Shelter Updates and Blue BRATT Saturday

Peaches
Jake
This weekend Jake, our longest resident in the shelter thus far, was adopted. His new family has already sent pictures and an update about how happy they are with him. Jake is a black lab mix with lots of energy and sweetnes. They are a very active family who have already gone hiking and fishing with Jake so it sounds like a great fit. Now the dog that has been at the shelter the longest is Peaches, and she will be our new featured dog. She is a sweet dog but a little lively in the kennel and tends to scare people off when they are looking at her. Hopefully, some extra exposure will get her adopted quickly.
This Saturday I snuck away from the house while CornyT and Mame were sleeping and did my morning shift with the doggies. The shelter was a little light on volunteers and I was the only blue BRATT their. I did feel like I was more helpful as a blue BRATT because there were a lot more blue dogs than green dogs. I tried to get as many dogs out as I could in the short 2 and 1/2 hours I was there. However, by the time I left a lot of dogs still needed to get out of the kennels. The whole time it was pretty obvious I was working with a different level of dogs. The most obvious difficult dog was Gypsy, a blonde, six-month old pitbull. She immediately tried to push her limits in the run, she jumped, nipped and ran around like crazy. She ran so much she kicked up a rock that flew back and went straight down her throat causing her to sputter- kind of funny in a sad way:). She was really getting out of control until I remembered another volunteer had walked in her space- kind of pushed her away without giving her any good attention. The results were amazing, she immediately stopped jumping on me and calmed down enough to get her leash on and get her back to the kennels.
The biting and excessive jumping is more of a yellow behavior and I won't be surprised if they do change her color.

Happy Thanksgiving All!!!

I took a break from laptopping during the holiday and it was actually quite nice. But now since I can't sleep, I thought I would get up and pretend like I am in the office. Besides the working part and being in my jammies this is just like being in the office.

CornyT, Mamie, and I had a nice Thanksgiving dinner here at the house. The cooking went off without a major incident and we had a nice leisurely day laying around the house watching TV. It is kind of amusing to me how every T-day we spend a good part of the day slaving away in the kitchen then spend probably 15 minutes tops scarfing it down, and then take the rest of the day cleaning it all up. The highlight of our meal was the new sausage stuffing recipe we tried. Ah it was so delicious, the only bad thing about it was we didn't make more. Mmmm I could eat some right now.

The rest of the weekend we spent shopping, watching TV, playing trivial pursuit and trying to get tickets to the IMAX Happy Feet. The movie was sold out every time we went to the museum or tried to buy tickets online. We finally got tickets last night and felt very accomplished. However, it turned out to not be quite worth all the effort. I would like to say it was probably because of all the build up we were giving it but really it wasn't as great as you would think dancing penguins would be.

The theme of the weekend has definitely been eating. Not only did we eat tons of turkey and left overs we also had a huge meal at a Cuban restaurant and gorged our selves with Dim Sum Sunday morning. All weekend you could hear me saying "I am SO FULL" or "Ugh I have eaten SO MUCH." We attempted to burn off all the turkey and leftovers by going for a hike in the Wild Basin Wilderness Preserve. The hike was only about an hour long, but every little bit counts right? Hope you all have had a great Thanksgiving and have gorged your selves as well. Did you do anything fun?

Last Day of Work

Today is my last day at work. After today, the work email will be turned off, so please reach me through my yahoo or gmail accounts. I am a little sad to leave this place. I have had a lot of fun here and learned so much. However, it is just time to move on to something different.

Change can be good and I think I will grow by being challenged in new directions. One of the big changes is the size of the company. I have never worked for a company over 50 employees and my new place has over 12 hundred world wide. Although they have that many people, the office I will be working at here in Austin only has 30 people- a little more my speed. That is one of the reasons I thought the company would be a good fit for me. A big company with a small company feel. They are also planning on growing the office here to at least 100 people by the end of next year. I am hoping that all that growth and new blood will lend the work environment a lot of energy. Currently, the atmosphere I am in is a little anemic. But that being said I know I am giving up working with some great people and I hope I am just as lucky at the new place to work with so many great people.

Pity the Fool

Ever wonder what Mr. T would look like clean shaven and wearing a hard hat? Oh I know you have. Finally, your curiousity can be satisfied at this website.

Blue BRATT

After 5 weeks of fairly intense dog training classes, I am now permitted to work with more challenging dogs or in Humane Society speak am a "Blue BRATT." On Saturday morning we had our last class replete with a graded skills test. The skills test made me a little nervous. I didn't practice between classes as much as I should have and I was so worried I would bomb it. They reassured us that we could not fail but I was still sure I would do poorly. I decided to approach it like another learning experience and not be afraid to ask questions if I had to. However, much to my surprise I retained almost all the commands and dog development stages we learned. The only comment my reviewer had was that I needed to be more confident. Well, I am certainly a lot more confident now that I know I know my stuff. Also it helped that the dog I tested with, Wizard, was a brainiac and did all the commands correctly. He made me look good. In all the class taught me hand commands for sit, down, watch, and taught me how to train a dog not to pull on the leash, walk nicely by my side, and get used to me pulling on his/her collar. The nice thing about the class was I also made friends with my fellow volunteers and felt even more involved with the shelter. I love that shelter. They are so fantastic to the volunteers and amazing to the animals. I can't wait till my next shift.

Retainer

Ugh well the freedom from oral discomfort was a blissfull, shortlived 6 days. I got my fancy new retainer yesterday and the party abruptly ended. The custom-molded, torture device is lodged in my mouth as I write this. Besides the obvious pain from the pressure it puts on my teeth, I am also feeling miserable from the plastic rubbing close to the back of my throat. I guess my straight, almost-movie-star-like teeth are worth feeling as if someone is jamming their fingers down my throat but I wonder. The gagging feeling is worse when I speak so I haven't been saying a lot. My coworkers and CornyT are probably so thankful of this. However, even if it wasn't so unpleasant to talk I don't think people could understand me. I sound like I am talking with a spoonful of peanut butter stuck to the roof of my mouth. The orthodontist said I will get used to all of this unpleasantness in a few days. God I hope so. Sometimes when I say words that begin with the letter R I really feel like I am going to throw-up. So, no making me sing Rudolph the Rednose Reindeer this Christmas. My gag reflex is just too sensitive for this thing. I hope it toughens up a little bit.

Braces off and Puppies are Gone

Now it may seem lame but I am going to blame the puppies for my recent blogging lapse. They were so much fun but all my time at home was devoted mostly to attending to them leaving little time for blogging. I took them back to the shelter yesterday. They are on their way towards finding their forever homes and I hope they find great, patient families. I am sad that they are gone and dropping them off was a little hard. I didn't cry but I did feel a little emotional. Yesterday, I spent a lot of time looking at pictures of dogs to console myself. However, with all that being said I am not so sure I will foster puppies again. The restrictions keeping them from coming in contact with our cat or going outside made it kind of hard for them to really participate in our lives. CornyT found them boring because you couldn't take them for walks or run with them out side in the yard. He got a little sick of sitting in the stinky sun room keeping an eye on them. And you certainly had to keep an eye on them. You could not under any circumstance leave them out of the crate unattended for too long or God knows what kind of trouble they would get in to. Next time, I am going to try to foster an older dog to see how the cat reacts to a larger dog in the house. She saw the puppies on only one or two occasions. She didn't like them but she didn't freak out too much. I am hoping if we get a dog they will just ignore each other and live in relative harmony. The good thing about the pups is that CornyT is 100% sure he wants to get a dog and we are going to do it relatively soon too. I know now that am ready too.
The other big thing to go on this week is that I am had my braces removed on Friday. Woo Hoo it is so nice to be brace free. I can eat nuts, caramel, popcorn and apples (not sliced) again. It is so nice. I will send pictures of my metal free smile very soon.

Move Over Dog Whisperer

Tonight CornyT successfully trained the pups that jumping on us and the door will yield no attention. The jumping, whining, and toe-biting was getting a little out of hand and CornyT decided to do something about it. By the time I got home from work he had them sitting in front of him as sweet as can be patiently waiting their head pats. If they jumped he looked away and paid no attention to them. I am so impressed. Hopefully this training will stick with them. They are already almost 100% paper trained. They very rarely have accident now and usually that is when the paper is too "dirty" for them. They are kind of fastidious little pups. Although, I think that is kind of common for Chows. Who knew such big dogs could be prissies. I just hope they go to good homes that keep working on them. They are such smart pups and with training and patience they will be great dogs.

Falling down on the blogging

I am definitely not being a good little blogger lately. The pups are wearing me out a little bit and I just haven't had much time to sit in front of the computer. Not too much is going on except that I use a lot of gas these days driving home and back at lunch every day. I have found that is kind of fun to go home for lunch and to just play with the puppies. Usually I make a sandwich but if there is nothing in the house for lunch I succumb to the sweet seduction of the KFC snacker. So yummy and bite sized- KFC is right next to the house so it is hard to avoid the sweet smell of fried chicken. The problem with the snackers are not only are they tasty, they are also so cheap. I can have two little sanmiches and a yummy mashed potato all for 3 dollars. Ah that is what I am getting for lunch right now... that sounds so good. These puppies are going to clog my arteries if they don't kill me from sleep deprivation first.

Happy Halloween - a little late

I meant to blog along with the trick or treating the other night but with the puppies yelping in the sun-room, CornyT making supper, and the cat having a freak out over the freaky little people parading up our front steps there was no time to live-blog the trick or treaters. This year was a lot slower than last year and to my surprise our neighbors didn't show up with their little guys. Which was a little disappointing. I had hoped to show them the puppies and let the pups have a some kid socialization. There were no stand out costumes this year but a couple darling butterflies and a very polite superman who signed Thank You to me. At first I thought he was blowing a kiss but I am pretty sure he was signing now that I think about it.

The last couple of days have been a blur of puppy tending and fitfull sleeping. Yesterday, the pups spent the day at the shelter being treated for Coccidia (a parasite resulting in diarhea) and their sleep schedule was all out of whack. I was up 3 times with them. At one point, I was startled awake by a nuzzle to my cheek and realized a puppy was in my bed. Oh crap, they are probably wreaking havoc all over the house, I thought. I grabbed the pup and trotted off to return him. When I reached the locked sun-room, I wondered at the pup's ability to turn a door knob. It was at that point, I realized I had a squirming cat in my arms. I headed back to bed but the damage was already done the pups were startled by my fumbling at the door and we were up for another hour. At least, they're so darn cute.