A Long Overdue Update

So much has happened since Spring, for a moment I had to wonder where I should start.

The grandparents came and are now gone after 6 months of stay. Of course being typical Chinese they had some issues with my two 4-legged kids, but I am glad that they (more like my dad) did not make me send my dear pups away... well actually he did "hint" such an idea but I turned a very deaf ear to that. In the end, the old man gave up and learned to walk the two big ones on his own when my husband and I were not around. I don't know if they will miss my dogs at all but I do hope that they will think twice next time they have dog dish in a restaurant back in China.

Speaking of big, Coley has become oh so HUGE - actually I think I should have named him Pony! The boy is nearly 90 pounds now. When our vet first met him, he commented that the boy had "elephant feet" and warned he could be gigantic. Coley is now officially 11-month old and is even taller than Daddy when he stands up. As he grows the boy's shepherd instinct has finally kicked in. A few weeks ago Coley had his very first trick-or-treating experience, and I was surprised to see how anxious he became when the girls walked up to doors outside our cul-de-sac street to beg for candies - he whimpered, he jumped around, and he barked on top of his lungs to warn people "Don't you get ideas!"....I think.

Caitey on the other hand, is about 2-inch lower in height and many many inches shorter in length compared with her "hubby". I sometimes feel sad for her because the power has once again shifted - this time to Coley's favour. The boy is now bigger, stronger, and faster, so the girl loses to him left and right. Whenever the boy steals her toy or treat, all she can come up with is to growl. That kind of pathetic and sad look makes Mommy once again thinking - did I exactly do Caitey a favour by giving her a companion of MY choice?

The good thing is that both pups are usually very quiet, but they will jump up from their naps and give out the most vicious barks if there is something or someone at the door. The other day a UPS guy left a box at my front door, and once these two started making noise I don't think that I have seen anyone run that fast in my life!

The happy news is that both our dogs have gone thru intermediate training which prepared them for further advanced classes to be therapy dogs, although I have to say that it was a bit of struggle for Caitey to pass because she STILL jumps on people when I am not watching her. I AM glad though that she possesses that kind of crazy zest for life, and frankly I don't really wish it to change anytime soon... well so long as I don't get sued.

Their human sisters have also grown - they are now taller, smarter, and driving me to the wall! The trade off is they have also picked up mommy's quick wit so I can get amused often. Just the other day Caitlin said "Mrs. So-and-so's pupils are bigger than her eyeballs!".

The girls have also matured (somewhat) mentally. Today Claire mentioned to me on our way back home after her ballet class that she "accepts" the fact the boy(s) she has a crush on probably will never like her back. She mentioned this in a very casual yet brave "I am fine with that" kind of tone and it made me sniff. A very bright and pretty girl, Claire is not even 12 yet but already going thru adult pain!

Sometimes I feel I live just for the sake of my four kids. I hope they will grow to be wise and kind human beings and useful K9 citizens respectively.

We Chinese parents typically wish our children to excel academically, have a respectful career that pays many many many zeros after a high number, and fulfill the dreams that we could never make happen in our lives. We can't help being pushy and demanding, not just because we want to be proud of our cubs and have something to brag to our friends, it is because WE THINK we are doing the best for our kids with our relentless disciplines and demands and we THINK we have done them a huge favour and carried out our duty as parents.

After having spent most of my adult life in the corporate world, I have seen many high-IQed & well-educated people struggle, yet better-EQed & well-liked people succeed at the workplace. So in this sense, our children's sky-high scores on standard tests really aren't a guarantee of their future success in life - it is a child's positive attitude that makes him/her stand above the crowd and shine, "Attitude determines lattitude" as they say.

Here I might sound like a 女人 (woman) but I am also a 过来人 (been there done that). As I grow older (and hopefully a little wiser), I have learned that the grass over the fence really isn't that greener if you look at it from their side, and the ladder that you desperately try to climb ahead of everyone else is easier to advance up than to stay up - hence people say it is cold and lonely at the top. The things that used to matter dearly to me stopped feeling so important. Material things, fame, and vanity fair are as intangible as the air we breathe, yes they ARE as beautiful and brilliant as the rainbow up in the sky, but unfortunately they are as short-lived as well.

Finally, from this point on I shall pass this blog to my two human girls. I am getting so busy that I find it hard to devote much time to record those perky daily events of my children. A friend suggested that maybe I should ask the girls to do it instead and I think it is a brilliant idea. The Brontë sisters wrote stories for each other at very young age and that experience prepared them to be world class writers. I hope by taking over this blog, my girls will at least have the chance to learn how to organize their thoughts and put things together in an interesting and meaningful way. I will be their most loyal reader and diligent critic.

Last but not the least, I will conclude my writing here with a quote from my favorite poet Robert Frost - "You have freedom when you're easy in your harness."

May God bless all of our children.

Melancholy soaking wet day

Woke up this morning from crying and wetting my pillow. I had a terribly disturbing dream early this morning that we needed to move overseas and Caitey would have to be left behind - I remember hugging her neck while howling heartbroken......

The view outside my window is freshly green yet depressingly wet with the steady late Spring rain. Under my desk the two tired puppies are napping right next to each other (Coley leaning on Caitey's belly) contentedly. The advantage of having two dogs in such an indoor day is that they keep each other company, harass each other without bugging us, and thus wear each other out.

Hope such peaceful days continue and my dearest K9 kids stay happy and healthy with me forever.

Coley's first night in mommie's room

I bought Coley a portable crate for travel so he can sleep in my room but can't roam around the house to mess up my floor like Caitey did when she first joined us. I left him outside the crate waiting for him to nap before putting him in, but I was so tired last night that I fell asleep before he did. This morning I woke up and found both dogs sleep like angels on their doggie beds, and there was no sign of peeing or pooing after 7 straight hours. Needless to say that I am a VERY happy mom.

I soon found out that both dogs have two layers of skin and shed heavily, sometimes they will leave a trail of hair behind when they chase each other in the hallway. I have been vacuuming around the clock and the "labor of love" is getting very tiring after a while. Thank goodness we have hardwood floor throughout!

Is there a way to let the dogs "walk" by floating in the air?

Easter Sunday -- Coley's 2nd day at home

The BBW bit the boy this morning and got yelled at, by Mommy of course. Now for once the bad girl realized that her bully behavior will not be tolerated in this house.

I have to say that I was completely shocked to see Caitey's 180-degree change of attitude soon, more like in a blink, but then it gets annoying the other way round.

Like, she HAS to be around him at ALL times and she won't leave him alone even for one second. Just now she woke up first from her nap, and had to poke Coley with her paw, sort of "wake up and play with me".

We assigned each dog to his/her kibble bowl, but they will have to eat out of the other's bowl - it must tastes better that way.

It is a lot of fun observing how the two pups interact with each other and how they react to commands differently. I was pleasantly surprised that Coley acts cool, calm and collected when meeting strangers. Being a typical hyper Golden Caitey still jumps on people even after puppy training, but Coley is more reserved when meeting new people - he would just sit aside and observe calmly.

I also noticed that the boy isn't really food motivated as in the case of Caitey, but more toy activated during training.

It is SO heartening for me to see my two little K9 angels finally start to warm up to each other and get along well. They now can roam around the house together without leash or being closely supervised.

I am very relieved... looks like we did not do a terrible thing for our doggie kids after all.

Sat April 3d -- Picking up Coley

I hope I am not confusing you here, but this post is long overdue and should have been posted much earlier. I just have to squeeze this piece in to make the whole story complete.

Before we adopted Coley to be Caitey's lifetime companion, my biggest concern was that perhaps the new male dog would bully my poor girl. Who would have thought that things actually turned out to be the other way round, at least for now - Coley is the sweet agreeable angel while Caitey had turned into a mad jealous BBW (big blonde woman).

I was shocked to see Caitey's dark nasty side today.

She grabbed everything that Coley played with, but she had so many that she never played with for over 5 minutes;

she hates kibble but today she just HAD to eat Coley's food so the little boy had nothing left. At one point she hovered herself over Coley's water bowl so the younger one could not even drink water;

When I got mad at her for being so possessive, she blew her anger over Coley's ball, chewed it up and ripped it apart into pieces;

When she saw Coley get in her crate, she barked at Coley so ferociously that the little dog was frightened to death and shivering all over;

The worst moment however, was when I first brought Coley up to my bedroom - at that point Caitey had that killer looks in her eyes. I know what she was thinking - it is the room for Mommy and me, you stinky boy butt out!

I think Caitey is going thru very traumatic times. At 1st she was afraid that her family had abandoned her, now she is afraid that she is going to lose our attention to the younger one.

Coley actually has been super agreeable and sucking up to Caitey, literally by licking her all the time. The poor boy is doing everything he can trying to be accepted by his new family, especially his own kind.

Right now we just have to keep them separate when we can't watch them, with Caitey upstairs and the little one downstairs. It is a frustrating situation but I guess we will have to find ways to get them socialize with each other.

I can't help thinking - did we exactly do a good thing for Caitey by bringing in a companion for her so objectively? Maybe we should have "asked" her, somehow?

Marking territory or something wrong with Caitey?

We promptly returned home from Disney - my husband and I drove 20 hours non-stop because we were all very concerned about Caitey's situation at our friend's house.

The first day we were back, she peed altogether almost 40 times all over the yard (26 times during the 1st hour). At first I thought perhaps she was just reinforcing her territory in fear of losing her home front because she had been "abandoned" for a week?

Caitey's strange situation continued till a friend who was more experienced with dogs told me that she could be having bladder infection, which is quite common among female dogs. Her dry warm nose also confirmed such a possibility - she was having fever and constantly thirsty for water.

Since it was weekend and the vet office was closed, I started digging on the web for hours trying to get more information. Luckily I came across a tip that colloidal silver could cure Caitey's infection. Since I had used it topically in the past for things like a skin infection or sinus during the allergy season myself, I dug my old colloidal silver bottle out of the medical cabinet and gave her two table spoons a day - low and behold, she only peed a few times the next day and like a miracle she was fully back to her bad self on the 3rd day!

I was supposed to bring her to the vet's office on Monday but I guess being open-minded saved me the trip, not to mention the $$$!

Good tough girl!

Our family's 2nd trip to Disney

Our first trip to the World Disney World was Thanksgiving, 2007. This is the 2nd time that we are here so we are just concentrating on what we liked last time. I used to love hopping on the roller coasters but now my old heart simply can't handle that kind of thrills the way it used to. The girls are a lot braver than I am, so I have been the object of constant teasing and mocking. I am just so happy that I get to live at the end of each baby ride... like the choo choo train.

Speaking of getting scared on the rides, I found out today that while I was "made" to stay on the "Rock N Roll" ride at MGM I simply could not scream like most people do when they are scared. It usually makes a person feel better when he/she releases some of the fear out by screaming, but for some reason I just could not do it and felt the ride was a near death experience. I actually was going to send the girls up there 1st and then take the "chicken" elevator down, but then a handicapped man rolled up in wheelchair so Claire mocked me in her usual sarcastic tone: "Mommy you can go down in THAT one".... well, let us just say that I endured a horribly sickening ride just for the sake of pride (or how can I preach "values" to these two little rascals later?).

Any way, I was surprised to see so many people at MGM today - the longest wait was 140 minutes! Last time we were here was Thanksgiving and we rarely waited more 20 minutes for the rides. I have learned two things today: 1) someone has been lying about the poor state of the economy & 2) I now know when NOT to visit Disney.

We had to cut our trip short because Caitey isn't feeling too well, or she is just acting up because she is mad at us leaving her behind. She got really sad the day I was packing (she does this whenever she sees me putting things in the suitcases), went upstairs and whimpered the whole morning, and refused to come down even for treats.

My friend who is babysitting Caitey said that she would not eat and threw up twice early this morning. She even pooed 3 times in their house - she hasn't done that since last Oct in our house. Last time Caitey was at their house was last Dec and there was no accident at all.

I have read it before that some dogs would fake being sick so their human family can't leave on trips, now I start to think perhaps the same thing is happening :-(.

Coley's 3d day and night

Thought I could be in bed earlier but what else is new? Coley has been yelping from midnight till 1:30am in his crate, which he hates his guts. We had to train him to stay there by himself or we can forget about going out. When we did this to Caitey she only whimpered for the first 2 or 3 nights (I did "nap" next to her crate till she fell asleep just to make her feel better). Just now I tried the same strategy with Coley, but whenever I thought he was fast asleep and tried to sneak out of the kitchen where his crate is, the boy would wake up on cue -- guess I have underestimated the ears of a shepherd :-(.

Right now I am sitting in the kitchen poking on my netbook, the boy won't yelp so long as he can see me.... poor mommy!

As for other amusing stories, well I got two rubber chewing toys today: a smaller one for Coley and a big one for Caitey, and of course each wanted the one that was not in his/her possession - Caitey even tried to grab the one out of Coley's mouth!

The good news is, Coley started to react to commands like "come" and "sit". The boy actually is pretty smart, he is catching on fast by just observing what Caitey does. He still has accidents from time to time though, like today he peed in the girls' study room again -- bad boy!

It is going to be a looooog night, you owe Mommy a lot Coley boy.

Coley's 2nd visit from his family

We have FINALLY decided on my son's name after his sister Claire changed her mind every 5 minutes and had pretty much used up all the words that start with C in the dictionary. He will be Coley, which is a variant of Nicole in Greek with the meaning of "people of victory". It also sounds like the dog breed "Collie" which Claire is crazy about but graciously gave up for the protective power of a German.

My three girls and I went back to the shop to see Coley yesterday, unfortunately the staff would not let Caitey go thru the door due to health concern (I should have known better).

I have to say that I started to get nervous when a guy, who had two dogs already, also said that if we had not adopted Coley 1st he would have grabbed him in a heartbeat....I hope my son is still there when we are back to pick him up.

Coley was very happy to see us, the way he responded to us made me think that perhaps he remembers us now. We played with him for an hour or so with poor Caitey napping in the car. I was VERY happy though to see that Coley let us pet him and even licked all of us.

He was friendly to people in general, but somewhat hostile towards other dogs who tried to steal his ball. There were 4 dogs on the floor but he monopolized the ball the whole time, at one point he even pressed a much bigger Lab/Doodle mix down under him. I have to say that I had some ambivalence about my son's feisty side -- it was very nice to see that he was fearless, but I also hope its protectiveness can be used in a positive and productive way later.

I could also tell that he was very smart and constantly thinking on his feet. While the other 3 dogs were quite satisfied just playing inside the room, Coley on the other hand tried to sneak out left and right, LITERALLY. A couple of us had to move around fast to block his way out because his paws were too nimble and swift.

Coley got left in the same bin with that super hyper Lab/Doodle mix... poor baby, I hope he does not bother you too much.

We have found Caitey's husband!

I start to think the match we have found for Caitey is a "God Sent", and I hope it proves to be true after my son joins our family.

I always liked breeds like Collie and German Shepherd but was concerned that they might be too aggressive. I have been thinking of maybe getting another loving caring Golden (preferably British Golden because I love its pure white coat), but the tragic death of Chelsea King changed my mind.

I kept asking myself, would Chelsea still be alive if she had a protective German Shepherd on her side when she went hiking at the wrong place at the wrong time?

I have two little girls who are the center of my world. There is absolutely NO way that I would allow anything even remotely close to that to happen to my children, therefore I made up my mind that I would have to adopt a breed that is intelligent, loyal, but most importantly, PROTECTIVE for the safety of the girls.

With that decision made, we started searching for a German Shepherd. Deep inside I hoped just a tiny little bit for an all white German, which is also called American Shepherd or White Shepherd due to its color variation from its original ancestors, but did not really count on it because it is so few to come by -- it'd be a miracle if we could find a healthy and lovable white German Shepherd male, given how rare this breed is.

Well, God had listened and answered my prayers mercifully twice when I wished for girls many years ago, and this time he graciously granted my wish again.

When Claire 1st told me that there was a German in the puppy shop on March 21st (incidentally spring started on this day), my very 1st thought was "It can't be white"... till I heard Claire screaming "....and it is WHITE!".

Then after seeing the puppy's adorable face I checked with the staff for its sex, almost not daring to hope for a male, but was told that it was INDEED a male!

For someone like me who believe things are often destined (I know, women), I just HAD to adopt him on the spot.

I should also mention that while we were going thru the paperwork, a guy offered me $150 more than what I just paid because he and his fiancee REALLY wanted him but was one step behind us. After I declined his offer with an apology, he went as far as to trying to talk Claire out of it. Nice try, he picked the VERY person who had always wanted a guarding dog in the 1st place (I on the other hand, was the one who actually had tried to hold her back.)

My son was born on Jan 19th, 2010 and was just separated from his parents at a breeder in PA. His sister was adopted the same morning to match a male Lab.

As for his temperament, we spent about an hour at the shop petting and playing with him. He seemed to be very friendly with us and other dogs, and did not appear to be overly aggressive. You should know that the white Germans are bred to be milder and mellower than the traditional black/tan ones. He laid down a couple of times to let us touch his tummy, got too comfy and almost fell asleep on the floor while we were doing it, which was a good sign that he is obedient and trainable.

He did nibble my fingers a little without really biting them, but his teethmarks were all over the little decorative chairs in the "bonding room". Given the fact the Germans have the 2nd most powerful biting power among all the dog breeds (2nd only to the Rottweilers), I sure hope he will put his razor sharp teeth into good use later in his life.

I am bringing Caitey back to meet her hubby tomorrow, maybe I should get a ring for each one of my 4-legged child?

Now the major challenge is to decide on his name. So far we have come up with the following mile long list:
Cade (meaning "pure"),
Cadman (warrior),
Caius (rejoice),
Calbert (shepherd),
Candan (sincerely),
Carlin (little champion),
Carmine (song),
Carney (warrior),
Caicey/Casey (brave/watchful),
Canton (wise),
Chase (hunter),
Ciel (from heaven),
Clarence (clear),
Clyde (heard from afar),
Cyrus (sun),
...and others like Cloudie, Coyote, Creamy, Clearey, Carnegie, CaiKai, Snowy, Ivory.

So, decisions decisions decisions....

Time to find my Caitey angel a companion

Time flies. It has been 6 months since Caitey 1st joined our family last Aug. I find myself in love her more and more each and every day.

She is SUCH a beautiful, sweet, loving and obedient dog.

She listens and responds to our commands, even when she wants the other way. I have heard/read a lot of horror stories about how others Goldens chewing up the house, messing up the garbage can, ripping toilet paper, stealing food, biting people etc etc, but my Caitey is behaving great in our house and does none of such things.

Of course when she first came to our home as a newborn puppy she was curious about everything, but after a short while her nature to please took over and made her a perfect family companion. If I don't want her to do anything, it qukk only take a firm "NO" and I won't have that headache again.

I have a room sized closet which she was not allowed to get int. While her sister Caitlin and I were going thru our things in there, Caitey popped her cute little head in the door and watched us with great interest but did not step in. She was very happy when I said OK, and roamed around the room that is filled with stuff without touching any of them.

She does not go into the piano room, she does not chew our slippers any more, I can leave my shopping bag on the floor and don't have to worry about them getting ripped apart, she can hold up to 12 hours straight without having any accident, and she has graduated her crate and sleeps like angel in my room everynight to be my company.

If I let her out on the patio by herself without tying her up, she won't make a move and will wait patiently outside the door for me.

I think Caitey can even understand what I think. Perhaps because I had wished that she could be just a little less friendly towards strangers and more protective of her family, I think she heard me so all of sudden she started barking at strangers walking outside our house to alert us....thank you good girl!

I am SO grateful that I have the best doggie in the whole wide world, that I feel bad about not being able to play with her all the time.

It is time to find her a good companion so she has someone of her own kind to play with, especially when both are still puppies so they can get along well for many years to come.

So it is our mission to find her a nice hubby out of humanitarian (more like "caninitarian") concern.

Caitey's 1st walk on Nassau Street

After a brutal winter and almost 3 feet of snow, the spring is finally here... well almost. The weather gets so warm all of a sudden and you can almost smell spring in the air.

The girls and I brought Caitey to Princeton University and Nassau St yesterday afternoon. The temperature almost hit 60 and there were lots of people there, many with their pets.

It was Caitey's first stroll down on a busy street so I was a little concerned at first -- my husband was working on our yard at home and I was not too sure if I could handle a dog which likes to jump on people. I kept her on tight leash, and after getting choked back a few times, the naughty girls soon realized that she was not going to chase every boy on campus or sniff every behind she sees on the street... so she gave up quickly. She later heeled nicely with us walking along Nassau, and sat quietly next to us when the girls had their snacks outside Panera Bread.

We received quite a few nice compliments about her and she acted politely when people petted her. Some people were surprised that she was barely 9 months old (you could tell they were not dog owners). A woman let her 7-year old chocolate-colored female Golden socialize with Caitey, and they looked so cute together. Caitey got very attached to the other Golden... almost like a little baby feeling close her canine mommy.

Caitey had a time all afternoon, except when she saw a few balloons dancing in the wind outside a store. She was scared and barked a little. Since she was so well behaved, as a reward I let her have her own way chasing a few squirrels up to the trees before we went back to the car.

I plan to bring her out on the streets more often as the weather improves, and hopefully she will get more comfortable meeting strangers and eventually become a therapy dog.

Caitey is losing her fashionable wavy hair

When Caitey was little, she used to have beautiful short wave hair around her neck, on her back and under her tummy. Now as she grows older , for some reason her curly hair starts to extend longer but straighter -- it still twists here and there but is more like straight than wavy now.

Also the hair on her back feel a lot rougher than it used to be, but the ones around her neck area still feels as soft and delicate as cashmere.

I start to take my favorite blonde girl out for rides in the car, and she LOVES the spin. Every time I go out with my key, the smart girl knows it and will head straight to the door of my car. She is still a puppy and the seat of my SUV is pretty high, I will need to help lift her back legs so she can get in on the back seats. I hope she stays "small" longer -- right now she is "only" about 70lbs, I doubt if I can do anything when she is full grown.

She has been a good girl in the car. She will wait patiently and does not chew anything except sniffing here and there to get familiar with her surroundings..... she is a dog after all. Hope she stays behaved because I would not know how to patch up leather car seats.

Right now she is only out with me on shorter trips, like a ride to the bank or school to pick up her human sisters. I plan to stretch the length of time gradually, so hopefully we can bring her with us on out of state trips soon. I hate to leave her in the kennel -- I miss her so much and often worry that she won't be able to rest well when she has to spend the night with a bunch of barking dogs.

Laugh of the day

If you lock your spouse and your dog up in the trunk of your car for two hours, who is REALLY happy to see you when you open the trunk?

If you are not sure about the answer (most likely you are not a dog owner btw), you can try "her divorce attorney".

You got to watch this, smart dog lovers!

A living proof that dogs are not only kind but also smart...... if not kinder and smarter than we humans.

A dream about a white dog

I had a weird dream last night.

Don't remember the details but I dreamed that I had a group of dogs swimming in the river and I was standing by the river watching them with joy. At that point my neighbour came over and asked for her white dog back, to which I agreed.

I DO remember feeling sad that I had to let that white dog go because I was so fond of him.

Incidentally one of my real neighbours indeed has a white Cocker Spaniel and Golden Retriever mix. His name is Freckles, who looks more like a Cocker Spaniel than a Golden with his medium size. He is an adorable male dog who likes to wonder all around the map and get himself lost.

Maybe it was because I thought too much about what kind of husband to get for Caitey during the day. We are still debating if we should get a Golden or a German.... and if it is the former should we get just a regular Golden (golden colored) or a British (creamy colored) Golden?

Decisions decisions decisions .... as they call it "analysis paralysis".

Caitey's 1st Chinese New Year

新年快乐, 恭喜发财!

Caitey just spent her 1st Chinese New Year with us and had lots of yummy food from dumplings to pancakes as her treats. I am just glad that she is not in China, or the noise of the firecrackers would have scared her to death.

We had a ton of snow this year, two major ones back to back that left our yard covered with knee-high level of snow. It is inconvenient for lots of people from driving on messy dangerous roads to losing power at home, but Caitey had a great time jumping in and out of the snow. She even went sledging with us quite a few times and chased us relentlessly up and down the hill. She got herself so exhausted that often she would fell into a nap right after she came back home.

She also developed a "bad" habit -- before she would be very happy if we could just let her out play in the back yard, but now she will sit on the patio whimpering, because she wants us to go out and play with her!

By the way did you know that 49 out of the 50 states in the US ALL had snow at one point last week? It has been such an "upside down" winter so far -- the deep south was buried with unusual snow that left several states paralyzed, while the Winter Olympics had to cancel snowboarding event due to the lack of it!

On another note, Caitey is a big beautiful blonde now -- at not even 8 months of age, she now officially weighs 66.4 lbs! She is going to break her Mommy's back someday.

She gets very tall when she "stands up" -- with her height well over the counter she stands straight on her hind legs, we will have to be careful of her "stealing" our food, but so far this hasn't happened too often, yet, because she will quit whenever we tell her to "stop" or "no".

I also heard that lots of Goldens will entering the mouthy biting and chewing period at about 7 or 8 months of age, but so far Caitey has been behaving very well like a good girl.

As Caitey grows older she now refused to sleep in her crate any more, and since she no long has accidents any more (knock on the woods), we let her sleep under the desks in the office or in the mater bedroom. Sometimes she will happily spend time next to Mommy's bed and watch me sleep without a sound till I get up.

She is getting so beautiful and gracious that some people who met her have suggested that maybe we should make a show dog out of her. Some say she looks very "fashionable" with the wavy hair on her body. She has long hair on her tail which whips left and right like a long beautiful fan when she walks.

I bought her two new doggie beds yesterday and put each of them under our two desks. She went under one desk, crawled on top of it sort of to show me that the size fit her perfectly, came out to kiss my hand while waving her tail at me, and then went back to nap on it.

I was (and still am) really touched by how appreciative she is... no wonder people say dogs are better than humans sometimes.

Skating vs Skiing

I brought the girls to skating twice during the past few days. I used to think skating was tough, till I tried skiing. So the silver lining is that skating now feels a lot easier to me by comparison.

There are things that are similar between the two. Like children tend to do better than adults because they are smaller in size thus nimbler, they are not afraid of the falls so they are braver, or it could be that they are just smarter and faster learners; Like the slim swift figures sliding on the ice/snow are a pure enjoyment to look at; Or like players for both sports are mostly light-colored (you can really count, sometimes with only one hand) the number of people darker than brown on the white surface...

....but I can tell you if there is ONE thing different between skating and skiing is this: when you fall, you can stand up on your own in skating but it is almost impossible for you to get up without help with the long ski boards underneath your feet, especially if you are an adult.

Trust me, I learned this the "hard" way -- as in, falling "hard" on my nose and getting up "hard".