close to home ever since the encounter with a coyote.



About eight months ago, I was walking little Max through a large park less than a mile from our house at night. Nature called so I tied Max up to a tree in front of the restroom and went inside for just a minute. I heard Max barking. When I came out, I saw a tall, scraggly looking coyote run past Max. I quickly untied Max and started yelling and cursing at the coyote. We turned around and started our walk back home. I turn around and saw the coyote following us. I yell and curse at the coyote some more and the coyote would slink off into the shadows. We continued our walk home and out of the corner of my eye, I spotted the coyote following us from the darkness of the field parallel to our path home. Again, I yelled and cursed at him some more until he slunk off once again. I wasn't so much afraid for myself, but I was afraid that this coyote would run by and try to snag Max. Max was still pretty small at just 10 months old at the time. I couldn't believe how aggressive this coyote was. He must of been pretty hungry to be stalking us like that.

Tonight, like every night, we walked down the street and around the block. Toward the end of the walk, we were walking towards the corner of the community that is open to the canyon when we spotted a pair coyotes walking past a light post. Max barked weakly at them. One coyote turned and started approaching. I yelled at the coyote and he just stopped and looked at us. I quickly took out a small flash light and focused the beam at him as I yelled at him. He then turned away into the darkness where the other coyote went.

Since I tend to work pretty late as an engineer, I tend to walk Max at night. I never walk Max at night without:

1. A flashlight... I carry a small mag light. It is useful for picking up after Max in the dark as well as help scaring away hungry coyotes. The light shining directly at them in the dark is a pretty good deterrent. Coyotes are mainly nocturnal animals with eyes that are very sensitive to light. A bright light focused at them blinds their night vision and ensures they can't stalk you out from the shadows.
   
2. A small pocket knife... I have never had to take out my knife for any reason and probably never will. It is good to be prepared though.

Moral of the story, be prepared and be aware. I hear about coyotes attacking children in East Los Angeles in the news and local cats going missing all the time. Even pets and kids in the backyard are not completely safe. Coyotes can leap pretty high fences just like deer can. These coyotes are out and about hunting every night. Be careful out there!

Moooooo!!!

The San Diego Corgi meet-up group sponsored a Halloween costume contest! And here we have an incredibly cute, passive, and shameless puppy! This would be a deadly combination! So we went out to like 5 stores looking for a suitable costume and we found it at Walmart!



This costume was actually designed for a human toddler! It was about Max's size and oh so cute, we had to get it! We actually had to perform surgery on this costume to customize it for Max... you know, since he doesn't walk upright and he has rather gi-normous ears and we haven't gotten around to train him to zip down to take a leak yet!



Can you tell what he is? Lemme give you a hint, that spotted black and white thing around his neck is a cow bell! It is a cow bell that I bought when we were at the Ben and Jerry's factory while touring Vermont leaf peeping! Actually, when we purchased the costume, we didn't look closely enough and we thought it was a cow costume! It is actually a pinto horse costume! This costume was much cuter than the actual cow costume which is black and white. I think these colors are much better for him and the mane is just too cute to pass up!



Here are some pictures of our competitors! Max drew a lot of attention because his cow bell was rather loud. Every move he made, it would go ding-ding-ding! It was hilarious!



So in summary... through the power of Walmart and good 'ole asian ingenuity, we WON with our hybrid horse-cow costume! We took the "Most fitting Corgie costume" award! You know, since corgis are herding dogs for sheep and such.



Finally, after gaining fame and fortune (a pack of dingo rawhide bones!) from his glorious win, a groupie Corgi dressed as a fairy offers herself to the Maximus!!! Too bad he got his dog-hood chopped months ago... but don't tell her that!

Corg-fest!

We took the little guy to his first Corgi Meet-up in April!




It was a rather warm day out in Poway! There was not a lot of shade so all the Corgis were pretty much hunkering down underneath this one little tree! It is not easy having to wear a fur coat all the time!

Our little cone head...

In June, Max celebrated his 6 month birthday! So what did he get for his birthday?! He got his nuts chopped off! Poor little guy! He hasn't even gotten the opportunity to use it and then he has to get it chopped off! He doesn't know what he was missing and he will never know... probably for the best!

Not only did he get his nuts chopped off... he got drugged, then he got his leg shaved and then had to wear an Elizabethan collar for a week!



It took the little guy a while to get use to wearing the Elizabethan collar. It didn't help he was pretty doped up after his operation because he was bumping into everything vertical... furniture, walls, stairs, trees, the ground. We would take him for walks with this big cone on his head and neighborhood girls would run away and he would pick up all kind of debris like grass and dirt inadvertently with his cone.

Amazingly enough, little Max never fought with the cone. He just kind of accepted it. Even when he was bumping into things, he just went along with it. What a good dog!

Introducing the Maximus Omnifunctional Household Appliance...

We bought an iRobot Scooba about a year ago. If you are not familiar with this incredible piece of engineering, let me tell you about it. Basically, the Scooba is a robotic mopper similar to its brethren, the Roomba, which is a robotic vacuum cleaner. The Scooba is so much more advanced because of how it accomplishes the complex task of mopping. There are four tasks the Scooba performs in the mopping process:

1. First it vacuums up particles and dirt it comes across.
2. Second it soaps the floor by spraying on a fragrant cleansing solution.
3. Third it scrubs the soaped floor with a spinning brush.
4. Finally, it sucks up all the dirtied cleansing solution leaving a clean shine.

Better yet, the Scooba does all of this automatically at a push of a button.

You may think this is quite a fancy piece of hardware that is hard to top. However, this is not our most advanced household appliance we own! No, I am not referring to my fiance. I am referring to our Maximus Omnifunctional Household Appliance...

Whereas the Scooba only mops the floor, the Maximus Omnifunctional Household Appliance can perform the following tasks:

1. Shredder: The Maximus Omnifunctional Household Appliance is extremely adept at shredding pretty much anything. This includes, but does not exclude: Newspapers, paper towels, toilet paper, facial tissue, cardboard boxes, junk mail, magazines, stuffed animals, rubber toys, plastics (such as water bottles) and wooden furniture.
   
2. Dustbuster: The Maximus Omnifunctional Household Appliance has extremely fine-tuned sensors to sense by sight or scent whenever any organic or non-organic item falls to the floor. As soon as such an item falls, the Maximus Omnifunctional Household Appliance will immediately retrieve the item and if organic, the item will be consumed. If item is non-organic, it will be shredded as described above.
   
3. Dishwasher: The Maximus Omnifunctional Household Appliance will take any dirty dishes placed on any floor and lick it to a spotless shine! Guaranteed or your money back!
   
4. Garbage disposal: All manner of non-edible organic material can be disposed of by the Maximus Omnifunctional Household Appliance. This includes, but not does exclude: bones, banana peels, and corn cobs.
   
5. Foot pillow: The Maximus Omnifunctional Household Appliance comes with a handsome carrying case made of all-natural fur. The fur is self heated and scented with a patented Maximus Omnifunctional Household Appliance fragrance. The Maximus Omnifunctional Household Appliance will automatically follow you throughout the house and position itself at your feet wherever you may be sitting, whether you are on the couch in the living room or on a chair in the dining room.
   
6. Security Intruder Detector: The Maximus Omnifunctional Household Appliance includes a finely-tuned set of two large antenna dishes capable of detecting noise in frequencies far beyond the human ear. At the approach of strangers at any entrance of the house or on the premises, an alarm will immediate sound to alert all occupants of the house and the occupants of neighboring houses.
   
7. Acupuncture: The Maximus Omnifunctional Household Appliance comes with built-in needle sharp acupuncture devices which can provide relief from many aches and pains. Note: This feature is still under development and has a tendency to cause many aches and pains instead of relieving aches and pains. This feature is not recommended for use until the firmware has been upgraded.
   
8. Herbicide generator and distributor: The Maximus Omnifunctional Household Appliance has a built-in feature of processing all organic waste collected as described in the dustbuster feature above and then generates a solution that will kill any and all plants, which it will spray with this herbicidal solution automatically on command. Note: this feature is still under development and will occasionally disburse herbicide solution indoors. A firmware upgrade addressing this defect will be available shortly.
9. Fertilizer generator and distributor: The Maximus Omnifunctional Household Appliance has a built-in feature of processing all organic waste collected as described in the dustbuster feature above and then generates a miracle-gro-like fertilizer that is also highly nutritious for all of your garden plants. The Maximus Omnifunctional Household Appliance will automatically alert owners when fertilizer material is ready to be disbursed and will automatically find a location in the yard to be fertilized. As a bonus feature, fertilizer is often disbursed in public parks and in the yards of neighbors when fertilizer material is available.
   
10. Entertainer: The Maximus Omnifunctional Household Appliance is capable of responding to verbal commands to perform tricks of high entertainment value, such as roll-over, sit, laydown and give-paw.
    
11. Stress reliever and personal fitness/health trainer: The Maximus Omnifunctional Household Appliance is great for your health as it requires owners to take walks daily walks around the block and will alarm you if you have been inactive sitting on the couch watching too much television.
12. Greeter: The Maximus Omnifunctional Household Appliance is designed to greet owners and guests alike upon arrival to house and premises. Upon greeting, it will allow owners and guests to wipe and cleanse their hands on its handsome fur carrying case, which again, is scented with the popular, patented Maximus Omnifunctional Household Appliance fragrance.
    
13. Companion: The Maximus Omnifunctional Household Appliance is capable of offering a high amount of companionship to its owners. Although the Maximus Omnifunctional Household Appliance requires excessive maintenance, such as weekly cleanings, the owner is rewarded with constant affection, constant attention, and a warm loving friend.
    

Although the Maximus Omnifunctional Household Appliance has several software defects, the firmware is highly upgradeable and relatively easy to upgrade, though firmware upgrades may be time-consuming depending on the level of upgrade required.

Unfortunately, the Maximus Omnifunctional Household Appliance is not found in stores due to its limited production quantity. There are other Omnifunctional Household Appliance similar to the Maximus Omnifunctional Household Appliance but we have found none that match the powerful capabilities that the Maximus Omnifunctional Household Appliance offers. Regardless, we would definitely recommend our friends to buy an Omnifunctional Household Appliance for themselves as soon as possible to experience the joy of owning one. I think it is safe to say that we truly love our Maximus Omnifunctional Household Appliance and honestly, we don't know how we ever lived without it!

Max and Friends!

Toys! Toys! and more Toys!

Max is one spoiled puppy! Look at all his toys! Of course he goes through them rather quickly.
Some of these are old toys from my childhood days. Anyone remember pound puppies?

Max loves to bite off their noses and then they're toast.

Feel free to donate your used toys for the Maximus Foundation. ;)

Rubber Ducky, you're the one, You make bath time lots of fun!

Max weighs about 13 lbs here. He couln't fit inside the sink so now he is taking baths in the bathtub! Look at him with his little head peaking out of the bathtub!

He also loves his rubber ducky toy. He plays with it outside the bathtub.

The bath was a bit difficult. He doesn't like taking baths and has a tendency to struggle in a vain attempt to run. He is also very aggressive toward the blow dryer, as he is about most hand held machinery. We try not to give him too many baths as giving a puppy too many baths may cause a dog to develop allergies in adulthood. We generally try not to give him baths more often than biweekly. So Max starts to smell after a while. Max is definitely not a waterdog, but maybe he will learn to like water.

Congratulations Max!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

April 14, 2007

Max graduated from puppy school today!!

He can now sit, stay, give us his paw, and roll over.

Max took a final exam to pass puppy school. There were a few stations. At each station, Max had to do something specific ie. sit.

Then all the puppies played musical chairs... well, the adults could only sit down after their dogs sat down. Max did not win the largest treat. He wouldn't move and the music had to be restarted a few times for him. Congratulations Max!!!!


You can see Max's first girlfriend, Molly, in the picture above.
They like to cuddle and play together. Molly is a
bloodhound and the only puppy that Max is quite fond of.



It's Max and his golden retriever friend, Bentley!

In Dog We Trust...

Since the day we got Max, we have not allowed Max to come upstairs where it is fully carpeted and where all the bedrooms are. The lower level of our house is fully tiled with a few rugs of relatively low value. Our reasons were simple, it is easier to clean pee and poo from tile than from carpet. However, because Max was never allowed upstairs, being the upstairs area was like being in nirvana to Max! There is not another place he would rather be. To Max, being upstairs was fun and exciting and living the high life! Occasionally, Max would be a bad puppy and run up the stairs and run around in circles barking like a rebelious mad Max! We would quickly gather him up, scold him and take him downstairs.

But for the past several weeks, Max has not had an accident anywhere inside the house. We had stuck to his crate training schedule like a school master of a catholic school. We always take Max out back after naps, in the mornings, after eating and after playing... we basically take him out the time. We would always reward him with a treat for peeing outside on command. After sticking to that strict housetraining schedule for months and having to cleaning up many "mistakes" early on, we were finally getting paid off! Our puppy was finally able to hold his water and we could finally trust the puppy!

So one day, Max was particularly stinky from a hike earlier in the day. Bath time! Usually we carry Max upstairs to the bath tub for his bath. However this time, we let Max run upstairs behind us and he was loving it! He was so happy to be upstairs running around freely, it was just achingly cute! Plus, Max was such a good puppy for being mistake free for so many weeks, Max deserved some slack in the "no upstairs" rule. That night after his bath, we let Max up onto our bed to play with him as we were preparing for bed. He was having quite a ball romping around the tangle of blankets and sheets. It is quite fun and adorable.

As I was brushing my teeth, I saw Max's body take a bent forward posture that I have seen many times in the backyard. It was a posture I knew well. No, I thought, he couldn't have. I stepped closer to the bed. But he knows better, I was thinking, he couldn't have. I took another step closer. Yep, he sure did. I looked into the tumble of blankets to see a healthy yellow pool of pee seeping in. Nooooooo!!! Not in the bed!!!! Of all places, not where we sleep!!! Arrggghhh!!!

Moral of the story: Never trust a puppy!

Of mice and men...

A few weeks ago, I went home for lunch to release the puppy into the backyard. I heated up some leftovers and sat in the backyard to eat while Max frolics about! As I was eating, I noticed Max was chewing on something. It sort of looked like a big mushroom or something from a distance. I stopped eating and walked over to have a closer look... it was a mushroom with a tail! Wait! The mushroom had ears too! Crap! It's a mouse! Max was chomping on a field mouse! I quickly told Max to "drop it!" as we were taught in Puppy Obedience class. Usually, this works for almost everything. Max just looked at me and continued munching! This will not do. I went and grabbed his favorite treats and came back and said "drop it!" repeatedly with the treats in my hand. This is usually quite effective, but not this time. He seems to have a treat far superior than anything I could offer him. Ok, so he won't drop it... let's try "Come here boy! Come here Max! Touch!" ("touch" is the command for the puppy to come running and touch your hand with his nose). He just looked at me again and continued munching. Ok, can't let him eat this mouse. Don't know where it has been. The mouse could've died from the plague for all I know. Could've been dead for days. No idea. Have to take the mouse! Time to rush for the mouse! So I made a move to grab a hold of the puppy! Max is pretty fast and he quickly dodges my grasp! He is continues to munch on the mouse as I am chasing him about the yard! I finally corner him and I am able to grab him! He still won't respond to verbal commands! I am hesitant to touch the mouse! It could be infectious! So I turn the puppy upside down holding him near his hind legs and I am trying to shake the mouse out of him! He continues munching! Arrggghhh!!! I try to choke the mouse out of him as I am shaking him upside down! He still won't let it go!!! Ok, time is running out! Have resorted to just prying his jaws open and grabbing the mouse with my bare hands! I turn the puppy right side up and pry his jaws open.... the mouse is gone!!! Noooooooooooo!!!! Arrrggghhhhh!!!!

That's ok. Don't panic. May need to get Max to vomit up the mouse. I remember reading that there is something to can feed a dog to get him to vomit. Need to get the laptop quickly. I look it up... can use hydrogen peroxide! Can't find it! Have to call fiance at her work to ask her where it is! She says call the vet to see what to do! Vet says just to watch him or bring him in so they can watch him. He said to make sure that Max doesn't vomit, diarrhea, convulses, or is lethargic. Will cost a lot of money to have the vet watch him or I can take him with me back to work. But I work at a networking company so it would be very bad for him to chew on network cables and he would be a major distraction. He has already chewed the cable of the AC adapter for the laptop and that was $50 to replace! Or, we can gamble and assume he'll be ok... fiance will come home from work in a couple of hours anyways. Ok, gambing with puppy's life that his mouse was not seriously toxic in some way and the mouse did not die from rat poison. He looks perfectly fine right now. Put Max in his crate and went back to work.

When fiance came home, Max seemed perfectly fine. For the rest of the night, he seemed perfectly normal. However, when I returned at lunch time the next day, Max had diarrhea and it was everywhere in his crate. I'll spare the details on how the cleaning turned out, but it is safe to say, it was not pretty and it was definitely not fun!

It has been over 3 weeks since that horrible day and Max has seen the vet twice and is doing fine and is at about 14 lbs in weight now. I guess having our first puppy eat his first prized mouse was not that bad. I guess we can be very overprotective parents as well.

At my signal, unleash hell...

Max is getting to be pretty big puppy! Max is now probably around 12 lbs and although he's not getting much taller, he is getting to be very long and stout! Unfortunately, we haven't taken any recent pictures of Max to show off but I do have an older picture of Max when he was about 8 and half weeks old. This picture was posted on the daily puppy and someone commented on how much he liked this picture and said, "Ha! Look at him hiding behind the buckets in that 4th pic down! Waiting to attack with cuteness! 'At my signal, unleash hell.' "

Buried treasure...

So recently, we have been going to the local grocery stores and asking the butcher for dog bones. They usually point us to the big beef femur bones that many folks use for soup. These bones are fairly well priced since it is a lot of marrow and fat and little meat. We were very excited to bring the bone back home to Max since all Max generally eats is Science Diet Puppy food and we were eagerly anticipating how much Max would love the bone.

Sure enough, as soon as we set down the bones in a bowl, Max was at like a wolf on his prey! Keep in mind this is no little milkbone. This is a Beef femur bone from a big adult cow! This bone is as big as Max's head! Well, Max gnawed away at the bone... and gnawed some more... and gnawed on it some more. He must've been gnawing for hours and he would never seem to tire out!

Anyways, that's not the end of the story. So after Max finally tired of the bone, he would typically just leave it wherever he was last gnawing on it... be it the grass or near some bushes or under a chair. He never leaves the bone in the bowl anymore... it is apparently much easier to gnaw with both paws on this bone in a patch of dirt somewhere. Anyways, so we could usually come back a couple hours later and put the bone back in the bowl and refridgerate it for the next day if the bone was still in good shape.

Recently though, his bones have been disappearing. We would leave him out in the backyard gnawing on it and when we went back there to look for the bone to either throw it away or refridgerate it, it would be gone without a trace! Then later than night, we would let Max out back to do his doody and he seemed more preoccupied back there than usual. He was digging in some dirt in the corner of the yard! He was digging up his bone! What's worse, after he dug up his rotting, soil encrusted bone, he would continue gnawing on it! Ewww!!!

Anyways, to Max's disappointment, that bone quickly found its way to the garbage bin. Perhaps we should put a little minifridge in the backyard and teach the little rascal how to use it!

The talented Mr. Maximus...

Last week, my fiance's sister and boyfriend visited during their spring breaks and within a week, Max learned how to shake paws and roll-over on command! Max will even go pee on command and go poo on command when is poo available! Compared to other puppies in Max's puppy training class, Max is way ahead of the curve! Max may be small and quite a whiner, but he is definitely an over-achieving whiner!

Shown are three more awesome shots of Max taken by my friend Connie at the track. The last shot of Max sprawled out in napping ectasy was taken by yours truly! The hard part was tiptoeing around without waking him up!

Max's new look...

With Max's ears up, he sports a whole new look... actually, Max sports all kinds of new looks... to the right we have his usual calm sitting demeanor.

The picture below demonstrates the expressiveness of his ears! Not sure what was going on to cause this fearful expression. I have noticed that he often pulls his ear down when he approaches strangers or other dogs in a submissive, shy, but friendly manner... hopefully, all those combined adjectives make sense. I think basically he loves to meet new people and dogs... especially kids. However, he also gets a bit shy and nervous when meeting strange new people and pretty much all dogs.

The way he pulls his ears down is also something he does when he is running really fast! It is really cute! His ears are so big now that he often catch the wind and so when he's running, he'll pull them down to provide him with an aerodynamic head! It actually makes him look like he is running 90 MPH!

We took Max to a track this weekend at a local university and met up with a couple of friends there and we all ran around the track in a group and Max followed running along! He is definitely a speedy little guy and when he really wants to run fast, he kind of runs like a bunny!

These very professional looking photos were taken at the track by my old friend Connie! Thanks Connie!

The day the ear stood up...

Here are pictures taken of Max when his ear stood up and stayed for the first time:

Cuteness on four legs!

Max's ears went up today! It is the cutest thing! Sorry, don't have a picture to post right now! Will post pictures when I can! His left ear went up on Wednesday and then it flopped down again! Yesterday, his left ear went up and stayed up. Today, his other ear went up and is staying up!

It is amazing to me how expressive his ears can be. When he was approaching a Yorkie of his same size at the Vet today and he would pull down his ears and approach the yorky in a submissive manner like he was sneaking up on the yorkie! It was so cute! He seems to be able to control his ears at will rotating them like dish antennas! His ears are so big to in comparison with his head and body... it is quite batty if you ask me!

Recently Max has been really lazy when it comes to walks. For the past week and a half, attempts to walk him have mostly been extremely short and aggravating. It has been very warm and sunny lately in San Diego and often as soon as we hit the front yard or driveway, Max just flops down on his side and rolls around in the sun. Attempts to get him walk him even a few houses down the block tend to be slow and require too many treats. Have to figure out why he doesn't want to take walks around the block anymore. Max will usually follow very well when there is a pack of us moving together... due to the wolf pack mentality of all dogs.

I was able to get Max to walk last night just because when we went out we saw a couple of other neighborhood dog owners with their dogs, Charley (dark and furry,... don't remember his breed) and Benny (a white fluffy Westie) and whenever Max sees kids or other dogs, he shoots like a guided missile straight toward them! Max is usually so aggressive with meeting other dogs that the other dogs typically retreat from Max's onslaught of friendliness! Although when other dogs approach Max, Max usually becomes very submissive. Go figure.

He does love to go hiking though. There are lots of dirt trails in the hills behind our house and as soon as we hit the trails, Max is usually quite active and follows us wherever we go,... stopping only when we stop. One of Max's favorite is running up the hills! He loves it and will often run up ahead as fast as he can! We should take him to a real mountain some time! It would be great exercise for all of us!

Max weighed in at 7.5lbs today at the vet! Max was about 5 lbs when he was about 8 weeks old. We discovered that we have been underfeeding our poor little puppy and he wasn't growing as much as he should have been. We've drastically bumped up the amount of food we feed him and he has been growing a lot within the past week! At the beginning of the week, he was 6 lbs! Poor little Max, we felt really terrible to learn that he had been so hungry and not growing as much as he should. It is really hard to gauge how much to feed your puppy because Max, and Corgis in general, are voracious eaters and will eat until they can hardly walk anymore! Everybody says not to overfeed your dog and not to listen to what it says on the dog food bag because they are out to sell more dog food! But Max has a lot of growing to do so he is going to eat extra good for a pretty long while!

Luckily, Max looks very healthy and still oh so cute! The vet agrees Max looks perfectly healthy too and doesn't think being undersized is a major concern as long as he looks and acts healthy! Regardless, pretty much everybody agrees Max is the definition of cuteness on four legs!

Let's get educated!!!

We took Max to his very first puppy training class today at PetSmart! It was a rather big class with mostly some very big breeds! Max is so tiny compared to most other dogs and initially, he will run away and hide behind our legs. After a while, he will become more emboldened to walk up and sniff the other dogs. But as soon as the other dog comes back to sniff him, he rolls over on his back with his legs in the air and to be allowed to be sniffed! I never realized how craven he was! We are hoping after he gets more accustomed to seeing those other puppies in class every week, he'll be less submissive and more playful!

Hopefully, we are not babying him too much and turning the poor little pooch into a lapdog!

Life is tough as a puppy...

When we are at work or away, Max has to live in his crate. His crate is a central part of housetraining and we are trying to make it as comfortable and homely as possible since he spends quite a bit of time in there and he will not dirty it with doodies. The last part is key. Dogs will not dirty their den... their den is basically his little home within our home. It is his sanctuary. It is not intended as a cage and we never put him in his den as punishment. When we do have to punish him, we just put him outside. This type of punishment is somewhat effective since he generally likes being inside a lot more than outside. Not sure why. How does Max like living in his "den" you might ask? Well take a look...



Is he not the cutest looking jailbird you have ever seen? I really like how he pokes his nose through the bars. Often, after playing or walking around, Max gets really tired and it is obvious how he likes to sit or lay down a lot... but like all little kiddies, he doesn't like letting tiredness get in the way of playing. We know it is his naptime so we put him in there anyways without regard to his whining and nose sticking out between the bars. We know he'll fall asleep soon enough...




















He was so tired, he fell asleep in the middle of whining! Haha!!

Maximus the Pretty Puppy?!

It has been a while since our last post! Lots of new stuff to blog about! I'll start with the most exciting!

A very good friend of ours has gotten into a new hobbie of photography with photography classes, high-end digital camera, Adobe photoshop, basically the whole shabam! Anyways, we invited her over and she took some glorious photos of our little Max, which she posted online on her website (the photo above is one of them and one of my favorites). Well, what happened was is that the administrator of a website called the Daily Puppy found those photos and asked to have Max featured on his website for a day! So Maximus was the featured puppy on Monday of this week. That would be February 19th, President's Day! I had to write a little tidbit about Max for the feature! Here is the tidbit I wrote (which mimics this blog a bit!):

Maximus's mom says: Maximus is our little dog with a big name. Max, as we like to call him, loves to socialize with people, children, and other dogs. He is about ten weeks old now and rarely barks. Even when other dogs howl and bark, Max takes it all in stride. He does whine a lot but we often find his whining too cute! His temperament is very even keeled and laid back for the most part. This little furball has been a big bundle of joy for us. Both my fiance and I are engineers and typically spend a lot of time in front of a computer at work and, unfortunately, at home as well. But ever since Max came into our lives, we have spent much more of our free time playing with him outdoors in the backyard, walking him around the block, and training him. We feel so much healthier as a result. We can't wait until his ears stand up because it will be oh so cute. Typically when this occurs, only one ear will stand up, then the other a short while later. When this happens, as fun and cute as this will be, we will be a tad sad that this part of his puppyhood will be over.

To see the actual feature article, follow this link:
http://www.dailypuppy.com/index.php?itemid=897

You can even vote on this site and give biscuits to your favorite puppies... so far (as of today) he has:
10.73 biscuits - 1679 votes!!!

This is more than any other puppy I've looked at on this site! (I've only looked at the first half dozen or so!)

Also, life training the little bugger has been tough, especially since within the last week or so, which includes the holiday weekend, there has been more rain than shine it seems and it is really tough to get Max to go out in the yard to do his doodies. Hopefully, we haven't created any long lasting habits! We probably should train Max to do this doodies on newpaper during these days. In any case, rainy days are tough since he seems to regress in his house training on those days.

He has been great with crate training otherwise. He hasn't pooped or peed inside his crate since the 2nd day he's been with us. He's learned our work schedule very quickly and holds himself accordingly. We were quite happy about this! We were thinking at that point "wow, house training will be a breeze!". Yeah, right. Think again! While puppy does not like dirtying his crate where he sleeps while we are at work and at nights, he has no problem dirtying the rest of the house and the yard. Going to be much tougher to train him that their is a big difference to us whether he does his doodies inside the house or outside the house.

Otherwise, lease training puppy has been going quite well. Walking him around the block can take a while since he likes to stop and sniff every blade of grass, every fallen leaf and every little mystery nugget on the sidewalk, picking up a snail or slug here and there to munch on. Every once in a while, he will stop and sit or lay down, either because he is tired or just feels like sitting for a while. Sometimes he wants to go one way and we want to go another and he will not budge unless I follow him... so am I walking the dog or is he walking me?

We started listening to Cesar Millan's (aka the Dog Whisperer) audio book. He has a lot of good stuff. He really knows and understands dogs. A lot of people out there really don't know dogs. He can really show you how a dog sees the world and his owners. Understanding how dogs see things really helps in knowing how to train the dog. However, I have found that knowing and doing is still two very different things and not so easy to do. He talks about being the alpha male and being calm and assertive. I think I have no problem being calm. I can be assertive if I am in the right mood. Being an alpha male, I can do to some extent. Most of the time, I like to go with the flow instead of taking a stand and being stubborn. If that means the little puppy wants to walk one way and I want to walk the other, I will often let the puppy lead the way because I don't care that much either way. This is definitely not good though, because I think this puppy is starting to learn quickly how to walk all over me. I should write a note to myself, like on my hand or something "be the alpha male!"... kind of like that guy on that movie Momento.

More puppy pics!

Max's puppy ears and face are actually very similar to how Gromit looks in the claymation Wallace and Gromit!

It will likely take a week or two before one or both of Max's ears to stand up! Must take as many pictures as possible before then!

A new life...

Here is a picture of Max at about 8 weeks of age! Is he not the most adorable little furball you have ever seen?

Anyways, it is now approaching 5 days with Max and life has definitely changed! Instead of coming home from work and eating and promptly plopping down in front of the TV or computer, we have to take Max out to the backyard for him to do his doody (pun intended). Our daily schedule is centered around housetraining Max (mainly waiting with him in the backyard for him to finish his doody!) and teaching him the rules of the house (no biting, chewing, barking and doodies) and of course, entertaining the little bugger so that he doesn't chew us out of the house! I have seen some other blogs of the list of items that their dogs have chewed up and we hope to not to have to post a similar list in this blog!

Signed up on gocorgi.com and got lots of great advice from very wise corgi owners out there! Every bit helps a lot! Apparently 7 weeks is pretty early and because of that, little Maximus has not learned "bite inhibition" from his siblings and mother yet at this age. That is why he likes to bite so much during the close-up play with him. I have learned to keep a greenie chew toy with me whenever I play up close with him. One of the most useful pieces of advice was to pretend to be a puppy playmate and if he bites, we have to act like a hurt puppy would: basically whine and stop playtime immediately!

It was amazingly fast training Max not to poo/pee in his den. Since the first full day, he hasn't dirtied his den once. However, it has been quite a bit more difficult to train the little bugger that there is a big difference between pooping inside the house and pooping out in the backyard. Nowadays we just walk him out in the backyard, or leave him in the backyard during the times that he should go and that has been effective for the past couple of days.

Unfortunately, he has developed a taste for snails and slugs. Looked online and it didn't seem to be that harmful for him to eat them unless you are in england. Must remember to ask the vet about the consequences of his taste for snails. Hopefully, it is simply nutritional!

This entire first week, my fiance has been getting up at 6am everyday and feeding him and promptly taking him outside to poop and pee. Often, he will poop twice! He gets a treat if he poops in the favorable areas in the dirt out of the high traffic areas! Yesterday morning, however, he began whining and woke us up at 4:30am! Holy cow! It is way too cold to go out there without a fur coat. So I just put him outside in the backyard and went back to bed. Didn't sleep well at all leaving the little guy outside by himself and my fiance had a nightmare about it and brought him back in at 5:30am. He whined loudly for another 5 minutes but then gave up and let us sleep in peace for a short while at least. I got in work a bit late as a result and was rather sleepy all day. Fortunately, he was much better this morning and didn't hear him whine at all by 6am when my fiance got up!

Today, Max is going to his very first vet visit and we are excited because once he is vaccinated, we can take him out and let him socialize with other dogs and see more the lovely city of San Diego aside from out backyard!

Here's a picture of Max's parents... his daddy, Dylan is the red/white on the left and mom, Scarlet is the tricolor on the right. Max will be a very handsome dog when he grows up!

The beginning...

The Prequel:
Found a breeder in the Saturday newpaper. Called the breeder that morning and visited the breeder in the afternoon. Promptly fell in love with the puppies and left a deposit! Get to pick up the Corgis in three weeks!

As the excitement of picking up Max (short for Maximus) builds, we are on a buying spree at petedge.com (which is a gloriously cheap place for pet stuff I might add). The damage was well over $200 and that includes a lot of clearance and discounted items. Here's our crazy list:
1 ZW91035 Zanies Hard Rubber Multi-Color $3.29 $3.29
1 ZA1800699 Zanies Chewfah Loofah Bones $0.99 $0.99
1 ZW11012 Clean Go Pet Grip n Grab Scoop $8.99 $8.99
1 ZW73564 Zanies Swing & Play Puppy Mobi $4.99 $4.99
1 ZA48012 Zanies Snugglie Wugglies 10 In $0.99 $0.99
1 ZA6351815 Slumber Pet Fleece Snuggle Mat $2.99 $2.99
1 TP94019 Top Performance Sea Breeze Sha $2.99 $2.99
1 TP94016 Top Performance DerMed Medicat $2.39 $2.39
1 TP97604 Top Performance ProDental Gel $2.99 $2.99
1 TP97616 Top Performance ProDental Solu $6.99 $6.99
1 ZW4300840 ProSelect Fashion Stainless St $3.99 $3.99
1 ZW24167 Zanies Tiny Tennis Balls 4/Pkg $1.79 $1.79
1 ZW80308 Zanies Pastel Rope Bones $0.69 $0.69
1 ZW4300819 ProSelect Fashion Stainless St $3.99 $3.99
1 ZW27913 Zanies Tug Charms $1.09 $1.09
1 MW63636 Midwest Life Stages Double Doo $48.57 $48.57
1 MW1652 Midwest Floor Grid Fit M/L Cag $36.68 $36.68
1 TP61714 Master Grooming Ergonomic Prof $6.99 $6.99
1 LX83632 Lixit Quick-Lock Flip-Top Wate $6.99 $6.99
1 ZA8866419 Guardian Gear Two Tone Pawprin $4.99 $4.99
1 ZA8870619 Guardian Gear Two Tone Pawprin $2.29 $2.29
1 ZA8871017 Guardian Gear Two Tone Pawprin $2.49 $2.49
1 ZW6120783 Guardian Gear Dog Safety Harne $3.49 $3.49
1 ZW94211 Guardian Gear Multi-Use Cover $19.99 $19.99
1 ZT8960312 Greenies Smart Chew Dental Che $2.49 $2.49
1 ZT8960313 Greenies Smart Chew Dental Che $2.49 $2.49
1 TP68006 Zanies Two-Tone Christmas Tenn $2.35 $2.35
1 ZW45913 Zanies Holiday Cheer Toys $0.49 $0.49
1 ZW05219 Zanies Snuggle Bear Blanket $1.59 $1.59

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Totals
Subtotal = $191.04
Shipping/Handling = $46.79
Order Total = $237.83

It was like Christmas morning when the big boxes began arriving and we got to set up the puppy den and all his toys!

Jeni, the Corgi breeder out in Campo, called Saturday night of the Feb. 3rd and left us a message on the machine that the vet said the puppies are doing great and ready to go to their new homes!!! One week early!!! Yay! We can pick him up Feb. 4th! Time to prepare the big SUV for the car ride!

More details to come...