Greta loves her pool and OURS!

We are now into our summertime here in upstate New York. And it is HOT! 90+ degrees. We love it but Miss Greta isn’t really a summer dog. She does play outside, and will continue to as long as we are playing with her. But we always have a “kiddie pool” filled with fresh water. When she gets hot, she goes to her pool and takes a dip.
We also have a pool for us, the humans. 🙂 And Miss Greta found a way to use our pool to play. When we are in the pool, she jumps up on the side of the pool and drops her ball in it. So then “we” have to fetch the ball and throw it out for her to catch. This can go on forever! But she will also take a dip in her own pool. Here are some pictures of her:

Well there she is! She is so funny!!!! And yes she is still is not very social when people come to visit. With Miss Greta, it is all about HER! And she is relentless when she has her ball. On July 4th, we had about 25 people over. We had to keep her inside. If we didn’t, she would be herding the kids and dropping her slimy ball all over everyone!

On hot days like this, she goes outside to play. But she also loves coming into an air conditioned house where she just sprawls out and rests.

We still feed her Eagle Pack. She is in excellent shape! Our little Chihuahua, Ren, is still with us. Mostly blind, a little stiff and can barely see. But believe it or not, he does very well. He gets a burst of energy at least once a day. I throw a little toy for him that he fetches. That lasts for about 2 to 3 throws. Then he’s done. Ren does sleep most of the time, but still eats (Eagle Pack for seniors), plays and “smiles”. He is 16 years old!

Well until the next time, be a responsible pet owner. Make sure they have plenty of fresh water when it is hot. Don’t over work or over play them in the heat. And give them ample time between feeding and playing. Strenuous playing or working should not be done right after eating. Give them about 1/2 hour.

HAPPY SUMMER!

November 2009 – “Happy Thanksgiving”

Well here we are again in upstate NY, waiting for our first snow flakes to arrive. Not that we are in a hurry! But it is that time of the year for us. Actually, it has been pretty mild. In the 50’s and sometimes in the 60’s. That is warm for us in November. Thanksgiving is next week, and we’d like to wish everyone a very Happy Thanksgiving. It isn’t quite Thanksgiving yet and I have started my Christmas Shopping. The sales are great and there is no snow on the ground. Not to mention that our family is very large, so there are many to buy for. Christmas is, by far, my most favorite time of the year! I feel like I’m a kid again. (and that was decades ago)

Well on to Miss Greta. She is still a sweetie. And I have some pictures that I took tonight to show you. This first one is Miss Greta laying on the rug by our bed:

This next picture of Miss Greta, is her ON the bed:

And lastly is a picture of Ren, our 14 year old chihuahua, who is almost all white/grey now from old age:

Mr. Ren is thankfully still with us. He can hardly hear and can’t walk too well on his left back leg. He sleeps most of the time, but gets spurts of energy once in a while. They only last about 5 minutes. Mr. Ren is still smiling and seems to be adapting to his old age. We still keep him and Miss Greta apart.

We feed Mr. Ren Eagle Pak for senior dogs. And we don’t feed him anywhere near what we use to. We find that if he eats too much, he gets sick. Miss Greta on the other hand, still gets her Eagle Pak twice a day. In the morning it is mixed with a scrambled egg. In the evening it is mixed with cooked ground hamburg and cut up cheese.

Miss Greta is still VERY active. She still loves being outside. She’s been out quite a bit these last few weeks, as we were outside raking leaves. Miss Greta still lacks the social graces when visitors come to the house. Unfortunately, on Christmas Eve, she will have to stay in her crate. We will be having family over for dinner and presents, which will be about 20-25 people. And we always have Santa pop in unexpectedly for the little ones. Can you imagine what Miss Greta would do if she saw SANTA! 🙂

Well, until next time, have a wonderful Thanksgiving. And if I’m not back before December 25th, have a happy and blessed Christmas and a Happy New Year!!

August 2009 In Upstate NY

Well here we are in Upstate NY in August. One would think that it should be hot here, but that is not the case. It has rained practically all summer long.  Which is very discouraging to all of us since we wait all year to have our cookouts, our gardens and summer clothes.

Our tomato plants rotted out. Including some of our flowers. Today it is cloudy and only in the 70’s, with a high humidity and thunder storms are forecast for later today. Of course!

Miss. Greta is doing just fine. I’m sure she appreciates the cooler days as she does not do well in the heat. She still uses her pool when she is outside. And she still is on the Eagle Pack diet. Miss Greta continues with her bad behavior when people come to visit. We put her in her crate until our company is settled, then let her out. She get crazy for about 2 minutes then she settles down.

Ticks have not been a major problem for us so far this year. We have pulled out about 4 so far. We have bird feeders and Miss Greta love chasing them. She also loves chasing the squirrels and chipmunks. Speaking of chipmunks, we have many. There are holes everywhere. So we invested in a cage to catch them in. When we catch them, we drive them about a mile from our house and release them in the woods. We have caught 2 so far and are working on the third.

I took a video of Miss Greta today on my new Flip Video Camcorder. I love it. It is no bigger than my cell phone and I highly recommend it to everyone. So with that said, here is her new video:

Hope you enjoyed Miss Greta’s little video. Next time I will take a little video of Ren, our chihuahua. Yes he is still with us. He will be 14 years old. Considering his age, he is doing pretty well. He sleeps quite a bit and is a bit deaf. But all and all, he’s doing fine.

Well, until next time, enjoy the rest of your summer and be a responsible pet owner.:)

Miss Greta Loves Her Frosty Paws Ice Cream

Well it is that time of the year in upstate NY. SPRING/SUMMER TIME! We are getting are flowers planted and bbq’ing outside. And of course we stock up our freezer with some icecream. At the end of a hot day, and just before the sun goes down, my husband and I go outside on our patio and enjoy a cold refreshing icecream. And it can be just about any icecream. From cones, to banana splits to just plain icecream in a dish. When we are done with our icecream, we usually leave a bit for our dogs, (not if it is chocolate), and let them feast on it as well. And yes we let them lick it right from the bowl. If you are a dog lover, you won’t be saying or thinking “YUK” right now. 🙂
So since they love icecream so much, we now buy them “Frosty Paws” which is icecream specially made for dogs. And just in case you are wondering, yes I’ve tasted it. And for that I WILL say “YUK”!! It comes packaged just like Skippy Cups. And it looks like vanilla icecream, just not as white. It tastes like cold, moist dog biscuits. BUT THEY LOVE IT!
So hear are some pictures of Miss Greta eating her Frosty Paws “off of a spoon”. (and no “YUKS” please)

And here is Miss Greta after eating her icecream. She is all happy with herself now.

We buy the Frosty Paws at Checker Hill Farms on Freeman’s Bridge Road. Actually we get her Eagle Pack and everything else from there too. I believe that Frosty Paws are sold in places like Pet Smart as well. Believe it or not, Price Chopper use to sell them a couple of years ago. But we haven’t seen them in a long time there.
So now we know for sure that it is summer, even though the calender shows differently, cause the Frosty Paws are on the scene.

A Miss Greta Update

Well, here we are in upstate New York and just waiting for Spring to arrive. There is still little snow on the ground. But due to the rain, it is very muddy to say the least. This makes for a messy outdoor run with Miss Greta. There are only certain parts of our back yard that is yet solidly saturated with mud. So we try to pick the areas she can romp on. And that is a difficult task.

Greta is still Greta. She is still just one big puppy with a lot of energy and lovable personality.  Here she is with a “new” toy. It is a squeeky fish that is also made out of that canvas like material. One of the only ones she can’t chew threw.

We also use to have two bowls for her. One for her water and one for her food. They were both kept on the kitchen floor. We found that it was becoming difficult for her to eat as she grew larger. She would actually pick the food up with her mouth and then lift her head to chew and swallow. So we ordered this from Foster and Smith which has made a great difference in her eating. Both bowls are made of a heavy ceramic which is much easier to clean. She is much more comfortable eating now.

Now even though we have both a food bowl and a water bowl for her, she still prefers the good old toilet for fresh cold water!

Now isn’t that a sight? 🙂

Miss Greta is still very playful and still just loves her toys. She would play fetch ALL DAY if only we had the stamina to do it.

Miss Greta still sleeps in her crate at night and loves it. We are sure that she would be fine out of the crate at night while we sleep. But she prefers her crate. We still feed her Eagle Pack with gound cooked meat and 2 scrambled eggs. We continue to mix a teaspoon of Shed-X in her food which keeps her coat beautiful and cuts down on her shedding.  Anyone who owns an animal can certainly relate to that! When they start shedding, my vacuum cleaner is never put away.

My husband continues to take her for walks which she totally enjoys. But one thing we find is that she NEVER gets tired.

She is still a maniac when people come over. She cries, whines, barks and jumps all over everyone. We are still waiting for that to get better. IF EVER! Miss Greta still loves to chase the birds at our bird feeders and chase the squirles and rabits. She never catches them and we don’t know if it is because she is just not fast enough, which we find hard to believe. Or if she just does it for the fun of the chase.

We still don’t put her and Ren, the chahuahua together. I know I have said before that I would take some pictures of Ren and post them. But Ren isn’t quite as animated as Miss Greta is. Pictures of Ren would mostly be of him sleeping. That’s about all the poor guy does. He does engage in some playtime, but it only lasts about 2 minutes. Then Ren is back to his little bed or on your lap for a rest.

Well that is my update for now. We will be back………..

Miss Greta…Still just one big puppy!! 2/10/2008

Miss Greta is still doing fine after her spaying. She is right back to her normal self. My husband took her for a nice long walk this morning. Miss Greta loved it.  So now my husband is taking a nap and Miss Greta is still raring to go!!! I wish we could bottle some of that energy cause I could certainly use it!:)

Every morning my husband leaves for work before I do. So before I leave for work, I let Greta outside for a while. Getting her back in is another ordeal! It is a good thing that we don’t have neighbors around, as for sure they would have me committed. I will open the door and call her to come in and she just stands there and looks at me like I had 2 heads. Then just turns the other way a pretends she never even saw me.

So here are some of the stupid tricks I’ve tried: Ready? I have actually rang our door bell and pretended someone was here. Oh sure she perks her ears up and she looks at the house, but that’s about as far as that one goes. Then I take ALL of her toys to the door thinking that will lure her in. I jump around, squeak them and act all excited. Again the stare and off she goes. I have also resorted to taking pieces of cheese and making a line from outside coming into the house. (ya know like Hansel and Gretel?) Honestly, that does seem to work. So it takes approximately 20-30 minutes of MY insane behaviour to get her in! And yet I love her to death. Go figure!

I have some new pictures of Miss Greta with her favorite toys. This is Greta walking around with her toys in her mouth looking for anyone to play with her.

Here she is with TWO toys in her mouth. She actually tries to get every one of her toys in her mouth at one time.

And here is Miss Greta just trying to look cute and hoping that will draw some attention to herself.

Yup, it’s still all about Miss Greta. Our home revolves around the girl. Of course that is fine since it is just myself and my husband. But when visitors come…watch out!!! Greta just sees new playmates when anyone walks in the door. Maybe that’s why we don’t get many guests anymore! 🙂 Just kidding! Although it is difficult when the smaller grandchildren come over. Miss Greta is definitely in the herding mode then. She won’t leave them alone!

All in all, she is a sweetheart and we love her to death. Oh and the chihuahua, Ren is still here too. We NEVER put the two of them together. Miss Greta would pummel him in 2 seconds flat. And Ren is just a little old man who can’t hear too well anymore. I think that Greta thinks Ren is just one of her toys! So for now, they  live separate lives in the same household!

Till next time………….

How to get more life from these “squeaky toys”

In my last post, I showed you pictures of Miss Greta’s squeaky toys and the one that survived and the ones that didn’t. Well, my mom was over for a visit and I was showing her Greta’s toys and that I was going to throw them out. She had a great idea! She said that as long as the “squeaky thing” still worked and all of the fiber fill was still in tact, she suggesting just taking it and placing it all in a sock and knot it at the top.Well, I went to my husband’s dresser and pulled out one of his socks. I stuffed the sock with the fiber fill and the squeaky thing and knotted the top. SHE LOVED IT! It was like a brand new toy for her that still squeaked. And she doesn’t chew threw it. Of course I can’t say that any other dog won’t be able to rip it apart, but Greta didn’t. So if you have any of your dogs toys that they have ripped apart, just take it and put it in a sock to give it more of a life span.  Of course I just used a plain white sock but I’m sure we could use colored socks or socks that have those funky designs too.Of course, my husband now has one lone sock in his drawer, but at least we can’t say that they got lost in the laundry! 🙂  

1 Year Old Pictures Of Miss Greta

Greta is 1 year old now!

On October 6, 2007, Miss Greta turned 1 year old. She is a stunning beauty and can I say that she knows it too. She has already gone through one heat cycle and has just started her 2nd. We were undecided whether to let her go through 1 or 2 heat cycles so I guess it will be 2.

She is a very good dog, and is still somewhat out of control when people come to the house. She jumps all over them and licks them to death. Embarrassing needless to say, but we just can’t seem to stop her from doing it. We did find one thing that works. When we know before hand that someone is coming over, we will put her in her crate before they arrive. One they have arrived and things have settled down a bit, we let her out of her crate and she is less invasive to our guests.

Even though winter is setting in here in the Northeast, my husband still takes her out for her daily/nightly walks. And she is taken outside to run and play. She just “loves” her play time. And of course she still thinks the universe revolves around her.

We still feed her Eagle Pack Adult dry dog food mixed with ground turkey or chicken or hamburg and cottage cheese. We had noticed her starting to itch quite a bit more than usual and beginning to shed more than she has. So while my husband was at the only pet store around that does sell Eagle Pack, he asked about her itching and if it could possibly be from the food. The employee check all of the ingredients in the Adult Eagle Pack and reassured him that it wasn’t from the food. He suggested a product called SHED-X. It is primarily for dry skin and shedding. It contains oils such as fish and soybean oils along with many vitamins. We put about 2 tablespoons in her food everyday. We  noticed she has loose stools in the beginning, but they soon became normal. She has since stopped her itching and her coat is silky, smooth and shinny.

We still have the 11 1/2 yr old  Chihuahua and he is also on Eagle Pack for seniors. He is doing very very well on that dog food. We don’t mix his food with the ground meat, we do however, mix in some cottage cheese. Maybe just 3/4 of a teaspoon. And both dogs are fed twice a day.

We also noticed that when we have TV on, she will stop whatever she is doing when a commercial appears and watch it. I guess there is something about these tv ads, huh? 🙂

She is a very protective, loving member of our family. Although I would like her to be a bit calmer, she is still very puppy and seems to always be ready to play. She still sleeps in her crate every night and is in the crate during the day if we are at work. She loves her crate!

We still have to watch what we leave around since she thinks that everything is hers. Oh and I forgot to mention that we think that she has a foot fetish! The second we take off our shoes and socks, she will lick our feet continuously if we let her. Strange, huh?

The invisable fence has worked great! We still put the collar on her when she is outside, but she knows exactly where her boundries are and stays clear of them. There have been times when people will walk by with their dogs and Miss Greta will stay behind her boundry line and just sit and  bark at them. Our last shephard, Baron, would bust right through if he spotted another dog.  We do have a long lead for her outside, which has been used only once or twice. We rarely use it as she is a definate “hole digger” if left unattended. Well, actually she will start digging right in front of us while she is out running free. If left to her own desires, she would dig a hole clear to China! So once the snow falls, we will let her dig all she wants in the snow. No harm there!

Well, that’s the update. I will try to get some pictures up here on her blog so you can see what a beauty she is.

Until the next time……………

Greta 4/28/2007

First I’ll start out with some new pictures of Miss Greta that I took today.’

And now a picture of “Ren” our male Chihuahua…that’s another whole story.

Ok so there you have it…our 2 dogs. Ren is our 11 year old male Chihuahua. I acquired him from my son. It was originally his while he was still living at home. So Ren and I kind of got attached. He slept with me every night. Chihuahua’s are a one person dog and I guess I’m it. For example, Ren is good with my husband as well, until he tries to kiss me good night. Then we are greatful he truly isn’t a Great Dane, cause he sounds mighty vicious!

 He is truly so sweet. Not the typical Chihuahua. Even the vet is impressed with his disposition. But don’t get me wrong…Ren still thinks he’s a Great Dane! He can hold his own although we do NOT put Greta and Ren together. Greta is so incredibly active and rough as she is still only almost 7months old. And Ren is just an old man!!

Back in the fall of the year, Ren threw his neck out of place and was in quite a bit of pain. It was around the same time that Baron, our male shepherd was put down. So we were distraught, needless to say. We would have to give him water with a teaspoon since he really couldn’t move. So with that being said, we don’t want a repeat of that.Not only to watch the poor dog suffer, but to have all of those vet bills again.

Back to Greta….she is doing great. I never laughed so hard as I so with this dog. She has the funniest personality. No matter what you are doing..she’s gotta be there. If I am doing something at the sink in the kitchen, she has both front paws up on the counter watching every move. However, the other morning, when I went to take her out of her crate, she took her nice bed and shredded it. There was poly fill EVERYWHERE! And she just looked at me with her head tilted, looking cute as if she should be praised!!

 We still feed her Eagle Pack but now mix it with cooked ground turkey, brown rice and cottage cheese. We will soon be adding carrots into the mix as well. She is just growing up to be ‘stunning’. Her coat is magnificient! Now all we have to do is get her to listen!!! She is like your typical 2 year old child!

Well, I’ll continue to take more pictures and update you with her progress. So, till next time….