Happy Birthday!

It's Maggie's 5th birthday (2nd year with us)! Today, well, we got a lot of snow so we didn't take her to "school". After work though we took her over to a nearby park and let her run in the snow. She loooves the snow - at least she loves the snow when it's coming down and she can run in it - she loves it less when it's a foot high and she has no where to poop.

We got her a jumbo "Happy Birthday" cookie from Kriser's. These cookies, from "Lazy Bones" are her new favorite treat, she goes crazy for them.

Looking back at last year's birthday blog entry, I wrote, "Maggie has come a long way and hopefully a year from now we're writing about how much she's changed in '09. We can't wait for the weather to turn and get her back out to the beach and the parks."

She has changed so much, even just this past weekend (more on that later). She's so much more confident when we're outside, her tail is always up and often wagging, and she starts to have fun and play at parks right away instead of taking an hour to think about it. After days at "school" she literally will drag us around the block at a dead sprint she's so jacked up.

This weekend we took her to the park, which was a little muddier than we expected since the sun was out and had melted the snow/ice. She was running around like a crazy girl and then grabbed a stick with her mouth and started running around with it. Then she'd drop it, go back and get it, toss her head around with it, flip it in the air - all like, well, a normal dog. Sometimes when she'd drop it we'd pick it up, toss it back in her general direction and she'd pick it back up and start her sprints again. She has never picked up anything like that or run around with anything in her mouth. She was so excited that she'd just discovered this new ability. Maybe she was too excited. No joke, she could barely walk for 2 days because she was so sore from running her butt off around the park with that stick.

Maybe the best compliment we've gotten and the biggest indicator of how much Maggie has changed is that on two occassions over the past two months, we've been asked "Is she a puppy?". We always used to get, "What's wrong with your dog?" or "What's your dog's story?". It's just so great to see her start to become a normal dog and discover her "dog powers", she really has a playful spirit that makes us laugh every day.

Of course, the last sentence of last year's blog, "We can't wait for the weather to turn and get her back out to the beach and the parks" will always be true. She loves the snow but we all would rather run on the beach!

We can't wait to see how much our girl changes and grows in 2010 - and we can't wait to take her to the beach!

Let it snow...

When it's not too cold, Maggie likes the snow - especially when it involves running with her mom. Here's a video of her at a nearby park and a few photos.

Florida!

We're back in the cold and snow now, but we spent Christmas and the New Year in Florida with my parents in The Villages. Since it's on the blog, you know Maggie went with us... which, of course, means we drove down there from Chicago.

The first question we're asked (maybe the second, after "You're DRIVING?!") is "How will Maggie do in the car?". Let's see... Maggie loves being with her mom and dad - the car puts her about 2 feet from both of us; she loves her bed, which fills up the entire backseat; and she just in general loves the car anyway. So 17+ hours each way is really heaven for Maggie. I think if we drove to the southern tip of Chile, Maggie would be OK with that.

I'll break down some of the highlights:

Maggie @ the grandparents
This first picture is from the day we arrived. Maggie was so tired (from what, we're not sure) she fell asleep with her face in her food bowl... snoring. This was the first new thing.










This photo is Maggie and I both taking a nap out on the lanai after another rough Florida day.














Maggie decided to prove us wrong at every turn and exhibit behaviors that she doesn't show at home. We've talked about how Maggie is always in her bed here and doesn't wander the house. Not necessarily true at the grandparents (and like good grandparents, they encouraged her "bad" behavior). We'd leave the house with her in her bed, and find her in "her spot". Her spot over the duration of the trip was a corner by the fireplace\tv and at her back was an army of a dozen teddy bears to stand guard. No matter where else we wanted her to go, all she really wanted to do was sit by the bears.

On one outing we'd left her in her bed in the guest bedroom. We came back to find her on the floor, surrounded by confetti. It turns out, Maggie decided to get into a bag on the floor, take out the plastic box containing two doggie Christmas cookies, and devour them. Granted, these Christmas cookies are one of her favorite treats in the world and we left it on the floor about 8 feet from her bed... but Maggie just doesn't do that! Well, she didn't do that. The treat bag was subsequently relocated.

Maggie liked the lanai, as long as someone else was out there with her. Maggie just doesn't like laying outside without someone else with her - at least that's consistent between Chicago and Florida.

Golf Cart
One thing we both looked forward to was Maggie in the golf cart. Like most things, Maggie didn't like it at first (at one point she tried to jump out at about 20mph, but her mom was having none of that) but by her third trip she decided it was pretty cool.

Sophie

Maggie made a new friend, Sophie. We drove (in the golf cart) over to Ron and Penny's house to meet their new family member. Sophie is a little bundle of energy who would wear out even the Energizer bunny. Maggie doesn't always love smaller dogs, but Sophie was very polite (especially given it was her house) and made Maggie feel right at home. Here's a few shots of the adorable duo.

Dog Park
There was a dog park just about a 5 minute drive from the house. It was a nice, HUGE park, especially by Chicago standards. And had one thing Chicago parks just don't have - grass. Maggie had a blast there, and her grandparents got to see that she really does run and play - after seeing her lay around for a few days I think they were skeptical.

The Drive
As we mentioned, she loved the drive... here are a few photos of the happy girl.

"Are we there yet?"

We got Maggie a new toy today at Beach Tails. Maggie loves anything with strings and we saw this guy, made out of string. We've named him Brutus.

We told Maggie to keep Brutus out of her bowls though, as Brutus has a history of being a choking hazard when in a Bowl.

She's really kicked his butt tonight, so we think he's a big hit.

Maggie had a great day today up in Michigan, with some major running at the park. She no longer requires an hour of warm up time before she can let loose at the park - but she does still require us to run to get her to run.


Here are some photos of Maggie from Halloween. The first is at home and the other is the official glamour-shot they took at "school".

PAWS 4k Walk II

This morning we did the PAWS 4k walk for the second year. Maggie did great. She was much less nervous than last year and seemed to actually enjoy it. The walk is along the lakefront. Montrose Beach is her absolute favorite place in the world to go, so we went there after we finished the walk. We've posted some pics from the walk, the beach and a video from today. To explain the video - At the beach, Maggie will run with us and she does this thing where if Kat stops at the end of the run and outstretches her arms, Maggie will run 3-5 crazy fast laps around her. She did it today, but by the time I got the video camera ready she'd done a few laps with us already and I think was pooped on this one. I'll get a better video next time, but for now this is what we've got of her running at the beach...

Ok, it's been waaaay too long since we've posted and we've had a few people "hounding" us to update the blog (sorry, couldn't resist) so here goes -

Where to start? Maggie has had a great summer, but before we get to that - Maggie was recently highlighted as the "Dog of the Month" at her day care. We think her qualification for this is simply that she's the most adorable dog ever. ;) Here's the story and really great photo from the newsletter.



Maggie really loves day care and has a great time there. The best part is picking her up, you just wouldn't recognize her - tail wagging, jumping, and she won't hesitate to jump over other dogs if it helps her get to us faster. It's really great to see.


She has changed so much since this time last year. She is much less jumpy and now when we run into people on the street or in the parks, one of the first things out of their mouth is no longer "what's her story?". After "What kind of dog is she?" the next most frequent now is "how old is she?" because although she's more "normal" she is pretty subdued so everyone assumes that she's an older dog... until we get her worked up into doing sprints, then no one can believe how fast she is. At the parks she still doesn't play with the other dogs, but gets really fired up if we run with her so we end up running a lot. Of course this works better when there aren't other dogs there trying to tackle us. The best part really is that when we look at her, we see a genuinely happy and much more confident dog - her head is up, her tail is up and she has her big toothy grin.



Maggie went through basic obedience training this summer at Collins Canine and did really well. In the first couple classes Maggie was pretty unsure about it, but once she became more comfortable in that environment she started getting the concept and learning quickly. She now sits and lays down on command pretty much 100% of the time. She got lots of extra practice with those since we didn't realy have to participate in the "leave it" and "no jumping" lessons. One classic Maggie moment happened during a very basic intro to the agility training equipment. There is a tunnel that the dogs are supposed to run through. Maggie of course saw this as the perfect den - she went in, lay down and refused to leave. No amount of coaxing, pushing and pulling would get her out. We eventually lifted one end of the tunnel until she had to slide out the front.

There's more to tell, so we'll post more soon!

It's been awhile since we've posted. There wasn't really a lot to write about, but the past few weeks we've seen some noteworthy changes in Mags.

Over the past 2 months, we've started working with Maggie on "Come here". She had this down to come over the couch, but at that point "Come here" only meant "go to the couch" - even if we were standing somewhere else in the house, if called, she'd go to the couch.

We started by using Kraft Singles - Maggie's favorite all-time treat - and using the leash in the house to get her to come to us. We then progressed to not using the leash and trying to get her to come. She's finicky about her reward for doing this and will only take cheese. If we try and use anything else she'll just refuse it. She's so spoiled.

We were making some OK progress with this, and then we went on vacation for a week.

Grandma Lela was kind enough to take care of Maggie while we were gone - and sent us daily email updates, assuring us that she was doing OK. It was really hard to leave her, but she was her usual good self and got to go on lots of walks with grandma.

When we went to pick her up, after 8 days, Maggie had the expected reaction - nothing. No tail wag, no spinning around in circles... just "the look". When we got home though she showed some excitement - she wanted to run when we took her on her walk that night, which she normally only does after a day at "school".

Since we've been back, Maggie seems to have gotten a lot better at listening to us. She'll come when called - most of the time now in the house she'll come to us when called, but she's still tentative. Outside the house, such as at the park or the beach (yes, we had 2 days of 50+ degrees, so like all crazy Chicagoans that means shorts and beach weather - no water, just playing on the sand) she's really good at coming to us when called.

Previously, we had the same control over Maggie as a wind-up toy - point her in the right direction and go, but there's no turning back. Now she's started listening to us, so if she's going to the wrong place we can tell her to stop - and she will - and can tell her to go somewhere else and she'll go. That's a huge step that she's started trusting us and listening to us instead of just scurrying along.

The weather has helped too - there's a noticeable change with Maggie once it's over 40 degrees or so, and especially when it's much warmer. Like all of us, she gets really excited to be outside and is generally in a pretty good mood. She's also taken to being more playful at the parks/beach more quickly than last year - last summer we had to give her an hour before she was acclimated and comfortable - now she walks right in tail wagging. We'll give her "school" the credit for that as she's just so much more comfortable with other dogs.

Overall she's doing great, and it's encouraging to see continuous progress with her. Right now we're looking into formalized training classes, as we think teaching her a few more commands will even further increase her confidence and trust, which are two things Maggie can't get enough of.