Jumping Back Into the Blogosphere... BARK WORLD or BUST!

So I've been dying to go to Bark World in Atlanta (only 3 hours by car for me) for 3 years now (holy dog, has it really been that long?!). This year I'm finally going to make it (unfortunately sans Olivia, but that may be for the best, it's sometimes hard to get everything you want done when you have a 'toddler' with you. Although I will miss her!)


So yeah, I'm jumping back into the blogosphere head first. I'm hoping to gain new insight and inspiration for future projects, having to do with this blog and otherwise. I'll be the first to admit that I'm very easily side tracked.

I can't wait to go to my first blogging conference ever!!!

Wordless Wednesday: Olivia and her Donut [Video]

Funny Holiday Video

I found this on Facebook and thought it was pretty cute/funny! I wish our Christmas Eve dinner guests were going to be this cute!

Thinking About My Christmas List

With Christmas fast approaching, I've been doing a lot of Christmas shopping. I keep threatening Olivia that she will have coal in her stocking on Christmas morning because she's been rather naughty. We live in a neighborhood of horse farms and we have 13 acres of our own that Olivia loves to play on. But she and my parent'd dog, Fern Louise have gotten in a horrible habit of chasing squirrels. That in itself isn't bad, it's the ear splitting barking that causes us a problem. My mom is worried about upsetting the neighbors (even though they all have barking dogs as well). Fern Louise will come when my dad goes out to tell her she's being bad. But Olivia.... she won't make eye contact, and then she turns and runs away. You could ( and we have) easily spend an hour trying to catch her. She's just so darn stubborn. And this is why I keep telling her she won't be getting anything but coal for Christmas.

But there's one thing I'd love to get her (okay, I'd enjoy it way more than she would). The GoPro Fetch camera mount. It's GoPro's dog harness that has two camera mounts, one on the chest and one on the back. It looks so cool, and I already have the GoPro (it was my Christmas present last year). I jsut love tech-y toys, especially when there is a dog spin on them! Check out the promo video below and let me know what you think!

(And let's be honest, even with all the talk of not buying Olivia anything for Christmas... there will be many gifts under the tree with a "To Olivia, Love Mommy" tag loving taped to it. I can't stay mad at that adorable squishy face for any amount of time.)

Dogs as Disney Characters-- Too Cute!!

A blog called Oh My Disney posted this adorable video of dogs dressed as Disney characters. I may have actually squealed aloud when I saw this.

Holiday Family Portrait Day, By Olivia

For today's post I'm going to try something I've never don before. 'm going to let Olivia take the wheel... er, rather keyboard. She has a lot to say about today's outing.


Olivia here! Today started out like any other day. Mommy's alarm went off and then I helped Mommy wake up Daddy (she poked him and I stepped on his head. We make a great team). Daddy put my coat on and i went out to... take care of business. Then I came in and had a lovely breakfast before we went out and took care of those very large, very delicious smelling, funny looking dogs that Mommy calls "horses". Mommy told me that she had to make herself beautiful for the portrait but that since I am already beautiful (duh) there wasn't much to do to me.

I sat in my dog bed in the bathroom and watched as Daddy shaved off all the whiskers on his face (Mommy told him to). This always amazes me. Doesn't he realize how important those whiskers are? Mommy got all pretty and then she said it was my turn. My turn? She came at me with a dress. And she stuffed me into it. She called it my Christmas dress. I don't think I really like my Christmas dress but my Mommy, and my Granny made a big fuss over me when I was wearing it, so maybe it's not so  bad.

Mommy, Daddy, and I got in the car and I didn't realize until then that Mommy had also brought my sissy (Harley the cat)! Harley screamed the whole way to the store where we sat for a nice man who had bright light bulbs that flashed. Apparently this was what Mommy called the portrait. I love going to that store. I always get lots of home made cookies and everything smells so good in there!

After the portrait we walked around what Mommy calls "Downtown. Sissy was in her carrier bag and nobody even realized she was there. We went in a few stores and Mommy showed me off to the people she knows through her work. Then we sat outside at a cafe and Mommy and Daddy had breakfast. I got to sit on a chair at the table because Mommy says I'm well behaved.

I watched some little birds while Mommy and Daddy had
breakfast. Sissy is in that zebra bag.

There were two big English Bulldogs waiting for their person who was inside eating and everyone who passed made a big fuss over them.

It was a fun day, aside from the Christmas dress, and I always like getting to go out places with my Mommy and Daddy.

Mommy is excited to get something called proofs early next week. all I know is I'm exhausted from looking so cute all day!


Do your parents dress you guys up and take you for portraits?

Boston Terriers Go To Horse Shoe Falls

The latest Boston Terrier meet-up we went to was almost two hours away and at Horse Shoe Falls. It's a park that has... you guessed it.... water falls. We took the pups to play in the water (the rivers around the falls) and a good time was had by all! After Olivia's big swimming adventure at the dog park pool she seemed a little braver about the water at the falls but wasn't as enthusiastic as she was at the dog park. The water at the falls was quite cold though, and I wonder if that was a factor.

Q: What do you call a group of Bostons?
A: An army of gremlins!

Teaching How to Jump Through a Hula Hoop

As a lot of you know Olivia and I are working on her riding a skateboard. Right now, though, I'm a little bit stuck on it because the ground is so flat so she doesn't have a hill to naturally help propel her and encourage her to pull her other feet up on the board and really ride it.

In the mean time while I find a solution to that problem, I'm thinking I'd like to teach Olivia to jump through a hula hoop! She naturally enjoys jumping over things in her way and I think she and i could have a lot of fun with it! I found this great video on how to teach the trick and I'm going to try to buy one at Target tonight :)

I'll keep you guys posted on our progress!!

Here's the video I found with the steps I plan on using:

The Boston Terrier Take Over... AKA: We Found a Boston Terrier Club!

I had considered starting up one of my own, but through Facebook I learned that someone else had the same idea of starting up a local Boston Terrier Club! How excited was I! The first meet-up was Saturday 2/8 at a free dog park. I think maybe 20 Bostons showed up, and it was really fun to see all those little black and white snorters in one place. There was even a 12 week old puppy! The Bostons were in all shapes and sizes.

One of the funniest things was watching normal patrons of the park arrive and be completely in shock by the Boston Terrier Take Over.

"Is it Boston Terrier day? Was this planned?" They all asked. Yes, yes it was.

The next meet-up is March 1 and Olivia will definitely be there!

In the photos, Olivia is the one with the black mesh harness.

This little girl's name is Chloe,
and she loved playing ball

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.

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

New Trick... WAVE!

So I mentioned that Olivia learned Wave at her petsmart class yesterday, and today I taught it to Fern, too. I made a little video!

Another Fun Day

Yesterday I spent my morning like I bet most people are these last few days leading up to Christmas. I was shopping. For my mom. My mom has accumulated a lot of knick knacks over the 30-40 years and I'm sure a lot of them are gifts I picked for her. This year I wanted to give her something she would actually use and enjoy and was having a hard time. I ended up getting her software for her one sewing machine (she loves to sew). But after witnessing some truly spectacular grid-lock and the best *cough* sarcasm *cough* driving I've ever seen, I was ready to unwind. That morning I'd promised to take Olivia to the park and I planned to make good on that promise.

I went home to get her and headed back out to town. I'm not sure our walk was relaxing... Olivia was trotting along cheerfully which forced me to power walk, but we had fun together. She found a stick (she loves sticks) and really enjoyed sniffing out all the smells. I had a good time watching her enjoy the park so much. This all caused me to come up with an early New Year's Resolution:

To take Olivia out for walks at the park, etc. more often.

It's not something I really think of because Olivia and Fern get so much exercise running around our farm. Unlike a lot of dog owners, I can just open the back door and let them run free instead of having to walk them every time they have to go potty. But it's not about exercise. It's about spending time with my little Olivia, putting the phone away (except to take photos), and enjoying being outside playing together.

After the park we headed to Petsmart to make up the first two classes of the Advanced class that we missed. Olivia's trainer was so excited to see her, and Olivia was excited to see Debra as well! We worked on sitting when meeting a friendly stranger, loose leash walking going into heel, waving, and touch. We go back on Friday for week three and Olivia FINALLY will get to meet her classmates.

happy to be back in class

Last night after we got home and took care of the horses my parents, Olivia, and I (Brian's in NJ for work) went to the local five star hotel for the Christmas caroling party (they allow well behaved dogs in the hotel bar/lobby/lounge). Olivia wore her Christmas dress and got to have her photo taken (again) with Santa. Everyone fawned over her and everyone wanted to tell me how their sister's boyfriend's great aunt's nephew's uncle has/had/is getting a Boston. It's so funny to me that it seems every where I go with Olivia some stranger(s) comes up to me to tell me about their experience with Bostons (or sometimes with Frenchies). We had a great time, although my arms did hurt a bit from holding Olivia all night. There were a lot of people and I didn't want to risk her getting stepped on but she was also tired. Olivia weighs a whopping 15.8 lbs now!

Wordless Wednesday: Gift Wrapping Edition

"I'm gonna play with my bottle
cruncher fox on top of this book
that you're trying to wrap"

"here, wrap my fox"

"let me help you with this
wrapping paper"

Olivia Loves Her Friends

My riding instructor has three dogs (one of which is an adult Boston) that she brings with her when she comes to give me my riding lessons. Olivia loves playing with them, especially Princess (the Boston). I was able to snap these pix of them playing together yesterday and it just makes me laugh! How anyone can't enjoy animals is beyond me.