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!