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Thursday, January 30, 2014

Olivia Saw Snow!

It rarely snows in SC so when it does... it's kinda a big deal.

I'm from NJ, so the 1 1/4 inches we received yesterday was enough to be exciting and fun but certainly not "crippling as it was being described as. The great blizzard of 2014 it's being called by some people.

Olivia had never seen snow. She was a bit confused. She did think it tasted good, apparently. She'd stand eating snow off the lawn while holding up her back legs in turn. It was really cute. She did start snorting more than usual when she was breathing which I took as a sign that she was a little bit chilly.





if you look closely you can see her little
pink tongue sticking out of her mouth as
 she licks snow off her nose.






Thoughtless ThursdayBy Ruckus the Eskie and co-host Love is being owned by a Husky 

Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Olivia's Elon/Greensboro NC Adventure (Long Post)

Over Christmas Brian's crown got ripped off his tooth by a gummy worm. I felt bad for him but I could see no way this would have to involve me, unless I had to drive him locally to a Dr.'s appointment.

Well, as it turns out, I did have to go with him to an appointment for his tooth. Four. Hours. Away. UGH.

Brian and I met at college his Sr. year/my Jr. year. That first spring we were dating Brian needed a crown and a root canal. Both appointments were less than five minutes from either of our apartments and I would go shopping or sit at Starbucks and do homework. No biggie.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago. Brian went to a dentist here in town, he had to take a half day of work to go. They told him his crown removed a filling and so that also had to be replaced as well as a new crown made and attached. The bill was somewhere around $1500.00. Ouch. The local dentist suggested he call the dentist who did the crown, the dentist four hours away at school. So Brian called and the dentist said the crown was under warranty but the filling was there and not his so that would have to be something Brian was charged for. Brian decided that a trip to school was a better option and an appointment was made. Which brings us to yesterday.

My best friend is finishing her Sr. year so I made plans to hang out with her around campus while Brian got his filling done and his crown mold made. We brought Olivia along for the trip as well. (Good thing my mom reminded me to pack her dinner.)

Olivia is always happy to be included

We made it up to school, got Brian's prescription for a sedative, and ate lunch at Panera Bread (my favorite and there isn't one close to our house). Olivia enjoyed getting little pieces of sourdough bread for doing tricks while we ate outside.

Olivia got her own chair
After Panera we visited a local pet store (not the type that actually sells pets other than birds and small rodent-like pets). Olivia was mesmerized by some small active birds in a low cage, I had to tell Brian to drag her away from them because I wasn't sure she wouldn't try to get at them. We bought some healthy dog treats and then I took Brian to the dentist and met up with my best friend.

Olivia got to visit campus where here
Mommy and Daddy met


I got a call not thirty minutes later that Brian didn't need a filling but actually a root canal and we had to drive thirty minutes to a specialist to have it done. Right Now. So Olivia and I hopped back in the car, got Brian and sped off to Greensboro. My friend's parting response to my "what the heck am I going to do in Greensboro with a dog?!" was to look up a free dog park she'd heard of.

Brian was quite goofy by this point from the sedative and while he gave me directions to the Dr. I had him also look up the dog park and text me the address. I dropped him off on time, found the park that the dog park was supposedly some where within, and saw no dog park. I parked, grabbed Olivia, her "baby" bag, and set off down the path. I figured if nothing else we could go for a nice walk.


I would like to say the park was great. But i'm not sure I can. For certain there were a lot of people enjoying the nice day with dogs, with children, with friends, with spouses. But my main annoyance was the amount of dog poop everywhere. Even within feet of signs that asked owners to pick up after their pet along with a dispenser of poop bags. One person had bagged their dog's poop and had simply left the tied off bag on the ground. How is that helpful? And it wasn't just a few piles. They were EVERYWHERE. 

After walking almost the full length of the hilly track we finally found the off-leash dog park. Yay! There were even dogs there playing. I have to say I'm a little wary of these sorts of situations, the dogs and people being strangers and all, but all the dogs were on the smaller size and all playing really well together. The owners were playing with the dogs, not just sitting around texting or ignoring their pets and I liked that too. So in we went and I took Olivia's leash off and she trotted off. Only, she was more interested in the people than the dogs haha. Every time a dog would come say hi she would let them and then run back to me like "is this ok? am I ok?" Just as Olivia was beginning to "get" the dog park atmosphere and dynamics, her new found friends began trickling out with their owners, leaving just the two of us. We took this opportunity to play fetch with the muddy balls that had been left behind. 

The park had its rules clearly and visibly stated 




There was more than one chain link enclosure and a girl and her large mix breed went into the other pen and we're playing fetch too. Then an older woman arrived and terror struck. The older woman had her own Pomeranian as well as her disabled neighbor's small white fluffy dog. She obviously saw Olivia and I (we made eye contact) but she still chose to bring her two small dogs in with the big dog oppose with Olivia and I. I can't for the life of me figure that out, if I were her I would have put my small dogs with the other small dog. 

The older woman asked the girl if her dog was friendly, "yes". So the woman and the two small dogs entered the pen. The other girl leashed her dog while they came in. The older woman explained the white one was her neighbor's and he could be a little aggressive (why bring him to a dog park then?!?!) but that the Pom, her own dog, was friendly. The bigger dog sorta dragged his girl to the aggressive one, wanting to play and got snapped at. This happened more than once... and then.. .the big dog grabbed the small one and thrashed him like he was a stuffed animal. The girl started screaming at her dog and pulling on the back of her head trying to get her to release the small dog from her jaws. The older woman was pulling on the little dog. The two human were screaming and crying and Olivia ran then fence line barking while I looked on with horror. 

What scared me most was the little one being thrashed made no noise, and I thought the big dog had him by the throat (luckily it was his shoulder instead) and I was certain he was dead. It seemed like a long time passed, but it was only a few minutes, I'm sure, and the big dog released the small one who scampered away, alive and bleeding. 

At this point, knowing the out come of the situation, I put Olivia on her leash and packed our belongings and booked it out of there. But not before hearing this exchange:

Older woman: "I need your information. I have to take him to the vet"

Girl: "Yes, of course, oh my God. My dog has never attacked any other dog"

Older woman: "Well she certainly has now"

It was a frightening thing to witness, and I wondered if the big dog's owner had picked the pen Olivia and I were in if Olivia would have been the one harmed. This was exactly the sort of thing I had been worried/nervous about when first assessing the dog park upon arrival. It ended as well as it could have, and for the most part Olivia and I enjoyed our time (it was good for Olivia to run around out of the car) at the park. But I'm not sure we will be going to any other dog parks any time soon.

Brian's dental work finished up, we got dinner with my best friend, and we headed home. Olivia was exhausted from her long day... and so was I.

Friday, January 17, 2014

An Olivia Bracelet

If you look back a few posts you will find the one where I was excited about making a clay bead that was a Boston Terrier face. I've since made a whole lot more and I turned one of them into this bracelet! I bought the other beads at Hobby Lobby and strung them all together on a stretchy cord. Hopefully this with be one of the items available on my future Etsy store! Everyone should watch out for that post when I finally have an inventory and open up shop :) I'm hoping to maybe even be able to donate some of the earnings I make in my Etsy store to a Boston Terrier rescue.


I'm A Boston!

I found this really cute shirt for Olivia on Etsy in the Clevotine shop. I love their stuff, it's all Boston Terrier related and now their even making stuff for dogs too! I have their pink v-neck and I wear it all the time (including when I picked Olivia out of her litter-mate and as well as when we picked her up two weeks later) and now Olivia has her own Clevotine shirt! It says "I'm a Boston Terrier, Not a French Bull Dog" on it which is really quite appropriate because I get asked that question all the time. "Is she... a... a... French... uh..." "She's a Boston" "Oh. Right." I'm really glad the people at Clevotine wrote that the dog shirts run small, I ended up getting Olivia a large and it fits perfect :)








Monday, January 13, 2014

Olivia makes a movie

.... sort of. I attached my new GoPro camera that I got as a Christmas gift from my parents, that I wanted so I could wear it on my helmet when I compete on my horse, to Olivia's every day harness with some clip-type mount that came with the camera that I have no idea what its real purpose is.

It worked pretty okay attached to her back but seeing as the clip went on sorta side ways-ish it fell off when she shook the second time (which was after she also slammed the camera on the bottom of three chairs. Thank God for the heavy duty case thing the GoPro mounts with). When we attached it to her chest the clip could probably still come off but seeing as it didn't get shoved upwards it stayed in place (it went on her harness for the chest like a paper clip goes on paper, directionally).

Mostly I did it because I thought it would be funny/fun to see things from Olivia's POV, but also because a family friend said she really would like to see a video from my new camera made by Olivia. She told me about a Kurgo harness that has a mount on it, and it looked really cool, but it got such bad reviews I didn't feel like spending $35 to form my own opinion. So I looked through what I already had and found the clip.

We enjoyed seeing Olivia's perspective and I want to try it more when she doesn't feel it's time for her to go to bed (we went on a 2 mile walk today at the park, so the tiredness is warranted), possibly outside? My dad's worried the GoPro will get broken, but its case seems pretty solid and it's even water proof so I'm not too concerned lol.

On a side note, Olivia got weighed today and she's 18.7 lbs now. I wanted a small Boston... but oh well she is what she is and I love her the same no matter what!

Here's the video (I'm not sure why the quality came out so bad... it looked so much better in iMovie on my computer :/ )




Saturday, January 11, 2014

Olivia Graduated [AGAIN]!

Olivia has officially graduated from all the classes that Petsmart has to offer us. Yay, Livie!

She doesn't do everything perfectly, but I now have the tools and know how to continue working with her. I hope to take her to some sort of agility class next, however, she does seem to be entering into her teenage stage and she is being a little bit rebellious and totally dislikes and tries to avoid any form of control over her. Debra, our Petsmart trainer, tells me this should pass around Olivia's second birthday. Wonderful. Just one year, four months to go then! *rolls eyes*

Olivia graduated last night with a very feisty little Schnauzer named Sophie and a big eight month old Doberman named Harvey. Harvey doesn't have small dog siblings and find their small size to be a bit unnerving it seems. But Harvey seems to have taken a liking to Olivia and the two actually played a bit last night.

Mommy's little graduate :)

the graduates together (L->R: Harvey, Olivia, and Sophie)

Olivia and Harvey playing together

Friday, January 10, 2014

Look what I made!

So I've been slacking in the blog department... oops :/

But today I made this:


I made it out of Sculpey clay (black and white) that I bought at Hobby Lobby and used a small Black and Decker toaster oven that I got for cheap to bake it (apparently you're not supposed to bake this sorta stuff in an oven you cook food in). 



I'm really happy with how this turned out. (The black "spot" is actually a hole so I can make it into a necklace). I'm hoping to add this to the line of handmade goods my mom and I want to start making and selling together. This could be made without the hole so it could be a pin.. or made smaller to be made into earrings. This ended up being pretty large, I think in the future I may scale it down a bit, but I'm still totally thrilled with how it turned out!

Everyone should definitely keep an eye out for the opening of my future Etsy shop!


Thursday, January 2, 2014

New Year... New Ideas

I see it all over. Facebook, mostly. Breed specific activity groups. The closest Boston Terrier group/club to me is in Charlotte, NC which is two hours away. So if I wanted/could attend one of their meets (which look like fun!) It would be at least 4 hours in driving plus however long the activity lasted. That would be a long day, not to mention I have other four legged critters here at home that need care (horses). I'd really like to start up my own Boston Terrier group for people in my more direct area. But I'm not sure I'd know how to go about that. But I'm thinking I'll look into it!

Anybody have any tips for me?