pgr8dnlvr

Lucy is 43 weeks. She still hovers between 4 1/2 and 5 lbs. Pretty close to perfect size, though it would be nice to not have to worry about rogue cats, owls, hawks, eagles, harrons, coyotes, raccoons and possums!

Only 2 pees in the house this week and again, I think it was not really in her control. Both times were overnight instances where she almost made it to 8 hours, just not quite :(









Rebecca

Lou

Potty training aggrivates the I^^%$#%$#@ outta me ...LOL
Lou has been doign great, when Im by myself at home with her, she NEVER has an accident, but when there are people here and we are all distracted and miss her signal she just squats LOL... So I said "thats it!" And decided to try and teach her to bring her leash to me when she wants to "go potty outside" (which is what I always say when we go)
So... a dog-trainer told me that teaching that is too hard, like advanced etc..., pretty much told me to forget it... so I was discouraged, but I've been so amazed by Lou that I had a feeling she'd pick up on it really like fast like everything I have taught her so far... (about 25 commands in 3-4 months!!)
So here is a video of "Teaching Lou to bring her leash to me to go potty outside day 2"
(and I only train her on this a few times a day right before we walk out the door to go potty outside)
And by the way, I have never trained a dog before, I have to give Lou credit, she is a genius! But I also am very devoted to her since I work from home...

Maybe you can try that or something along those lines, a way she can tell you she has to go :-)

TrainingLou-bringherleashtogopottyoutsideday21.mp4 video by Loustandardpoodle | Photobucket

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[IMG] Lou poser gorgeous girl 8mo by Louthespoo, on Flickr[/IMG]
Lou is a million times more perfect than I could ever imagine. She is a wonderful little soul, a well behaved sweet young lady that brings smiles to everyone that meets her. And she has definitely won my heart forever

Lou

Oh... she tries to bring her leash occasionally just for the treat...LOL But I distract her with something else (if we just went out to potty) example: I take her in the kitchen make her "sit" , "lay down", "stay" then I give her a bone or something that she can chew on for a longer period of time
(I take this bone away and hide it a few times per day... then I give it back to her and its all new and exciting!)

pgr8dnlvr

Posting this a little late...

Lucy is 44 weeks old. Had 2 pees and 2 poops in the house, so guess that's not too bad, but wasn't her best week :(

We're having some trouble with eating again. She is getting very picky and seems to prefer to eat at night, which is NOT ideal, as then she needs to go to the bathroom even LATER in the night. Sigh....

As far as temperment and companionship she's still improving steadily. She's really starting to fit in and I'm truly feel everlasting bonds being formed. Lucy had a sleep over with my daughter at her breeders house! Lucy's breeder is now an honorary member of our family and has been serving well as a stand in Gramma for my daughter. Very special person indeed...

Anyway, usually, when we go to visit all of Lucy's dogee family, she gets right in with the poodle pack and could care less about me. Well, she had the sleepover, which lasted over 24 hours, and when I got there to pick them up, I FINALLY got a proper greeting from Lucy! She smiled and jumped all over at me, rolling on her back as soon as I acknowledged her, she waggled around waiting for a belly rub. When it was time to go, she came running as soon as I called and wanted to go out to our car. Now I know in my heart, that SHE knows, who her real "family" are now. She fully loves and appreciates us! What a gift...

Lucy face is the ugliest and scruffiest it has EVER been, and it's driving me NUTS! As some of you remember, we had problems after she was nicked with a face shave and would NOT let me get a good chance at grooming her again without fight and force. I solicited advice and am now trying a slow and steady training protocol in order to try to gain her trust back. Twice a day I spend about 5 minutes with rubbing the running clippers (with a guard on) all over her face and neck, trying to mimic the motions I will again use when REALLY shaving her. We only do one or two swipes at a time then treat and croon over her being a "good" girl. She still pulls away and brandishes open mouth teeth every now and then (every 2 or 3 sessions it happens), but it's getting succeedingly rare. When she does it I just ignore and withhold reward hoping she'll get the idea that this behavior gets her nowhere.

I am so glad I still have little to no problem with brushing, bathing, putting in topknots and shaving feet. Maybe someday it'll be as easy as it used to be, who knows?!



Rebecca

pgr8dnlvr

Lucy is 45 weeks old now. She's lost 200 grams again, bringing her back down to 2.1kg or 4.6lbs. I know she'll bounce back somehow, but for now life is just too much fun to slow down and eat. Fetch is much more interesting!

Much better this week housetraining wise! Only 1 poop inside! YAY!

I have started giving Lucy Angel Eyes to see if I can give myself some respite from this damn tear staining. Her sister was horribly stained when I got my Lucy a little less than a year ago, and now, without any help from us, she has completely stopped tearing and has a nice clean face. Maybe Lucy will grow out of her staining eventually too. For now it's not TOO bad, but we'll see what Angel Eyes does. I'm doing a half dose daily of 1/8 tsp.

Still can't wait to shave her face for real. Maybe Christmas week? I don't know.

We started putting up our tree and decorations, Lucy is so far leaving pretty much everything alone?!? Was NEVER expecting that from a puppy. She really has been so good not having most of the puppy issues of destroying and chewing things. For her the biggest challenge is potty training for sure.



Rebecca

MollyMuiMa

I just thought I'd chime in here and let you know that Lucy is one of the reasons I let my groomer talk me into clipping Molly's face. I really didn't want to lose her 'puppy' look! But then I remember how I thought that she looked a lot like Lucy(so pretty) and I said OK! Lucy is a little beauty and I'm sure with the patience you're showing, it'll all be good again soon! Hope your Xmas wishes all come true! Merry Christmas to you & Lucy!!!!

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I pledge allegience to Ms Royalty
In the United States of her kingdom
And to her rules for which it stands
One Princess under God
In the visible
With diamonds and bones for ALL

pgr8dnlvr

Awwww!!! You are SOOOO sweet! Thank you SOOO MUCH for your kind comment!!!! !

Rebecca

sulamk

Lucy is such a beautiful colour! I give Marula plain yoghurt about a teaspoon a day with her food and have never had any tearing. She seems to have stabilised her weight at about 3 kgs. She also loves playing fetch.
Merry Christmas to Lucy and her Family!

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pgr8dnlvr

Lucy is 46 weeks!

More and more she's just figuring things out. It's like she's starting to understand English all the sudden! We've touched on stay a little bit in the past, not as much as I would have wanted to, but it always felt like we were just getting nowhere. Well, lately, I can look at her in the car, tell her firmly, but not aggressively "STAY" and she just does it.

As far as house training, she did AWESOME! Only 1 poop in the house and that was early in the week, nothing since! I messed up on her week 44 post and said she had 2 poops, 2 pees, however looking back on the calender, it was only the poops she had, soooooo...... This means for the month of December up to the 17 she has NOT peed in the house once! Total number of poops to date is only 4. She may get the hang of this after all?!?!? Wouldn't that be a Christmas dream come true?

Well, we found that Lucy has her first wound. I have no idea where it came from, but I'm guessing it started as a bite or cut on the ear from my employees Chihuahua. Lucy is very rude to her since she is the most patient Chihuahua on the planet. As soon as Frieda comes in, Lucy's jumping at and on her face, licking her all over, jamming her sharp pointy nose into Friedas er.. privates. Well FINALLY Frieda has started to tell her to STOP IT. I'm almost encouraging her discipline though, as I KNOW Lucy knows dog manners, but she's just taking advantage of poor Friedas patience.

We know Frieda snapped a couple times in the last few days and I have a feeling the blood from a bite seeped into the fur making a big spot with no air flow. I usually brush daily, but wouldn't you know, I left things for 2 1/2 to 3 days this time and during Lucy's bath to my horror I saw the huge sticky scabby mess so I went to work cleaning it up.

At the clinic the first thing to do is shave the wounds surrounding area to assure good air flow for fast recovery and easy cleaning. Well, I COULDN'T bring myself to shave those glorious ears so I compromised, plucked some of the hair, cleaned the wound and used bands to hold most of the other hair out of the wound. For the most part, we have success, and I expect a quick recovery.

Here is the nasty looking wound just after cleaning it up.


A good game of tug can cheer anyone up. Oh and I loosened the bands a bit after the game, so don't worry about that




Now for the face shaving progress. Lucy was doing fantastic with the de-sensitization to the running clippers with the blade guard so I decided to take the next step and remove the guard. Well, it didn't seem to go well at all. She was back to jerking away, brandishing teeth and dilating her pupils to saucers. :( What am I going to do if I can never see my beautiful girls face again? I gave up quickly when I saw she was so frightened, and perhaps will go back to trying more of the guard on. I did get rid of some of the tear staining at least.

Lucy helped us decorate the tree by "supervising" from the couch and looking the part...

pgr8dnlvr

Christmas Eve marked Lucy's 47th week! Another week of NO accidents! WAHOOOO! Merry Christmas to me!

We were also successful with the face shave! YES! It took just two or three sessions and we got it all done! I think we'll just get better and better from here, or at least that's what I HOPE!

I'm a little nervous about the next week, since my family is going on a short vacation and Lucy can't come. She's going to go to her breeders house to live with her "poodle pack" while we're gone. I know she'll be fine, but I'm just praying her coat doesn't get TOO destroyed or matted in the 3 days she'll be there! We'll see!





Lucy and her sister Melly.


The poodle pack on the stairs - Lucy is on the top step, then her full sister Melly, whose 1 year older is on the next. The third row is Lexi (an unrelated mini, Coco a half brother to Lucy, then Lucky, Lucy's littermate brother. The bottom step has Candy, Lucy's mom and a 4 month old Black mini pup from Lexi.




MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!!
Rebecca