BrianandLibby.com

In anticipation of the neglect and, likely, depression, that will face young Posh in the coming months, I decided that she needs a little love on the blog. After all, she won’t be the baby in the family anymore! Like any sane childless couple, we have become enamored with her in the past year and obsessed over her as though she were a child. So here it goes, a tribute to our little Poshie Poo.

Here are some of the things I love about this little pooch:

• Her big floppy ears. Yes, they are prone to infections, but they are so darn cute.
• Her recent affinity for naps. She is the best snuggler and will come in handy this winter keeping me warm!
• How she waits right outside the shower (usually peeking in) the whole time you’re in there, waiting for that glorious moment when you step out so she can lick your legs for the next 15 minutes.
• How she has taken up chasing moths around the house. For a clumsy dog with ridiculously oversized paws, she has incredible accuracy. And they have a tremendous advantage over her…they can FLY! I would like to see her play whack-a-mole, she would be awesome.
• One word: consistency. Every day when you get home, she is sitting in the same spot on the stairs, waiting for you to pull into the driveway so she can run down the stairs and greet you.
• How she is obsessed with Brian. I usually let her out of her crate in the morning, and she immediately runs past me and checks the bedroom and the bathroom for Brian. If he is sleeping and I have denied her access to him by closing the door (how dare I), she will lay outside his door until he gets up (so unfair that she loves him more than me by the way).

But most importantly, Posh has taught us that although she is a lot of work, a complete inconvenience and, at times, drives us crazy, we love her anyways and can’t live without her. I’m thinking that concept will be taking on a whole new meaning soon.

This dog is taking a lot out of me today. I’m heading to Syracuse this weekend and bringing little Poshy along. When she’s around my nieces, she tends to get excited and jump, so I wanted to get her nails cut before we go…it makes the jumping less painful and startling for the five year olds. PetSmart cleans ears and clips nails for $12, and considering that Posh runs when she sees the ear cleaner, and, well, cutting her nails is more painful than trying to paint mine, I thought it was a worthy investment.

I also realized that, since I’m driving out with my friend Rachel, and Posh will certainly make herself comfortable in Rachel’s lap for the duration of the trip-both there and back-it would be the nice thing to do to give our little Poshy-Poo-Poo a bath. She’s cute alright, but cute doesn’t cover up stinky. Or maybe she’s just not cute enough. (While we’re on the point, wouldn’t be nice if cute covered up stinky with dogs and babies? Hmm…)

So when she got her ears cleaned they told me she was already starting to get matted. Aaaah, the luxuries of having a cocker spaniel with long lustrous hair. Last time I got her groomed I had to pay like 10 bucks extra for all the matting they had to get through (as a result of 8 weeks of neglecting to brush her on our part). So I went home and decided that BEFORE bathing her I should try to get some of the matting out. 20 minutes later, I had barely gotten through her ears. She was patient and stayed pretty still, but after about 20 minutes, I think she was enjoying it about as much as I was.

And I think we both agree now. What’s a little matting between friends? I’m ok with having a slightly matted dog if all I have to do is pay 10 extra bucks every couple months. And I think she’s ok with having a little extra matting if she doesn’t have to sit still and endure my attempts to get the matting out.

Gotta run, it’s bathtime.

You may have noticed that I skipped week three. There are very good reasons for that. Posh didn’t fare so well at school last week and I was beginning to lose faith in the power of dog school. Fortunately, my faith was restored last night.

For all of you who were losing sleep wondering, Posh is making great strides with the commands wait, come, leave it, stay, and go to bed. Her main weakness is loose leash walking, which means she has no hope for heeling right now, but that’s ok. I learned a valuable lesson last night – all things are possible with food. If she doesn’t perform the command, I just get better food out of my purse. I have everything from plain old dog food to the ultra indulgent beef jerky-ish stuff (her obvious favorite).

By the end of class she pretty much falls asleep on the floor, which makes me realize how under-exercised she is. I suppose that I am too, so hopefully when the weather improves that will change for both of us. In the meantime, I also learned at school that while Posh may not be the smartest (although she’s definitely pulling mostly A’s and B’s), she is definitely being informally voted cutest, softest and most hilarious (I promise – it’s not just me, everyone in class says so)! Aaaaah, she makes her mom so proud.  

Tonight I brought Posh to her first night of school…as a single parent. Brian couldn’t make it tonight so I was on my own. Here are some highlights:

• Posh still thinks she is twice her size. She tried to bully the big dogs. They are all much more chill than her, and didn’t really fight back. I think that made her think that she was actually somewhat threatening.
• My greatest fear was not realized – she was NOT the worst behaved dog in class. Although she was one of only two to spontaneously bark and disrupt the entire class.
• About 45 minutes into class, she stopped pulling on the leash and laid down. I’m sure it was because she was exhausted, but I like to think that she’s just so superior in intelligence that she was bored by such elemental concepts as “sit” and “stay.” You know, an overachiever, like her mom
• I have rugburn on my hand. Obviously she has not mastered “sit” and “stay” (definitely not stay).
• Posh’s report card would look something like this:
  • Polite greeting – A-
  • Sit – A+
  • Stay – A+
  • Attention – A+
  • Loose Leach Walking – F-

 Looks like we have some work to do after all.

Considering the news of our upcoming arrival, Brian and I decided we really needed to take care of the last addition to our family and get her in line, considering that we anticipate we will be neglecting her once the baby is born. So we signed young Posh up for Smart Dog School in Saratoga. Since we kind of dropped the ball on puppy school, we signed her up for a Foundations class, which I have learned is basically “all the stuff you should have taught your puppy and are dealing with now because you never did before.”

Last night was owner orientation, or parent orientation as I like to call it. It was owners only, no dogs allowed. I quickly caught onto the fact that this was more of a class to train Brian and I than it was to train our dog. We learned about how dogs learn and how badly we mess them up by responding to them the way we do. We learned all the things we have to start and stop doing so we can live in peace with young Posh. 

We also learned that food is the best incentive ever to get our dog to obey us. So I’ve come to the conclusion that in order for us to have a pristinely behaved dog, she is boung to end up overweight. Our only homework was to start using this clicker-trainer, which basically means every time we click she gets a treat. We did a lot of clicking last night.

Next week we bring the dogs along. Our class has nine dogs…two labs, a mastiff, a couple shephard mixes and a terrier…and little Posh. It should be interesting to see how she does with dogs twice her size. Posh is usually quite the aggressor in “social” situations but I’m thinking that might change significantly next week…