Sumo & Kimy

Last night we brough Sumo to visit Grandma's dog Kimy. Kimy is the little white yappie Maltese. To my surprise ... Sumo and Kimy had fun playing together. Kimy followed Sumo around in the backyard and waited for him to go poop and then the two went back into the house to play some more.

I was curious as to why they could play together without Kimy screaming and hiding. After some thought.........I realized............Sumo and Kimy play together because they actually "PLAY" unlike the dynamic between Chibi & Kimy. I have come to the conclusion that Chibi thinks that Kimy is a small animal that needs to be caught and eaten! or.............Chibi enjoys the taste of Maltese head in her mouth!

Doggie Vomit

Well this weekend we went to visit family in San Jose. The doggies were invited so we tried to prepare for the 2 hour car ride. Mom decided to brush the doggies before our trip so their wouldn't be an explosion of hair left at Auntie's house. Mom decided to hold off on bath's for both doggies to avoid the bath soap barfing.

About 3 hours before our journey to San Jose.........Chibi decides to go out and roll around in cat turd! For those of you who have never smelled cat turd.........Boy oh boy it's WONDERFUL! NOT! I've heard that cat turd is like doggie almond rocca for dogs.........ick! I guess it's the sweet smell the lures dogs to want to eat it. So............Chibi comes in smelling like cat turd (on her body and her breath).....Dad thinks we can just wipe her down.............WRONG!

So........bathtime here we come!Chibi's bath is the usual...her trying to jump out of the sink and wimper (at least she doesn't scream like mom's trying to kill her anymore). Next comes Sumo...this is his first bath....he just sits there and takes it like a good boy. Bathtime.......is now out of the way.

So in order to prepare for our trip....mom decides to put up all food. Dad takes both Chibi and Sumo for a walk to tire them out. So now we're off......Sumo sitting on his "king of the castle pillow" and Chibi laying on the blue blanket. We get about 20 minutes from the house and Sumo is farting up a storm! Oh boy what a wonderful start to our trip! We're about 20 minutes away from Auntie's and Chibi throws up on the blankets and Kiki's arm. Kiki is so into playing her video game she doesn't realize that there is Chibi throw up for awhile. Duh!

We finally get to Auntie's and both doggies are fine! I don't sense us taking any long trips for awhile!

Magical Weight Loss

wish we had before/after pictures to post, so everybody could see the difference. to summarzie for everybody, sumo has his first full furminator session. about 1/2 a dog's worth of hair was removed, and he went from looking big, poofy, fluffy, pudgy, round, rolling puppy to lean mean skinny puppy. the removal of the fuzz had a huge effect on his overall appearance!

Sleeping In!

ok, it looks like sumo is finally (FINALLY), sleeping in later. no more 3.30 or 4am...he's holding it until 6AMish now (yes, i know that's not really long or late, but it's at least close to wakeup time on work days!)

he's also really starting to lose his puppy coat. which means, big tufts of white cotton ball fur all over everything. we're also starting to notice that his doggie coat will have more splotches/areas of red/brown mixed into the cream.

also looks like chibi may be starting to blow her coat for the spring/summer, either that. then again, it is about bath time for her (which im sure she'll love :-p)

He's My SpEcIaL Boy!

ok, it takes a true doggie rocket scientist to get his face stuck to the door of his kennel twice. last night before bed, sumo was sitting i his kennel next to mom, he wasn't quite ready for bed, so he was fussing a little bit. just as mom told him not to bang on the kennel door anymore, and was telling him not to bite at the door again, sumo "super wonder genius dog", managed to get his face stuck to the door again.

of course i was in the shower and immedately heard the ear splitting screaming, which also woke chibi up from her sleep in her kennel. after we freed him and were getting ready for bed again, she then started to bang on her kennel to be let out. did she have to pee? did she have to poop? no, she had to get out, run over to sumo's kennel and make sure he was ok (and THEN once she found he was fine, she had to go poop) :-p

Doggie Training!

ok, this weekend we had our session with the doggie trainer (same trainer we used for chibi). we had some specific questions on tips, tricks, techniques to ensure 2 happy doggies, as we assumed there were unique challenges to raising a puppy when there is another puppy in the house.

we gleaned some good information, new strategies/techniques to deal with the 2 doggie issues we had, and learned to tell if we even had doggie/puppy issues between the 2. mostly we learned that chibi has been doing pretty well with the puppy, and the puppy HAS been the annoying one.

the best part was learning some fun competitive training methods, and also how to keep each pup happy when sharing toys, etc.

funny moment of the session:

• while the trainer was there, the doggies were on their best behavior (making us look like idiots for calling about yelling, screaming, fighting, bickering between the dogs)
• last 15 minutes, they finally started annoying each other and started to "do their thing"
• when the question came up from her, "any other issues you guys see with the dogs?", mom mentioned "sometimes, chibi tries to hump sumo"....
• just as that phrase came out of her mouth, chibi decided to hump sumo (as if she understood what mom said!)

New Photos

Breakthrough! (hopefully)

ok, i admit, i wasnt entirely awake and aware this morning, but i think that sumo slept in until 5.30ish before he had to be let out to pee/poop. (vs his normal 3.30-4.00am time) let's hope this is the start of a pattern (and yes, im not the one who takes him out at the butt crack o'dawn, but still, it's nice to have both doggies sleeping in)

also this morning, there was an unusual sleeping arrangement after he came back from his "relief" break. normally, he's allowed to sleep on the bed after coming back inside because he bangs on his kennel door, barks, and generally wakes up chibi. usually, he balls up next to me or mom, and then passes back out for another hour or so. this morning, i didnt feel him leaning against me, and couldnt find him next to mamma. after fumbling around in the dark a few more seconds, i felt something move by my feet. i looked up, and he wasnt there either, or was he? he had crawled under the covers, and burrowed his way to the foot of the bed and was balled up UNDER the covers at our feet. i lived the blankets up and looked at him, i got the "hey dude, close the door, it's cold" look as he went back to sleep.

2x the Fur!

ok, it's finally starting. sumo is losing his puppy coat and getting his normal one. *sigh* no more soft fluffy fur (except all over the carpet). the good news is the furminator is standing by lol

sumo also had the coolest dump last night...he went outside, and then it came out like it was shot from an air cannon...had the "PFFFFFT!" sound as it came out!

New Techniques

ok, we've been trying the "timeout" method to help reduce sumo's proclivity to "nip" at people/things when he gets excited.

it's been helping a little with me, but we still need to work when it's other people that aren't me :) using his sharp puppy teeth this weekend, he managed to jump up, and pull on munchkin's tshirt and put a hole in it.

other interesting tidbits:

• our session with the trainer is coming up this sunday
• working on - help with monitoring who's being the good doggie and who's not
• working on - best ways to keep both doggies happy
• we've noticed that since we started feeding the dogs further apart, chibs is starting to get more protective of her food, maybe we'll move them back to side by side feedings

chibi continues to be more calm and relaxed than ever. sumo continues to be the dog who likes to cuddle. we'll need to upload pics, he's getting big fast.

Mid-Week Randomness

chibi is starting to drive us up the wall with the "ring the bell", go outside, sniff ground, chew on random crap from the yard, no pee, no poop. i'm thinking all the extra windy-ness (yes, i can make up words) has blown all kinds of new scents and aromas into the yard (in addition to all the crap from our bushes, trees, and the neighbor's bushes and trees.

need to work on some new techniques to deal with sumo's "nipping-ness"...i guess since i'm japanese it's ok to note the racial doggie breed irony of a japanese (nippon-ese) dog, having a "nipping" problem, kind of a "nip" dog :) HAHAHAHA...ok, fine, it's only funny to me then!

i realized how much better sumo is getting with his pee/poop training. he hasn't been ringing the bell each time, but he's been holding it better, and at least walking to the door and barking when he needs to go out. *knocks on every piece of wood around* he's been accident free for the last week or so (a little over a month into being with us -- not bad).

strange side effect of acclimating sumo to his harness -- when he's wearing it (after he throws his run around and try to rub it off fit), he is much more calm.

Sumo's "Emergency" Incident

ok, i figure even the best watched, cared for, loved dog/puppy is allowed one emergency incident, and hopefully we had sumo's last night.

after putting him in his crate last night, we went back into the kitchen to make lunch for the next day. he did his normal shiba vocal protests (a few barks, a few whines, and a little short set of screams), but in this case, they didnt stop. in fact, at one point, it got louder, and LOUDER, AND LOUDER, and wouldnt stop.

it began to sound like someone was trying to strangle the dog with a sharpened set of plastic forks. sumo was screaming so loud, it was huring our ears from across the house. i went into the room to find his face "stuck" to the crate door. somehow, the rocket scientist dog had managed to get his 2 lower K-9 teeth thru one of the grate cells, then turned sideways so that he couldnt get free. he was frenzied, upset, screaming at the top of his lungs, and wouldnt sit still so i could try to free him. we couldnt open the door with his face stuck to it, we had to try to unscrew the top of the pen, while i was still trying to get him to back up, twist, move fwd, etc. to free his face (which we finally did).

i've heard stories of getting your collar/tags stuck in the wires, never the teeth...yes, our dog is special.

FYI - chibi's incident came in the 1st week we had her. in her all knowing intelligence, she tried to leap from the couch to the coffee table, missed, got one leg hung on each side, then fell. we thought she had broken a leg (as she limped around for the next 15 mintues). we called the emergency vet, and by the time we got off the phone and had the instruction, she was fine.

Hypotheticals and Catchup Postings

took chibi/sumo to the grandparents house this weekend so they could experience an "open" backyard with tons o'space to run around off leash...

• took sumo a few minutes to get adjusted (his first major excursion outdoors off leash)
• chibi (veteran of this backyard) immedately went into full shiba 500 run laps and chase the tennis ball mode
• sumo then started to chase chibi with the ball, took 2 laps, realized he couldnt catch her, and then just layed down in the center of the lawn and barked at her as she circled him
• chibi then did her high speed drive by passes on him, knocked him over a few times, until he chased her again
• then they both got tired, layed next to each other, and started to chew on grass :-p

chibi has started to return to her "ring the bell to go outside in the back so i can chew on leaves" mode...really getting annoying (and now sumo is starting the same)

at halftime at the kings game sunday, they had the "flyball dograces"...a few obeservations/hypothesis/speculations:

• herding dogs rule that race - the border collies and ACD's can FLY
• not positive, but i'm pretty sure if chibi (or sumo) were in that race, they'd run over the hurdles to get the ball, then dash up into the stands to play keep away and never come back

on the "chase the ball topic", we had chibi sorta trained to play "fetch" just before we got sumo. she's still pretty good with it, but most times it evolves into:

• throw the ball
• chibi fetches and brings it back to me, then "drops" the ball on command and sits for the next throw
• sumo notices
• throw the ball
• chibi fetches, sumo jumps on her and tries to take the ball OR sumo fetches and chibi jumps on him and tries to take the ball
• dogs run around trying to keep the ball from the other and i never get it back