Moving on with twice the fun!

As some of you know, the day after Christmas, we adopted a Jack Russell Terrier puppy named Obiee. Since this blog is Mochi-centric, we've decided to chronicle the pair's adventures in a new blog - http://mochiandobiee.blogspot.com/

Day at the beach!

In early September, we took Mochi to Fort Funston, based on the recommendation and experience my sister had bringing her dog there.  It's the first beach/national park I've been to that officially allows dogs to roam around off leash.  We thought he would have a good time at the beach since he didn't seem too scared after the first time we put him in a swimming pool.  That time, we gently put him in the pool, and then he frantically swam to whatever edge seemed closest.  He let us do that a few times, so we figured he isn't as fearful of water as his cousin Joey.

Of course, mochimommy was quite worried about a 13-lb dog getting swept away by the current, so as soon as we reached the beach she prayed, "Jesus, keep him safe!" Jesus delivered and we all returned home in one piece. Of course, that didn't stop mochimommy from shooting serious eyes at mochidaddy with a stern, "protect my dog" every time mochidaddy lured Mochi to the shallow pool to play in.

Joey stuck as far away from the shoreline as possible, so we didn't see the usual Mochi & Joey show at the beach until we hiked back up to the cars. Joey was much happier away from the water.  Here's uncle kento and auntie jenny admiring Mochi's lack of fear when it comes to the water.

Punkin'!

Here is Mochi in his Halloween costume. We went to Googleween, where he tried to play with other dogs in costume but we got there a little late so there weren't many other dogs around. He did run into his cousin Joey and they were both sad that they only got to see each other for a few minutes, but we promised him (and uncle kento promised Joey) that they'd see each other later.

Needless to say, his headpiece did not stay on for very long.

Spoiled Dog!

If you can't already tell, Mochi is quite spoiled. Just a few reasons:

The last several months have been a little busy for mochimommy and mochidaddy: In the middle of mochimommy studying for the GRE, we decided to train for a half-marathon. Training for the half took up a tremendous amount of time, which mochimommy _thinks_ led to some of Mochi's summer acting out, primarily the chewing. We came home to find the couch arm chewed. So we blocked it with the side table. Mmm hmm. (pictures to come)

Then gramma asked us to hold on to some furniture for a few weeks. Mochi took to the blue chaise lounge...and promptly chewed it. Luckily gramma gave it to us (Mochi) when she was gifted new furniture.

So with the extended hours away mochimommy and mochidaddy realized that most of Mochi's acting out happens when we get home later than 7 pm. (Except for brief bouts of buttheadedness - see "30 minutes of destruction.") Which has led us to consider whether or not we should get him a brother or sister - especially before mochimommy starts grad school. We've got the majority of aunties (aunties lissa and jenny), uncle davy and gramma n calling us "crazy" for thinking about getting another dog when the one we've got is so high-energy and spoiled, with support from auntie crystal, grampa n and probably gramma h. Not sure where uncles kevvy and kento and grampa h fall. (Gramma h reports that if we get another dog, the next time we go on vacation she'll stay at our house rather than housing a total of five - yes, five - small yappy dogs at her place. Four was enough for her. :)

Another aspect of Mochi's spoiledness is the morning routine. For several months now, when he wakes to go shi-shi (pee), usually between 5-6 am, we let him snuggle in the bed with us. (I think we've been doing this since camping.) He acts really frantic, trying to get under the covers as quickly as possible and sometimes wants to skip going outside altogether. When we get up, particualarly on cold mornings, he decides he wants to stay in bed as long as possible. And on Sunday mornings after he eats his breakfast, he can usually be found in a snuggle bubble in our bed - he doesn't even get up to see mochimommy off to church.

As the weather's turning colder, Mochi's been shiver-buggin' a lot. So we bought him a $40 jacket. But he's so handsome in it! Also, his jacket came in handy when mochidaddy forgot to turn the heater back on after our Thanksgiving trip. Bad mochidaddy! Good thing mochimommy put it on him before she left for work.

With the cold weather comes Mochi's need for increased snuggling. On said cold day, mochimommy asked him if he wanted to snuggle when she finished dinner. Mochi got super-excited and when to the spot on the couch where we snuggle. So not only is he super-spoiled, he's super-smart. And last Friday he spent most of the day on mochimommy's lap while she worked. He even runs up and stares at the laptop, willing it to move so he can occupy the lap instead. mochidaddy and mochimommy have learned to quickly raise the laptop to prevent Mochi from helping us compose emails or otherwise type. We've both sent incomplete emails thanks to Mochi's help.

Spoiled dog.

Our little slipper thief

We've documented Mochi's love of slippers in some previous posts. Sadly, we haven't been able to change this behavior, and in fact, he has become bolder.  Before, he would wait until we had left the house.  Now, it seems like he just waits for us to leave the room! The most egregious example came a couple weeks ago while Tracy was making dinner. Our garage door opens up to the kitchen area, and I was going in and out to start some laundry.  After my last trip, I reentered the house to find one of my indoor slippers missing.  He had taken it more or less right under Tracy's nose!

Every time I've caught him stealing a slipper (or sometimes both slippers), I put the slipper up to his face and give a stern "No!"  I realize that scolding after the fact isn't as effective, but I have to do something, and he's usually still in the area where I find the slipper.  I've never yet caught him in the act.  Each time I do chastise him, I have to quickly turn away because even his ashamed pose (ears down, tail tucked down around hind quarters) looks so cute.  Yeah, I'm a softie.

30 minutes of destruction

At the end of October, we needed to borrow Tracy's parents SUV to return an office chair we purchased the week before.  They live close by, so we walked there and drove back to our house.  We were out about 10 minutes.  Mochi decided to chew up the instructions that came with the chair while we were out.  Fortunately, he didn't chew the chair itself, so we were able to get our money back.  But that dog...

On 11/4, we did our civic duty and voted.  Our polling location was within walking distance, so with the line outside the booths, we were gone about 20 minutes.  When we returned, we found a loaf of bread sitting on the couch, partially eaten.  Now, we fed Mochi breakfast before we left, so he didn't grab the bread out of necessity; no, I think he did it out of boredom, or to punish us.  Punk dog.

FHP and zinc, camping, and a cardboard tube

It's been a long time since mochimommy has posted, so I thought I'd give a brief update of Mochi's adventures in the past, ahem, four months...

FHP and Zinc

mochimommy and mochidaddy were gone long dime one Friday back in May. We both returned home at about 8:30 pm to find that mochimommy had forgotten to close the office door. Mochi got into mochimommy's work bag, which contained feminine hygiene products (FHP) and zinc lozenges among other things. As we cleaned up the *clean* FHP bits all over the carpet, we found what remained of the wrappers of five or so zinc lozenges. Various search results from googling "dogs zinc" and a $75 emergency phone call to animal poison control later, we were told to watch and wait, and call back if he started vomiting. Yay. Nothing ensued, except heartburn for mochimommy. (See also "Zinc-y.")

Camping, aka "I want your baby."

--ala Fat Bastard, licking his chops, from "Austin Powers II - The Spy Who Shagged Me"

Camp Hackamura was lots of fun. Mochi got to go camping for the first time and we got to try out our brand-spankin' new camping gear. (We went all-out Coleman just about.) Did we mention that it was fourish days of four people with four dogs? One of them Mochi's half-cousin Arago, the lovable but deadly police dog? Oh yeah, by the way, Arago doesn't like little animals. He hunts them...including Mochi. Crystal and I caught him on more than one occasion hunting Mochi (there was a slight rustle of leaves as Arago slowly stalked his intended prey) or outright glaring at him (think Iceman's bite toward Maverick in "Top Gun"). Oh, but other than that, Arago was just as happy a puppy as he could be...

The Cardboard Tube

Just like mochidaddy's parents decided long ago, we have decided that we're not going to spend so much money on expensive toys, because really anything cardboard will do (minited, ca. 1980, of a Kleenex box: "It's a boat! It's a shoe!"). Such is the case with Mochi's well-loved cardboard tube.

After I finished off a roll of wrapping paper I left the tube out to see what Mochi would do. Just as expected, he co-opted the tube as a new toy. What's even funnier, he has tried to go through his dog door with it centered in his mouth. I heard him struggle, pause, and then just bust through to the outside. He never realized that all he had to do was turn his head.

This is the tube's condition today:

I guess I'll have to use up some more wrapping paper soon...

More misadventures

Needless to say, Mochi has given us many reasons to laugh, shake our heads, and try to discipline him even when we're laughing so hard from the humor of whatever he's done lately. Here are more things he's been up to in the last few months.

• Reading. Mochi, ever bored while mochimommy and mochidaddy are at work, has taken to, ahem, reading our magazines (and occasional newspapers) while we're gone. He seems to like "Budget Travel" and "Eating Well" best, but he has also taken to "Diablo" and even boned up on self-training one day. Look closely...
  
  
• Cantaloupe. mochidaddy blogged about this one. See below.
• Chores. Mochi has taken to "drying the dishes" and "putting away napkins" while we're away. This generally entails stealing the towels off the stove and freezer handles, or taking napkins off the dining table. Mochi has trained us to leave the kitchen towels hanging high and not leave napkins on the table. Good boy.
• Chewing. Yep, the chewing is back. With a vengeance. Enter bitter apple. We'll see who wins this one.
• Swimming. Mochi isn't a big fan of swimming, but he tolerates it a whole lot more than his cousin Joey does. We've been trying to get him used to the water just so he'll
• New friends. Mochi, ever the social butterfly, has made a few new friends, including Bonnie and Clyde down the street. Bonnie looks like Mochi's long-lost little sister (chihuahua/terrier/daschund mix from the same county shelter; she's actually older than him but with her doxie blood she's smaller).
• Gardening. As I was working on this post, I heard a strange noise behind me...and found that Mochi now enjoys gardening, even in the house. But where did he get that. Oh, that's where.
  
• 
  

Canteloupe

A couple Fridays ago, we went out to see a movie after dinner. We were away from the house about 3 hours. When we came home, we found that Mochi decided not to sleep or play with his toys. Instead, he managed to grab one of the canvas bags on the kitchen table, bring it to the floor (and later his ottoman), and gnaw on the contents. What was inside? Why, a whole canteloupe.

No, he didn't eat the entire thing. He managed instead to eat a quarter of it, including the rind. Tracy was worried that he would get sick, and I, being a responsible parent, couldn't stop laughing. In the end, Mochi was fine. He didn't seem to have any symptoms of an upset stomach, though he did pee a lot the next day. Hmmmm

Unfortunately, I was laughing so much I didn't think to take a picture. You can imagine what we saw by picking up a ball/canteloupe and pretend that the the top left quadrant has been removed.

Kitchen courier

I was on the couch this evening and was too lazy to get up to throw a napkin away. Mochi happened to be nearby, so I tucked the napkin in his collar and told him to visit Tracy in the kitchen. My plan worked - he went to the kitchen, and Tracy threw the napkin away. Not without yelling at me for "exploiting" the dog first, though. :)

Zinc-y

The latest incident wasn't my fault this time, it was Tracy's! In her rush to leave Friday morning, she forgot to close the office door. Mochi found Tracy's work bag and tore into the four zinc lozenges nestled inside. Zinc apparently is bad for dogs, but only in sufficiently large quantities. But since Mochi is a little guy, we didn't know how much is considered bad . Just in case, we called our vet, who directed us to animal poison control (who knew there was such a thing?). We paid $60 for a consult with their on call vet. Since Mochi wasn't acting abnormally (he was bouncing off the walls like he normally does when we get home), the vet said to simply keep an eye on him for the next day or so. Fortunately, Mochi was fine.

So lesson learned - don't trust Tracy with closing doors. No, wait, I think the lesson is that Mochi is still a butthead who will find his way into anything.

Still chewing...

Last night, I left Mochi at home for about 30 minutes to run a couple errands. When I returned, I found multiple items in the family room floor:

1. Tracy's softball mitt
2. both of my indoor slippers
3. a torn plastic bag
4. a bottle of sunscreen (which was previously in the plastic bag)
5. Tracy's sun visor
   

All of these items were in the living room couch, so we figure he had to make five trips. Fortunately, it looks like the only casualties were the plastic bag and my slippers. I found a lot of small plastic bits on the floor, so I'm hoping he didn't eat too many of them. And my slippers needed to be replaced anyway. :)

Freedom!

Today is day two of our trial run of giving Mochi run of (most of) the house. Yesterday's attempt was somewhat successful with no visible evidence of Mochi chewing/maiming/destroying anything that's not his (though Giraffe lost his tag in a suspected standoff between him and Mochi).

However, Mochi doesn't seem to understand - or care - that the hall runner is not for pooing on. We placed one potty pad directly in front of the hall runner. Butthead had to walk over it to go on the hall runner. So today we have barricaded the hallway and we'll see what ensues.

Butthead: 1
Hall runner: -5

Separation anxiety?

In an earlier post, I mentioned that Mochi stayed at Jenny and Joey's house while we went to Vegas. We later found out that soon after we left, Mochi threw up a few times, and he proceeded to throw up a few more times the next couple of days. It could have been related to the rawhides Jenny gave him each day, but Joey had been eating those before he arrived and didn't have any problems. We suspect his unease was due to some separation anxiety. He got better as our trip ended, and he had no problems when we brought him back home. Our sensitive little guy...

Monkey - part 3

Mochi loves Monkey. So when we found Monkey II had an inoperable head/neck separation, we knew we had to get him a new monkey. Now, Monkey I lasted about six weeks and Monkey II lasted about half as long. Enter Monkey III.

Within the first couple of days Mommy noticed that Monkey III was shedding at nearly the same pace as Mochi. That's when Mommy discovered Mochi had chewed straight through Monkey's knot, liberating a cluster of fringe. Within a week Mochi Monkey III was sporting a maimed left leg, one strand disentwined from the others. Soon he figured out how to untwist the other two strands. Daddy had to amputate...which meant that the right arm when with it (Monkey's arms and legs are contralaterally joined). So now Monkey III hobbles around with his two remaining limbs resembling arms now. His squeaker fell out today...which means Monkey III will soon be laid to final rest in the depths of the silver cannister with the foot-activated hatch. Rest in peace, Monkey III. Mommy fears for (the already purchased) Monkey IV's fate.

Monkey III lived approximately a week and a half in our house. He is survived by his successor, Monkey IV. Monkey IV's life expectancy is 4-5 days if current trends continue.

Yelping

Every time Mochi hears a car pull up in our garage, regardless of whether or not someone is already home, he runs to the garage door and starts jumping and yelping. He doesn't make the relatively quiet "I'm a small sad dog" whine. No, his yelping sounds like "Oh please, won't someone stop the pain!" I'm afraid that one day, someone will hear that yelping and call animal control on us. The first time I heard him do this when I was home, I thought he had badly hurt himself. I rushed over to him, only to find him waiting at the garage door. Please Mochi, no heart attacks for me, ok?

But don't get me wrong - every day, I love how excited he gets when either I or Tracy come home. He's our little ball energy and love, with some buttheadedness mixed in.

Mochi and Joey - the night of little sleep

A few weeks ago, Jenny and Joey stayed overnight at our house. Nearly everyone fell asleep on the couch, so around 1 AM, we dragged ourselves to the appropriate bedrooms. As soon as we put Mochi in his crate and shut the door, he started whining and pawing at the crate door. He didn't settle down, so I let him out, and he headed towards the guest bedroom where Jenny and Joey were. I woke Jenny up, and she gave her permission to let him stay with her and Joey.

But the dogs didn't settle down. They walked around a lot, but wouldn't go to bed. Mochi eventually pawed at the guest bedroom door, so I let him out of the guest bedroom and brought him back to our room. He was still not ready to sleep, possibly because he had sufficiently napped prior to that. Tracy and I were so tired that we broke our rule and brought him into our bed with us. Yet even that didn't settle him. I couldn't sleep with him on the couch since he was still too antsy, and I didn't want to wake Jenny and Joey up again. The latter is a risk since our house is single story and has mostly wood floors, so all sounds travel throughout the house. My sleep deprived brain decided the only way to secure Mochi and possibly get some sleep was to go to the car. So that's what we ended up doing for a few hours.

It's a good thing he's cute. :)

I've never seen him so attached to Joey before. The more time he spends with her, the more attached he gets. I guess it also helped that Mochi stayed with Joey continuously while we went to Vegas for a few days.

Hair

April has been the month of shedding. Shedding, shedding, shedding. Mochi shed quite a bit the first couple of times we visited him in the shelter, but it pretty much slowed to a few hairs here and there once he was living comfortably at home. Then came April.

Who would think a 12 lb. dog could have so much hair? Or more precisely, lose so much hair. It's everywhere! He gets up off the couch and there's a mini-Mochi pile left behind. I could have made a life-size model of Mochi from the hair trapped in the vacuum's debris container. Come on...how is he not bald by now? Seriously.

At least Mommy is not the #1 offender when it comes to hair in the house now...

Is this "blowing his coat" ever going to end? Any advice on containing the mess?

Tragedy at the zoo!

Victims include a giraffe and monkey:



And a box of tissue?



Sigh. We thought we lucked out with Mochi because up until now, he hadn't shown any desire to chew up random things. However, we should have realized that all dogs go through that phase, and ours was no different.

Soon after I took those pictures and put away the camera, Tracy found that Mochi also chewed through (in two places) the power cord to her laptop. That wouldn't be too bad, assuming he didn't ingest anything, except that it was plugged in at the time. Somehow, maybe with his magical butthead powers, he avoided electrocuting himself.

Puppy love

The other night we were all laying on the couch - Daddy reclining, Mommy laying on Daddy's leg, and Mochi on his back, curled up next to Mommy. Now Mochi generally doesn't sleep on his back but for some reason he sustained this position for a long time. From time to time his front paws would twitch as if someone had hit a reflex. This was pretty amusing to Mommy and Daddy (but of course we could sit and watch him for hours anyway).

The best part: he obviously started dreaming pretty intensely, and all of a sudden his tail started wagging at hyperspeed - all while he was laying on his back - so it was quite a sight to see. We've seen his tail twitch from time to time while he sleeps, but nothing like this - full on wagging. Just the sight of such tail wagging made us pause and reflect on how much we love him and his cute little quirks.

Demon dog

aka - more fun with flash



He really likes retrieving the small dog-hardened balls we found at the pet store.

Monkey - part 2

No really, stay away from my monkey.

I don't like collars - part 2

Why yes, that is a Coach collar. And yes, he did try to chew through it again, just like he did with his last one.

Score one for the collar - Mochi can't quite chew through the leather. :)

Whodunit?

Picture story time!

Exhibit A: There's normally a pair of slippers in the second row. Where did they go?


Exhibit B: Hmm, how did the slippers move over there? And why are they separated?


Exhibit C: Possible clue - the monkey in the curtain?


Exhibit D: Who moved the mat? And where is the liner that normally goes underneath it?


Exhibit E: Another clue - one of the liners are on somebody's ottoman


Well, we have a lot of evidence pointing to Mochi. Just as we were about to accuse him, he claimed to have been spending time with his monkey. Wait, wasn't that the same monkey that was in the bedroom?


Then his cuteness made us forget why we were looking for him in the first place. :)

Mochi & strangers

My childhood dog, Husky, had no problem with people. He had no problem with family, friends, and random strangers coming up to him and petting him. He was never good with other dogs though. When he was younger, he would make somewhat aggressive movements to other dogs when we were on walks, even if the dogs were bigger than he was (which was often the case, since he topped out around 20 lbs).

We didn't want to have that problem with Mochi, so early on, we took him to a training class at the local SPCA and frequent the local dog park. That, combined with his early interactions with Joey, Buddy, and Jax, resulted in him generally being comfortable with other dogs, or at least those bigger than him.

Unfortunately, ever since we got him, he's never been comfortable around human strangers. He barks at nearly all men, and occasionally some women and children when we are out. He even sometimes barks at people he's already met (e.g. my old college roommate, my sister's boyfriend, etc). The barks aren't particularly aggressive, and his body language seems more defensive (tail up, I think) than offensive. We've tried distracting him, giving him treats, throwing treats at the feet of the strangers, and having the person he's barking at give him treats, but so far, nothing seems effective. Well, he does eat the treats, regardless of where they are or who is giving them. :)

We're still getting him out more to increase his exposure to other people, but we're otherwise not sure what else to try. Random blog reader - do you have any tips?

Updates!

Yes, I haven't posted in about a month. I finally uploaded some pictures and got off my rear, and then back on my rear to resume blogging. There should be new posts every other day or so for a couple weeks. I'm publishing one today to whet your appetite. Or something like that. After that, we'll see what happens. My audience of one (me) isn't particularly demanding. :)

I don't like collars - part 1

A few months back, Mochi was terribly resistant to collars. We caught him chewing a few times, which wasn't so bad. Then we started coming home from work to find our poor little guy with his collar stuck in his mouth. It seemed like he had been stuck that way for a while since his neck would be wet from drool. :(

So then we removed his collar before leaving the house, and putting it back on when we got home. Tracy got tired of this after about a week, so we started to leave the collar on all day again. His "gagging" sessions seemed to taper off, so we thought he was settling down. And then we came home to this:



A few points, in case the picture isn't clear.

1. He managed to chew through his collar in more than one place.
2. Possibly purposely, the collar's remains were left on one of his indoor potty pads.
   

Score:
Mochi/Butthead: 2.5 (two because he ended up chewing through two collars. Add 0.5 because when we picked him up from the shelter, he was missing the collar that we put on him the week before. We suspect, but can't prove, that he chewed through that one as well)
Collar: 0

Our little bundle of joy

I didn't realize this until Tracy mentioned it a couple nights ago - we got Mochi within a year of getting married. Tracy has some relatives who had kids roughly that soon after they got married. I'm good with a puppy for now, though. :)

First time visits to dog parks

About two weeks ago, Mochi got his last booster shot, so he was finally cleared to go out in public and play with other dogs. Well, he had played with his cousins before that, but since they're all vaccinated, the vet said that that interaction was ok. The weekend after his booster, we took Mochi to two dog parks - one in San Jose, and the other closer to home.

San Jose

Before I talk about the SJ dog park experience, I should give a little background: Mochi and cousin Joey have played well together ever since they met. This despite the fact that Joey is about 45 lbs to Mochi's 10-11. Joey is very patient with Mochi, and even assumes the submissive role to him, despite the weight and height difference:



At the SJ dog park, we initially put Mochi in the "small dog" area and put Joey in the "big dog" area. Mochi was content to sniff around, and didn't play much with the other small dogs. Joey, meanwhile, hung out at the fence between the two areas, trying to figure out why her buddy wasn't with her. :(

So we then brought Mochi into the big dog pen, and initially, he had the same behavior - sniffing around and generally ignoring other dogs. Joey tried to get him to play, but he didn't seem interested. After about 10 or 15 minutes of investigating, Mochi began to get in a playful mood. He started chasing and being chased by bigger dogs. He remained brave throughout, though we did "rescue" him a couple times when too many dogs were nipping at him.

I would post pictures here, but we forgot our camera. :P

Home park:

Mochi pretty much acted the same way as in San Jose. He didn't participate in very many chases, but he did hold his own with the mostly bigger dog crowd. We remembered the camera this time, but since he was moving around so much, Tracy only managed to get one picture of him with Theo, a German Shepherd. Theo, like Mochi's cousin Jax, didn't realize how big he was compared to Mochi, and therefore didn't understand why Mochi steered clear of him. :)



I'm still not sure if that's a look of terror, excitement, or some other mix. :) At the end of the day, Mochi was dog tired. Good times were had by all.

First bath!

About two weeks ago, or about a month after we got him, we gave Mochi his first bath. He's small enough that we can wash him in the kitchen sink, though I'm not sure how healthy that is for the pipes. :) Overall, he was well behaved during the wash.

Here are some pics I took of him while Tracy was toweling him off:



Needless to say, he was very happy to be done with the bath. After being toweled off, he spent a good amount of time rubbing his head, possibly to get water out of his ears. But soon after that, he was back to his usual punky self.

Monkeys

When we first got Mochi, one of the toys we bought him was a plush monkey with
ropes for limbs. It took him about a month, but he has successfully chewed through the first monkey to the point where we had to replace it.



Here's a side-by-side comparison of old monkey (with ropes removed so he can keep playing with them) and new/intact monkey (for now):



He really likes the monkey toy, even though he hasn't quite figured out how to squeeze it to make it squeak on a regular basis. But he really likes gnawing on its ears.

Seating

Sorry there haven't been too many updates recently. I was sick most of last week.

Today's update: seating

Mochi, like most dogs I've seen, likes to sit or lie on something. Our floors are mostly hardwood, so it makes sense that during the winter, he wants to be on something warmer than the floor. Mochi takes this to a new level, though. He likes to be on something even when he's on the couch! We keep some blankets on the couch, and while we eat dinner, he likes to get on top of the blankets and watch us eat (or sleep). Last week, we caught him on top of Tracy's stuff:




Yes, he was too good for the relatively clear part of the couch. He just had to sit on something, even if that something wasn't an even or soft surface. And we wonder why we find dog hair on all our personal possessions...

Slippers

And no, we haven't taught him to not take our slippers. He has actually become a little worse in this area - he's taken one of my slippers right in front of me, just after I kicked them off! He's done the same to Tracy while we were eating dinner.

Of course, it doesn't help that he looks cute carrying the slipper away in his mouth...

This would be a good place for a picture, but we really shouldn't be encouraging him. :)

How to: administering ear medicine to your dog

When we first tried cleaning and administering ear medicine to Mochi, he resisted surprisingly strongly for an 11 lb guy. Tracy then remembered the trick the vet used, and which we have now used successfully. This is somewhat specific to smaller dogs, but probably can be adapted to larger ones. It also requires two people, but I suppose if you're really coordinated, you can try it by yourself.

1. Get a large biscuit/treat. The ones we used are more than twice the size of his normal treats.
2. Break the treat in half.
3. Have your helper hold the treat in one hand, but cover most of it. You don't want the dog to snarf it up too quickly.
   
4. Put the dog in the helper's lap where she can hold the dog with her free hand. Only the dog's side should be facing you, not his face. That way, you have direct access to one of his ears.
   
5. Have the helper give the treat to the dog, keeping the treat mostly covered, so the dog has to take multiple bites to finish it. As the dog eats the treat, the helper should expose more of the treat from her hand; otherwise, the dog might accidentally bite her when trying to get to the remainder.
   
6. Finally, your turn. While the dog is eating, hold the dog's ear and calmly and quickly administer the medicine.
7. When you're done with one ear, turn the dog around, get the other treat half, and repeat steps 5 & 6.
   

We've been doing this on the couch, which probably wasn't a good idea since it now has a lot of treat crumbs in the cracks. But at least he hasn't been fighting like mad when it's medicine/cleaning time.

A full night's sleep at last!

Using the stern/negative process I mentioned in my last post seems to have done the trick. All it took was one night of saying "No, Mochi" or "Mochi, no" (I was too tired to remember which). Sleep is good.

Now if we could only figure out a way stop him from chewing up his collar and stop stealing our shoes...

Need sleep

For the past couple of weeks, Mochi has been waking us up around 3 AM by whining and scratching to get out of his crate. Thus far, we've tried

• getting up and taking him outside for potty
  
• ignoring it

Neither seems to work. For the potty break, he doesn't go much, so I think he just wants attention or playtime. When I bring him back in from outside, he is quiet for a few minutes in his crate, but then starts making noise again. Ignoring his cries also does nothing; but I guess that kind of makes sense since inaction doesn't really set any positive or negative reinforcement.

Last night we tried speaking calmly to him. We tried saying things like "It's ok" and "We're still here," but he still kept going. I think this approach, like getting up for potty, establishes some sort of positive reinforcement. Whining -> attention

I think tonight if he cries, I'll try using a stern/negative tone. I told Tracy I prefer this approach anyway since I'm usually not in a good mood when I'm startled awake at 3 AM. :)

Mochi!

On January 17, we brought home our little ball of joy - Mochi!



The vet thinks he's some sort of terrier/chihuahua mix, so I like to call him our Jack Russell Chihuahua.

He's spunky enough to tangle with his cousin Joey, who is more than four times his weight...



But he also loves to curl up with Mama under a blanket for a nap...