Morning romp
Nash and Brady have gotten to be really good play partners. Nash is still easily submissive, which appeases Brady’s inflated sense of self-worth. So every morning after breakfast they have a good long play session. I whipped out the video camera to try to catch them in action, but naturally as soon as I had the camera on them they changed the game. 
It’s still cute to see Brady play so much even though he’ll turn 12 this year. Lizzie is sometimes in on the game also, but generally she lays at my feet while the boys act like idiots. However, if Brady starts to get out of hand and is “too mean” to Nash, Lizzie is RIGHT THERE in his face. She puts her body between them and grumbles at Brady to knock it off…he always seems to back off like “ok ok, sorry!”. It’s kind of cute to see her protecting her son like that, and it’s been really interesting to watch how the pack dynamics have changed since Lizzie had the puppies and Nash joined the family.
Here is Nash-the-dork showing you his chewie:
Brady and Nash playing a bit:
Almost 7 months
I just got finished entering Nash in his first show, to be in Atlanta the first weekend of February. I can’t wait, it should be fun! This show sometimes pulls large majors, so who knows.
Sister Piper had her “debut” this past weekend in Palm Springs, where Traci finished Chancey-pants (huge congrats again, Traci!). Traci reported that miss Piper had a great time and behaved fairly well, which is truly the most important thing to me.
The boy needed a bath anyway, so I snapped a couple pictures of him. We’re still working on table stacking, but overall I think he probably won’t make a fool of me at his first show. He’s even learning to free bait on the ground, somewhat. He has a GORGEOUS coat right now, here’s hoping he still has some of it at Nationals! LOL
Random product recs
Anyone who has ever been around my house for dinnertime is always AMAZED at how quickly my dogs eat. Molly-the-Moose would regularly eat her meal so fast that it would come back up, upon which she would…yes…eat it again. Yum! *IF* no other dog is in the house, Brady eats relatively leisurely…taking maybe a full minute to eat kibble. But if other dogs are present, even separating them all to crates or their own area doesn’t work…they still all wolf it down. Dinnertime here lasts approximately 13 seconds total.
I’ve always been concerned about bloat because of this, and even more than that it just doesn’t seem HEALTHY to eat that fast. I soak their kibble for a few minutes before feeding (worst minutes of their lives, just ask them), but still worry. And with our recent digestive, ahem, issues I am more sensitive than ever to what and how my dogs eat. So, I stumbled somewhere across a link to these dog bowls that promised to “prevent your dog from bolting his food”.
They arrived today, and sure do work! I’ve heard before about putting a rock in your dog’s bowl to keep them from eating so fast…this is even better IMO. They are a bit spendy but, well, so are gastro problems that require vet visits. Dinner tonite took nearly 2 whole minutes. http://www.brake-fast.net/
Also, I don’t know about you other show people but I tend to have several different fancy “show” shampoos, but always found myself lacking a good, solid basic “everyday” dog shampoo. Obviously my dogs don’t get washed every day, but when they just plain old need a bath I want something that smells good, isn’t harsh on the coat, and rinses quickly and cleanly. I bought a gallon jug of this stuff a while back off of Amazon:
It’s called “Buddy Wash” (yes, ridiculous name) and is made by Cloud Star. Natural ingredients, herbal scent (I got lavender and mint), soap-free (so can be used with flea treatments), and can be used on puppies. I love that it’s thick and easy to put on, lathers well, and rinses easily. And I think it smells great!
Stuff n stuff
Happy Holidays! Not much going on here…we’re all just vegging out in a post-Christmas haze. My mom flew down on Christmas Day and Charlie has been doing her best to keep her busy. 
I think the kids had a great Christmas…it was refreshing this year because now that Charlie has hit age 5, she has gotten over some of the overstimulation that the holidays bring and instead has just been a ton of fun. Jack, on the other hand…well, at least he’s cute. We’re heading off later today to see the Princess and the Frog.
Waiting at the top of the stairs on Christmas Day, anxious to see what Santa brought! (Mommy had to stay there to make sure Jack stayed!)
It occurred to me the other day that I need to start training my puppy! He’s doing ok with some things, not so much with others, but his first show is a bit over a month away and it would be nice if he wasn’t a total idiot. And I can’t wait for some of the other babies to hit the ring! January should bring “first show” experiences for June, Piper, Echo (maybe, seems like she’ll be the slowest to mature so may be held out), Maddie, and Lucy. Not sure about Vegas but I’m sure when their shows start up again Joyce will be getting him out and about also. Out of curiousity I weighed Nash the other day…he’s a solid boy at 26.2 pounds, but that should put him at a quite respectable adult weight between 34-36 pounds.
I can’t wait to see what 2010 brings!
Nash – 6 months
Well I wasn’t holding out a lot of hope for the stacked photos. As I mentioned the other day, Nash is in a bit of an awkward phase where he seems to be growing in different directions all at once. As usual, it seems like the boys go through this phase worse than the girls usually do, so while his sisters all seem to look pretty darn nice I was tempted to put Nash in a closet for a couple months and then see what he looked like. LOL! But thankfully, fluffy clean dogs help and the photos actually turned out much better than I anticipated. Most of all, I love the personality on this boy…mischievous, fun-loving, happy, but not pushy. He has brought an element of fun back to our dog household and I’m very glad for that!
Happy Half Birthday, Babies!
I intended to have this post be accompanied by pictures of the Nash boy, clean and fluffy and stacked up. But alas, the day got away from me and no clean dogs are to be had.
The Plizzards turned 6 months old TODAY! Hard to believe they’re getting that big. Nash celebrated by eating some crayons (a favorite delicacy, the acquisition of which is aided by the 2-year-old toddler) and peeing on the rug. Little $hit. Happy Half Birthday to Vegas, Lucy, June, Harmony, Nash, Echo, Wall-E, Maddie, and Piper!
Brady and Nash play a LOT...but Nash is always on bottom.
You can't pet Nash or Lizzie without petting BOTH of them, thankyouverymuch.
In case you aren't convinced of the consequences of being a trashund...
Stupid. Dogs.
Lizzie is at the vet, getting abdominal exploratory surgery for a blockage. She’s been throwing up in increasing frequency for about 3 days and today has been unable to keep anything at all down…thankfully my vet has some Saturday hours so I made her an appointment. X-ray showed a large area in the small intestine…so please think good thoughts for my girl. I’ll update when I hear back.
UPDATE: Vet just called and she’s doing ok. He actually decided not to cut the intestine once he got in there…he massaged the blockage through and straightened the part of intestine that was telescoping in on itself. As an added bonus, he fixed her closed umbilical hernia while he was there LOL. She’s recovering.
Pupdate – Harmony! And yes, I’m still alive.
Well we’ve had a pretty terrible month here. Charlie came down with H1N1 right before Thanksgiving and shared it with me, so we had to cancel our trip to Ohio to visit with my family. Nash is officially in the “too awkward for photos” phase, so you may not be seeing much of him for a while LOL! Our weather here has turned lovely and rainy…we had a flash flood 2 nights ago that put our street and entire yard under about a foot of water. Hooray! Thankfully our house is built on a crawl space, so we didn’t have water issues in the house, but our yard is a mess and it is going to take weeks for the crawlspace to dry out. Nash thought it was great and tried to jump into the swiftly running water (before I realized exactly what was going on)…stupid puppy!
On a positive note (I think), Lizzie has decided to come into season again, 2 months later than usual. I’m actually kind of happy about it, if she stays on her regular 6 month schedule that means she wouldn’t be in standing season during the National anymore. Will be interesting to see what Nash thinks and yes, I know that you can’t necessarily trust almost-6-month-old puppies not to figure it out. 
On to Miss Harmony! I know some of you see her on Facebook, but I got a nice note from her kind owners and wanted to share.
Aloha! Here are a few pictures of Harmony. She is always excited to go with me to work each day. Her “aunts” all love her and she’s spoiled absolutely rotten. She’s coming along great being my Service Dog and she’s official now at work. As of yesterday she weighs close to 19 pounds. Not as big as her siblings but that’s okay with us. Her nicknames, so far, are Harmony Pup, Puppity Pup, Pup, Little Bit.
She Loooooooooves belly rubs, balls, squeaky toys, playing tug, being cradled and she’s an absolute snuggle bunny. She’s very intuitive in taking care of me and my PTSD. We’re basically just taking her natural instincts, characteristics and such and developing them. We can’t tell you how much we appreciate being able to be able to take care of her. She is a total joy and pleasure. Thank you again sooooooo very much you chose the perfect dog for us. Thank you.
Aloha & Blessings,
Patti & Cindi
Not a show dog, but a pretty and flashy girl anyway!
Harmony and Patti
Pupdate – Wall-E! (Miles)
I got a lovely note from Wall-E’s family and wanted to share with some new photos!
Just checking in to let you know how little Wall-E is doing…
He’s Great! He and Cosmo are best buddies now, and really like each other. Wall-E has more energy than Cosmo (to be expected!) and is more vocal in his playing, but they make great playmates. And since they look SO much alike (seriously– it’s uncanny, they are going to be TWINS when Wall-E’s full grown… except for the freckles. that will help us know who’s who.), it’s a riot to walk them together. He’s like a mini-Cosmo!
As far as personality and behavior, as I mentioned earlier he’s a pretty vocal pup, but overall he’s fairly mellow and “cool.” He loves everyone and everything and (so far) has no fear. Which is good, because when people want to stop and coo at them, Wall-E gets the petting and Cosmo observes from his normal, just-out-of-reach-no-you-cant-pet-me distance. It seems to take pressure off and they both get what they want!
He is very loved Of course we love him best, but he has become a bit of a mini-celeb in our neighborhood, lol! It’s cute.
Thanks for the update, guys! It makes me happy to hear how he’s growing up and fitting into your family.
5 Months
Yep yep, it’s that time again. Time for a bath! And I hate giving them a bath & blow dry without taking purty pictures…even better that TOMORROW is their 5 month birthday!
The Dark Side