New Toys!

I've realized that Maya is like most puppies, meaning she's like a little kid.  And like little kids, she loves getting new toys.  I took her for a haircut a couple of days ago, and unfortunately, I didn't realize until late that night that her ears were lopsided.  :/  I was not happy about having to go back the next day, and she was even less thrilled.  She hates going to the groomer, but I figured a new toy might make it better.  So while I waited for them to finish up evening her out, I decided to take a look around the store.

I've been thinking about getting Maya something new for a while now, but I hadn't decided what.  She already has balls and ropes and other random stuff, and I can't give her any stuffed toys because she tears them open and eats the stuffing.  And that when I stumbled upon the stuffless stuffed animals.  They had the cutest little fox, and I just knew Maya would love it.  I went ahead and got it for her, and I was right, she LOVED it.  In fact, once we got it home, she didn't put it down for almost 2 hours!!  She "hunted" it, dragged it around the house, chewed it up, tried to shake the stuffing out of it (someone beat her to that one!), and everything else dogs do to their toys.  Then she comforted it.  :)

Look what I caught!!

Please be ok! Please be ok! Please be ok!

CPR Puppy

Since moving to this part of Texas, I have discovered a new breed of flies.  Just think of a regular housefly on steroids.  I was kind of hoping the cold had killed them all off, but alas, no -- one magically appeared in my bathroom this morning.

Like most people (or at least most people I know), I don't have a flyswatter.  So what does a girl do when she needs a flyswatter and there's not one to be found?  She grabs the nearest article of clothing from the top of the hamper.  In my case, a pair of shorts.  After too many swings and misses, the fly finally hit the ground.

As it was lying dead (I thought) on its back, I went to find something to pick it up with.  That's when Maya decided to investigate.  I assume she thought it might be a good toy.  She sniffed it, maybe licked it, definitely pawed at it.  I walked in just in time to see her flip it back onto its legs with her paw, at which point it flew away again. 

I eventually managed to hit it again with the shorts and get it in the trash, but somebody should teach Maya that CPR should be saved for animals that fall into the cute-and-cuddly categories, which most definitely does not include bugs.

New Clothes

Maya really needed a haircut, so she went to the groomer yesterday.  One of my pet peeves is dogs with bows and clothes, especially on my dog.  The clothes can't be comfortable, and I'm pretty sure she would eat the bows.  So yesterday, I asked them not to put any bows on Maya, and they didn't.  However, they did put a little bandana on her, and she looked so cute!!  Here's a pic:

 

I decided to keep the bandana on her until her next bath next week.  Well, Maya had other ideas.  This was the last picture of her I got with the bandana on.  By 11:00 am the following morning (today), this is what she looked like:

Apparently, the bandana is now one of Maya's new chew toys.  I tried to get it back on her, but she wanted no part of that.  Oh well.

Scary Box

I finally tired of having Maya's toys all over the living room and constantly tripping on them, so I made her a toy box.  Nothing exciting, just a cardboard box that I put her toys into like this:

 

Now here's the funny part -- Maya is scared of the box!  I first had the box lying flat, but realized that she couldn't get her toys out.  So I decided to lean it against the wall.  The only problem with this is that it moves when she tries to grab a toy, and that's what scares her.  I'm not sure, but I think she thinks it's trying to attack her.  

So what does she do if she wants one of the toys?  She slowly sneaks up on the box, the quickly tries to snatch it out of the box before it attacks her.  She usually doesn't get it, but manages to move it closer to the edge.  She repeats this until the toy is free from the clutches of the evil box.  If she can't get the toy, like if it's at the bottom or the box keeps moving, she'll finally give up and bark at it until I come help her. 

It's cute, but this whole toy box thing isn't working like I imagined.  At least she no longer feels like she has to rescue all her toys from the box as soon as I put them in there.  I think once she's not scared of it anymore I'll try to teach her to put her toys in there on her own.....

Attack of the Killer Leash

One of Maya's favorite toys is actually her leash.  She loves to roll around on the ground with it, chew on it, drag it around.  No matter what she's doing, she will eventually get all tangled up in it and it ends up looking like they were wrestling.  Sometimes she wins, sometimes the leash wins.  Here's sample of a wrestling match from a few weeks ago:

Trustworthy Puppy?

When I first got Maya, I put her in her kennel whenever I couldn't keep my eyes on her, even if it was just going to be for 5 minutes.  Little by little, as she earned some trust, I've started leaving her out.

I no longer put her in her kennel when taking a shower, but I leave her outside the bathroom.  At first, she would cry at the door until I finished and came out.  She doesn't cry anymore, but she's always at the door when I close it, and waiting at the door when I get out.  I've never been quite sure what she does for those 20 minutes, but I guess a part of me figured she waited outside the door.  Well, today this is what I had waiting for me when I stepped out of the bathroom:

   

So apparently she does not sit at the door and wait for me.  At least she's entertaining herself.

Lost Tags

Maya new favorite chew toys seem to be her tags.  They seem to hang at just the right spot for her to grab a hold of them.  She struggles a bit to get them into her mouth, but once they're there, she won't let them go.  And little by little, she's been stretching the ring they're hanging on.

Last night, she finally pulled a little too much.  We were out for a walk when she took of running, and the leash came right off her collar.  Luckily we were still inside the complex, so I didn't have to worry about her running out into traffic.  Unfortunately, it also meant the ring where I attach the leash (and her tags) was broken.  And her tags were missing.

We (and by "we," I mean "me") spent about 10 minutes looking for her tags.  Retracing our steps wasn't hard, but those suckers don't glow in the dark!  I eventually found them and immediately decided that I needed a smaller ring to attach them with so she couldn't get them in her mouth.  We'll see how long this one lasts.

Bye Bye Toy

Looks like I'm going to have to throw away Maya's favorite toy.  I barely gave it back to her and she's already chewed through it again!  I don't think I can fix it this time, so it might be time for the trash.  Oh well.  She has others to keep her happy and busy.  

She Barked at Me!

For the first time ever, Maya barked at me!!  It wasn't like when I put her in her kennel and she wants out; she actually barked at me!!

This past weekend, Maya ripped through her favorite stuffed toy.  Since I've had adventures with dogs eating stuffing and getting sick, I decided not to take any chances and took it away from her until I had a chance to fix it.  Well, today I had time.  I grabbed the toy of the ledge (where she couldn't see it), and grabbed a needle and thread.

As soon as she saw the toy, she started jumping on me and trying to get at it.  I tried telling her "down," but she seemed to have "forgotten" what that means.  I kept nudging her down, but she just kept jumping back on me.  I just kept having to turn away from her.  She wasn't cooperating, so it took me forever to get it done.

When I finally finished, I gave it to her and she took off running with it in her mouth.  For the next hour, she wouldn't drop it, scared that someone (me) was going to take it away again.  At one point, she walked up to her water bowl, looked down at, and walked away.  It was like she was trying to figure out how to drink without dropping the toy.  Apparently keeping a hold of the toy was more important than drinking water.