Showing posts with label ontario. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ontario. Show all posts

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Life with Lady, Week 7

Lady by now has lost about 8 teeth I think. She is definately happier now that things are proceeding nicely. I have found that most often, within a day of losing a tooth a new one is already showing in it's place. She still likes to have a frozen tomato and one of her berry ice cubes after the loss of the tooth. She is currently getting ready to lose the 4 canine teeth. Those are the ones causing her the most problems, as the roots are the longest and take quite awhile to reabsorb. We all are anticipating the relief she will be feeling once those are gone.




She has also had at least 4 molars grow in, and I will be checking regularly to see how many more are there.



She does not like it much when I am away from the house at work, and greets me most enthusiastically when she sees me again in the evening. It is all cuddles and groans for about half an hour then she settles. I think that will change slightly when spring gets here. She will have so many new things to sniff that she will be quite content.



My husband heard on a radio show on CBC regarding training dogs that two methods seem to stand out from the rest. One is called 'click' training. That is when you get a clicker, and whenever she displays appropriate behaviour, or even the beginning of it, you click. As time goes on she will automatically do that particular thing and be much easier to control when it comes to jumping on people, doing tricks, or even just letting people know when she needs to go outside.



The other thing of interest was training her to be where you want her when you are out on walks. I like having her right by my left side. So what a person does it take a spoon, put peanut butter on it, and freeze it. When taking her for a walk, hold the spoon exactly where you want her head to be, and after a few 'spoons' she will naturally walk there. She will 'remember' the good feelings/tastes associated with being in that spot that you will no longer need to use the spoon. I am thinking of trying this starting this week. I will let you all know how it turns out.


Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Life with Lady, Week 6

The teething process turns out to be over pretty quickly. She has lost about 4 of her incisors now. She still wimpers a bit and gets quite frustrated that she can not hold on to her tug toy as good as before, but is much happier now. I even managed to get a tooth! I have a tiny glass vial charm that I had saved from a few years ago, and put it in that. I know, a bit weird, but then again I still have some of my son's baby teeth and he turns 20 this year!


Lady is pretty much house trained now. She has only had a couple times where we did not get up early enough in the morning and I do not hold her to blame for that.

Over the next 4 weeks I am not going to be able to spend as much time with her as I would like, I am working 4 days a week. I am very happy for my sake about the extra day of work, but Lady is not going to be impressed with it. It is for the best in so many ways though. Plus, eventually when my husband goes back to work she will be alone for 9 hours until I return from work. By then she will be 7 - 8 months old though. So hoping things will go smoothly.

Lady and our cat Leo are getting along Very well now! I have found Leo purring and rubbing up against Lady quite often. No taking of naps together as of yet, but one never knows if they cuddle up at night. I hope to get a picture of them together someday soon.

Here are a few pictures of her playing with her 'jug' in the back yard.  As you can see, she loves it!







Saturday, January 29, 2011

Life with Lady, Week 5

Things have settled down a wee bit, as Lady was teething pretty intensely. It is so sad, to see a puppy in distress and not be able to either explain it to her, or to help much.


Add this to the fact that she is growing very quickly, and the result is not much sleep for anyone involved.

We did find out a few very interesting things, however. Lady loves frozen raspberries, frozen blueberries and frozen cherry tomatos. Rather than going out and buying her a puppy teething ring (made from who knows where and who knows what), I started making her ice cubes with raspberries and blue berries in them. It helps take down the inflammation in her gums, sooths aches and she gets a 'treat' when the cube has melted.

I wonder how long it takes for the teething process to finish?


Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Life with Lady, our Aussie Lab mix puppy

I have decided to do a bit of a diary on Life with Lady. Mind you, it has been about 5 weeks now since we got her, so for the next little while these posts will be about what had happened then. As time goes on I will be able to catch up to what is happening more currently.



Week 1:

We took Lady to the Christmas family party on Christmas day, and to be honest I was a bit leary about it.

We had her only a week and a half and she was far from trained to go visiting. I worried for nothing however, as everyone loved her and we just made it a habit to take her outside every 40 minutes or so 'just in case'.

It went very well, she did not beg during meal time and there were no 'treasures' left for my brother-in-law and his wife.

We were still feeding her 3 times a day at that point and my husband was trying to figure out the best time for her evening meal. He wanted to give her enough time for sleep and still wake up early enough to help her prevent 'accidents' inside.

She was leash trained at this point and we had finally found an actual harness that fit her after I modified it a bit.

She had learned to play fetch by this point although we still had to work on her bringing it back for another toss. She also loved to play tug with me.

One evening she was a bit bored with her toys, so we came up with a new one for her. It certainly proved an hour of laughter, and she figured it out very quickly. We put a golf ball under a round plastic container on the floor and moved it around. Lady could see and hear the ball, and she wanted that ball! She pushed it around on the hardwood floor for about 20 minutes, and then finally pounced on it, right on the edge. It popped up and the ball rolled out. Lady was very excited about this and wanted us to put the ball under the container again. Within 5 minutes she had the ball out again.

Next, we put a lid on the container and it took about 30 minutes that time for her to figure out how to take the lid off. She then proceeded to pick up the ball, and drop it in the container and bring both back to one of us to put together again. She is such a smart dog!

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

We got a puppy!

Our Lady Tripper

My husband and I got our Christmas gift early this year. Lady is a 16 week old Australian Shepherd / Labrador Retriever mix (also known as a Shepador).

We just got her on Monday, and already she is doing very well with the 'house breaking'. Raised on a cattle farm, she loves the outdoors and has a lot of respect for other larger animals and vehicles. Now if only our Leo, the cat, would be able to become friends with her. Since our other cat Smokie went missing a month ago it has seemed a bit lonely in the house. That is certainly not the problem now!

Isn't Lady the most adorable puppy ever?



Saturday, June 26, 2010

Gearing up for the Christmas In July Sale Event on Artfire!

Are you ready for this?  Every year people start shopping for their Christmas gifts earlier and earlier, trying to find just the "right" item. Sometimes that can be quite the challenge!

So as you go through your list of family and friends, please do not forget your cat, as they are most definately a valuable member of your family.

Keeping that in mind, I have been slowly adding a few things in my studio for this year's Christmas in July sale event on Artfire.  So far I have added some adorable 7 inch plush Christmas stocking toys, stuffed with my very own homegrown organic catnip.  (I also have some new catnip toy pillows and a cute little zombie kitten toy)

















Sunday, June 20, 2010

Quilted coasters, table runners and placemats

I do love the look and feel of handmade quilted objects. Right now I am making rag quilted coasters, table runners and placemats. As time goes on, I will be adding more to my Artfire studio, http://jewelz_creatives.artfire.com/ so keep your eyes out!  You never know what I will come up with next.






 





Saturday, June 19, 2010

Fabric holders for plastic grocery shopping bags

So you are tired of taking up valuable space storing those pesky grocery shopping bags?  Well, here is a convenient yet decorative way of organizing them.  You can have one of these in each room of the house where you may wish to have them, such as the bathroom, laundry room, nursery, kitchen, hallway (by the dog leash) garage and even keep one in your car.

Now available in my Etsy shop at http://www.etsy.com/shop/jewelzodonnell











Friday, June 11, 2010

Newest in my shops on Etsy and Artfire!



Ta da! Here is a really cool way to brighten up your kitchen and store those pesky grocery bags as well. I listed it on Etsy today.

And to match the quilted frog blanket I have in my pet accessories section in my Artfire shop, a cute little organic catnip toy.




I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

Thursday, June 10, 2010

Sunday, June 6, 2010

Saturday, June 5, 2010

The trials and tribulations of learning SEO and the new Google search

I have recently been checking out various venues for showing my handmade craft items. Hearing so many good things about Artfire, I decided to check them out. I just love how they have it set up!  They offer so many options to their members, up to and including clear instructions on SEO, ways to have sales and offer coupons, and the ease of the one page listing, it was a clear choice for me.  And that is only mentioning a few things I love there.

So, I have started moving some of my products from Etsy to Artfire. Now, I have no plans for the immediate future of shutting down my Etsy shop, but I also think it is a wise thing for me to have more than one option.

I also found that within hours of listing an item on Artfire, that it was crawled by Google. Whereas, with Etsy sometimes it took days. And, even when my Etsy shop was crawled, I very rarely show up on Google search. In fact, most times when I performed a Google search for my products, only a couple shops from Etsy showed up. Most often they were very popular shops with wonderful products that have been active for a long time, but for someone like me, that was not a good thing. It is hard enough getting "out there" on the internet, but having to compete with established shops is a bit discouraging.

The recent changes Google has made with their search, using shorter url tails, and SEO, etc is a bit daunting to someone like me. I know, if I wish to survive on the internet and hopefully prosper, I do need to learn this. With the help of Artfire and their wonderful support staff it looks like this potentially painful process will become much easier.

So, without further ado, here is my new Artfire shop, if you would like to take a peek!

A couple things I have moved over there (I will only show a couple a day until I catch up):

Coasters: