Harley, the puppy dog, is out on a tether, playing with his football. He is learning to be self-entertaining. He is potty trained or house broken now. Thank goodness. I walked him every hour for a few days until he got the hang of THAT. Still, there is so much to teach him. I want a well behaved doggy with great manners, but it takes a ton of time to impart this knowledge to a puppy with short attention span.
Still, he has made a load of progress. He no longer hates the leash and harness. But he is still so tiny, he can slip out of the harness when he wants to and that I do not like. He has no road sense, he thinks the whole world is ready for an energetic playful puppy.
He has learned the NO word really well. We are working on COME, STAY, SIT, QUIET, STOP and so on.
I feed him a variety of healthy foods, and he eats and has tons of energy. His legs grow longer but his body is still tiny. Maybe the former owners really stunted his growth with his past diet of Corn Chips and Doritos.
Whenever I put away anything that rattles like a junky food bag, he goes nuts. Like I was pulling the Triscuit baggy out of the box, to put a clothes pin on it, to keep the crackers fresh. He went nuts, thinking the bag was something junky for him from his past diet.
I bought some dog biscuits for training. But he gets full so fast, the training session is rather short. Some days I am busy and we don't get a whole lot of training done.
Last weekend, I spent 24 hours at a gorgeous river in the mountains. He was playing on the river bank and saw his reflection in the water. He took an enthusiastic leap, to play with the other doggy. He landed in the river. Rather than cry like a baby, he calmly swam to shore then shook himself off and danced around, rather proud of himself.
Later I got in the river and put him in too. But he swam out and shook off again. His fur is so thin, he looks like a drowned rat. When he is wet, you can see his tiny body is even tinier.
My friend accidentally stepped on him and he shrieked like he was taking his last breath. I had to hold him and console him, then in a few minutes, of being babied, he was bucking to get out of my arms and run and play.
I set up a long tether for him, and we played ball. My friend referred to him as the toddler. He said he was done with toddlers and puppies, his kids were teens now, his dog 8 years old, and he was glad the puppy was my handful and not his handful.
I let him run free for awhile, but he doesn't come when he is called. He is like a cat; "I'll come when I feel like it." So back to the tether he went. Or rather I quickly made a tether. It was huge, so he could run about 100 feet in all directions. I tied a 100 feet of rope between two trees about 30 feet apart, and close to the ground. I then attached a D-ring and his short leash. This way he can drag the tether back and forth, forming a V-shape with the rope.
Puppy on his loooooooog tether in the woods.
Awhile back, my Caribbean sailing buddy joined me for a week of camping. We didn't get to drive anywhere together,we met at a campground we both liked, so we never moved along. I have more or less mastered driving The Beast alone.
I am still considering names for my motorhome besides The Beast. Enter your suggestion at this link under Comments. I am now notified of all comments posted, so I can post a followup, so if you have left a comment anywhere on the Other Blog, I get notified.
When I was in the hospital, I didn't have the notification thingy turned on, so I wasn't aware of all the wonderful comments, until one day when I stumbled across them. Now I am better organized.
Leave it up to two sailors, and they can nearly sink a motorhome. Where is the bilge pump? Um, where is the bilge?
Motorhomes don't have a bilge. They have a basement. Mine is a small basement. It was built before it was fashionable to have numerous toys.
The newer motorhomes are much taller with grander space beneath for hauling loads of stuff around. People love their stuff. Some folks don't leave home without bringing everything with them. Makes you wonder why they bother to travel, if it all has to go with them, to feel just like home. I say this for the weekend campers who bring a ton of stuff with them just for 2 days of play.
I live in my motorhome and have my worldly goods with me and still have open storage space left over. Yet, I see folks that arrive for a weekend, and they don't leave home without a thing. Everything! They bring it ALL with them. They bring more in a weekend than I travel with full time.
Awhile back, my visiting sailing buddy is rather handy and we knocked out some small projects around the motorhome. It's like a boat, always something to fix, to putter with. Plus I keep trying to streamline my junk into organization that is handy and quick to find or stow. This all takes time, as I needed to live in it for awhile to see what needs to be handy and what doesn't.
I seem to always be gifting things that are in my way or stuff that I don't like, that came with the motorhome. Somehow, we accidentally threw out a bag full of hundreds of cups. I was going to regift them for a party. But they went out with the garbage by mistake. Oops!
The weather was beautiful, we had EVERY window open in the motorhome. We had the awning opened up, with a table and chairs underneath. We were puttering around doing things when my friend asked if I wanted to ride in his car to the store. He wanted to check out their fresh fish and also he was out of wine.
We got in the car and were talking away. Somewhere while leaving the campground, we ended up exploring and found another island with hiking trails.
We decided to hike.
The Centennial Trail continues up a bridge, over the marsh, designed for wheelchair access.
Just as we neared the end of the trail, we ascended to a simple covered deck, built about 30 feet up above the marsh. From there you could look out over the Indian River to one side and the marsh to the other side.
Suddenly it poured down rain. Buckets of rain. Soaking rains. We stayed under cover until it let up to just a sprinkle. We began hiking back. About halfway back, it poured a soaking cold rain again. Our clothes stuck to us, they were dripping wet.
We made it back to the car. It was closed up and locked. We got inside and steamed up all the windows, we were so wet and the car was still hot from being parked in the previous sun.
On the way back to the campground, we stopped at the store. Since we were used to sailing in the Caribbean and being soaked upon with sudden squalls, we drip-dropped and flip-plopped our way through the store to buy fresh fish and wine. A big bottle of red for my fried to drink and a tiny white bottle for cooking the fish with herbs and veggies.
Big fish, little bottle of wine
We got back to the motorhome and the rain squall had been blowing rain sideways. The motorhome was soaking wet inside. The beds were wet, the sheets, the pillows, the lightweight comforters, all soaked. The laundry basket was under a window and the dirty clothes were soaking wet. The dining cushions were squishy wet. Everything was just soaked.
The sun was out. We emptied out the motorhome, and scattered things all over the picnic table. The camping lot ext to ours was open, so we used their picnic table too. We hung things all over the awning and dragged the chairs out and draped things all over them. The cushions were removed from the motorhome and laid out in the sun. The throw rugs that hide the hideous carpet were all thrown outside to dry. Thank goodness the sun had come out, we had a royal mess on our hands.
We looked like a band of gypsies having a rummage sale. I was sure the park ranger would come by and scold us for making such a mess.
Inside the motorhome, we turned on the only fan, and mopped up water everywhere.
We joked that only two sailors could manage to nearly sink a motorhome.
On dry land.
At least it was fresh water and not salt water. We spent the rest of the day, turning our stuff over, and over, to dry it thoroughly.
We didn't realize at the time, that the campground had a washer and dryer. We were newbies. Had we known that, we could have just washed and dried the wet dirty clothes. Duh.
Later in the evening, another camper set up nearby and he came over to chat with us. He was telling us about the weekend it poured rain and there was such a long line at the washers and dryers.
Washers and dryers?
Yes, he told us, and pointed to a building in the far distance on the campground where the washers and dryers were kept.
Later we went on a hike and toured the building. Yes, there were washers and dryers. But by now, all our stuff was dry anyhow.
We spent the evening putting the motorhome back together again. It was much cleaner now.
Two sailors nearly sunk a motorhome. Tsk tsk tsk.
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Puppies need puppy chow to help them grow strong and healthy. It has the healthy nutrients your sweet puppy needs for health and strong bones.
ReplyDeleteHe gets plenty of healthy puppy chow with me.
ReplyDeleteThe former owners who gave him away, they fed him a diet of junk foods. Since I've had him, he had become very energetic, his fur is silky now, and it is thickening.