It's official...

We're having hot dogs for Halloween this year!

Yummmm! We look pumped to wear this costume dont we?!  Muahaha the joys of having a helpless adorable animal, sorry Dolce! Also, be on the look out for the hotdog's accomplice, Mustard Girl!

    

Cuteness Alert!!

Yup thats right I am obsessedwith my dog. I love her to death, moreso then I like most people. So we did a Jers-day morning photo shoot to get us in the mood for awesomeness to come! Live it, love it...Deal with it!  And most of all enjoy!

"We grow neither better nor worse as we get old, but more like ourselves" - May Lamberton Becker

So last night I snapped this picture of Dolce sleeping on me and I realized I took one almost exactly the same about 5 months ago.  Once I started looking at the two picture together I could help but notice how much Miss Dolce has grown right before my very eyes and I didn't even notice it!
 


Big Dolce



Baby Dolce



 

Where does the time go?! I swear it was just yesterday that she was a whopping eight pounds and we were snuggled up together on the couch with room to spare!  Now clocking in at about forty pounds, I'm lucky if I can breathe when she sits on me, and the couch is certainly a much tighter squeeze. I mean I can't even fit her into my camera frame anymore let alone on the couch with me!  A couch which she now thinks she owns, as nightly she attempts to "push" me away from her with her feet so she can have more space, or maybe just get rid of me all together! But I don't care, I love her, so I'll take the abuse for that adorable face and the fantastic snuggles any day of the week! 

Apparently, we're are not a fan of...

So apparently we are not a fan of the curtain fixtures in mommy's house!  Well forget her! I like my curtain tie backs.  She literally spent the better part of the morning barking and growling at this thing.  And when I attempted to go over and "pet" it to show her it was ok and it wouldn't hurt us she jumped in front of me to protect me I guess. Took over an hour to finally convince her it was not a threat, thank god she finally realized it because we were at threat level red, and I for one was beginning to get worried!

Tough day in the City...

No car means no park for us...guess we'll being doing lots of walking and back yard playing this weekend!

"Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear." - Mark Twain

Well it took us a few months of practice and lots and lots of treats but we're finally not afraid of the vacuum! I was so excited I could have cried!  She was never THAT bad with it, just barked at it and chased it around the room, never tried to bite it or anything. But this day she just sat there and watched me and eventually was more focused on an itch then my vacuuming.  Next step, cut her nails without being nibbled and licked incessantly!

Downy...the Wonder Dog!

I am beginning to think we should have called her Downy, the Wonder Dog!

Literally daily we find her with some article of clothing that has either fallen on the floor, that she pulled off the bed ( usually because it's to be worn to work that day) or out  of the laundry basket.  As I was blow drying my hair this morning realizing it was awfully quiet and she hadn't come over to have me blow the hair dryer in her face yet.  I went looking for her and came upon this scene.  That is in fact Dolce on one of her beds surrounded by various articles of both mine and Kevin's clothing, to be exact: one pair of my pajama shorts, one of my socks, one of Kevin's dress socks and a pair of my underwear. Naturally she is chewing on my expensive lace underwear.  When I asked her what she thought she was doing she looked at me, whined and proceeded to drop my underwear.  Yea, she knows when she's busted, happens so often these days, but more so shes annoyed that I was about to take away her "toy".  And she could not have looked sadder when I took those clothes away. I don't know what her affinity is for fabrics, she just can't get enough of them, she'd much rather have an old sock then a chew toy or a tennis ball...such a weird little dog...ahhh Downy! 

Sometimes all a girl needs is a best friend...

Not much to say except this is the scene I walk into, pretty much daily.  Either they're napping together snoring away together or she's watching TV and "protecting" him while he sleeps (no seriously I walked over to them in the picture on the right and she was none too happy I was disturbing her).   These two have a very serious love affair.  And I know that I say this alot in my blogs but once Kevin is really gone for the whole season I dont know what she's going to do with herself.  She snuggles with me and other people but its not quite the same. Haha what are you gonna do, they're besties!

I'm a big kid now!

Well this one is well over due about 2 months or so ago Dolce started spending her alone time during the days out side her crate and in the kitchen!  The vet told us when she went one month without and accident that we should think about giving her more freedom.  So its pretty much been good. The first time out she had a small accident but never again.  I think for the most part she likes it.  She can look out the windows shes got her food and water dishes there and there's definitely more room for activities.  Its been pretty uneventful until about 2 or 3 weeks ago. I was swamped at work so I didn't get a chance to come home and play with her and take her out at lunch. I wasn't really worried I knew she could hold it.  Well when I got home I realized that wasn't the issue but the wall was.  Just at the corner of the wall in a tiny little spot on the molding she had started to nibble away.  Well I guess that's my punishment for not coming to see her!  We're in the process of experimenting with brain teaser toys and frozen peanut butter in her Kong to keep her busier during the day.  Ahhh the things we do for our babies!

"When the well is dry, we know the worth of water." - Benjamin Franklin

Took Dolce on a little evening stroll the other day and halfway through we stopped at a park to play and rest and have some water.  After playing for a bit we took out our water and our little collapsable dish.  While I was sitting in a grass having some water myself I noticed the air was lacking the tell tale lapping sound when water is consumed.  In fact it was awfully quiet in general, never a good sign with Dolce.  And low and behold, upon scanning the park, I found Miss Dolce running off to the other side ofthe playground towards a group of children, with her water dish in her mouth, water still in it!! And barely a drop spilled. I'm not really sure why she did this, what she was goingto do once playing with the children or how she managed to run across the park without spilling it all over the place (especially considering she cant manage to keep food in her mouth while eating at her dish) but nonetheless it was hilarious, adorable and pretty impressive!

Neighborhood Watch

Not much of a story goes with this post except that nightly, the view from our couch is the following...

There are literally a million other things she could be doing and about 50 toys laying around the house she could play with, not to mention the 4 humans in the house who would play with her.  And every single night without fail for about an hour she just perches herself on that couch staring out the window and watch the 'hood and barking at all the clearly offensive, threatening and completely oblivious people, animals and in animate objects the make their way down the street. Seemingly adorable, most definitely inevitably annoying and a complete facade. She is the least tough dog, with one of the loudest voices I have ever seen. All bark, no bite, totally cute!

Look mommy, I did it all by myself!

So for all of you in the Boston area, I have a pet owners trade secret that I recently discovered.  It is a large discount pet warehouse, PetEdge.  They primarily take orders online or over the phone, but they have a warehouse right here in Billerica so you don't have to pay for shipping!  I have found that I can either run over to the store and they have what I need right there, or I can call them up and place an order for pickup at the warehouse thereby avoiding shipping fees!  And pretty much everything is super cheap!  Case and point the Gold's Gym toy she has in the picture cost me a whopping $1.50...and the green Polo Shirt she has on in my other post, Absence and death are the same, was $3.00!! But I digress...

So I have been taking her there with me and picking up little things here and there as she needs them, but this picture was from the first time that we went together and I actually brought her in to the store.  Not only was she pumped to see all the other dogs but she was literally like a kid in a candy store.  She was all over the place sniffing things and attempting to steal toys.  I could just envision myself, "I swear officer it wasn't me, my dog did it!" Well when we went in this time she was very persistent about hanging out in the stuffed toy aisle.  After about 5 minutes of tugging me back to them I just surrendered and let her check them out.  She immediately started picking up toys and putting them in her mouth and after a second or two dropped them back on the shelf.  After a few passes at this she keyed in on that Gold's Gym toy, don't ask why, I have no idea what is so interesting about it.  Normally I wouldn't have an issue with this except that this toy happened to be hanging on a hook about 3 feet off the ground.  Upon realizing that I was unaware of her desire to have this toy she proceeded to jump up on the display shelving and reach for the toy herself.  This is typically something I would giggle at, except that pretty much everyone in the store turned to look and see what had mad such a loud thud down in aisle 5 and I got the much dreaded, "You're child is out of control, they shouldn't be in this store much less the zoo!" look. Naturally I shamefully grabbed Dolce off the shelf put her on the ground and said "No!"  It wasn't two seconds later that I turned around to walk away and she was back up on that damn shelf grabbing for that toy again! At this point I figured better to accept defeat and just give in to her wants so we could hightail it out of there rather then to fight with her over it, because I assure you she is persistent and we'd have gone back and forth like that all day. Well she could not have been happier or more proud of herself.  She was such a little ham running around the store with that thing in her mouth showing it off to everyone in line for checkout. And when we got in the car to head home she insisted it be right by her side while she chewed away on her new treat, as I buckled in she looked at me with a big doggy smile looking so happy and proud and I swear to God if she could have at that moment she'd have said "Look mommy, I did it all by myself!" 

"Winter must be cold for those with no warm memories." - From the movie An Affair to Remember

Well to date Dolce absolutely hates when I put clothes on her. But I really don't care...she is just too darn cute not to play dress-up with, and people keep telling me I should get her used to wearing clothes because she'll probably need a coat to keep her warm when we go out to play in the winter.  So I just keep buying adorable shirts and putting them on her.  So the other day I put this adorable hooded sweatshirt on her...and clearly she hated it.  She literally rolled around on the floor twisting and turning for a good 10 minutes growling away as she tried to rip it off her body.  And once she realized I wasn't taking it off she just layed there looking miserable in  a catatonic state.  So ungrateful! I kept trying to talk to her and coax her to play as a distraction tactic and she was having none of it.  She just kept looking at me and whining and sighing.  So finally we took it off...baby steps I suppose.  Our next purchase is a coat for the fall/rain, so she better get on board...more miserable looking puppy pictures to come!