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...