Tricia's Musings

Random Thoughts about life in general, living in the big city of Toronto



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My backs back!

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My back is feeling a lot better! I don’t think I’ll be able to say it’s completely back to normal for a few days, but three days of really taking it easy and gobbling down aspirin to take the inflammation down in my lower spine seems to have really helped.

We have a dog training class tonight and I was really dreading going if my back was still acting up. Midnight gets so excited when she sees the other dogs and she’s in love with the trainer who talks in a loud excited friendly voice so she’s alway pulling on her leash (and yes sometimes barking!) while we’re in class. I was afraid that if my back was still really bad and she started pulling on her leash and jumping around while in her training class that my back would be done for! As it is I’ll still have to be careful, but I think there’s less chance now that a small movement will throw it out again.

Did all the snow and the subsequent shoveling get to any of you’re backs?





Graduated from puppy training

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I’m pleased to let you know that Midnight graduated from her puppy training class.

She actually graduated on February 8th and we’re already going to intermediate dog training classes, but I forgot to make a post about her graduation. Actually … I even still had the photos on my camera up until yesterday!

Here’s the little grad:

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She was not at all happy to be wearing the graduation cap no matter how cute she looked in it. LOL

It was too big for her really so it sat lopsided and whenever she moved (which was often!) it pretty much fell off.

Prior to getting her cap and graduation certificate we had our last puppy training lesson. I guess it was more of a test to see how well the puppies had learned various commands throughout the course than a lesson. Or rather how well the puppy parents had learned commands as it turned out! We had to walk around with our dogs carrying a full cup of water and using only one had to control the dog and leash. … the floor was pretty wet after that exercise!

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Those are Chris’ feet BTW.

Another test was having the puppies stop at three different pylons to perform different commands like staying in place while sitting or laying down, listening to us when told to ignore something on the ground (food!) and finally sitting, laying down and sitting again for a treat … kind of a dumb trick.

The test that was the most fun was when the trainer paired up two dogs and had their owners stand a distance away and call to their dogs. This was to see if the puppies would go to their owners.

As you can see below Midnight failed … or maybe Chris failed. The other lab owner had a treat in her hand and Chris didn’t, so of course both dogs took off to see her!

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I’m thankful that the trainer didn’t grade the class. Midnight wasn’t behaving at her best that night and I’m sure she would have been near the bottom of the class if they’d graduated with grades!

If you have a dog did you do puppy training classes?

Dogs on TV

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Last night there was a show on TV called Canine Confidential. It was all about pampered dogs, dog fashions, how entrepreneurs are cashing in on the dog craze, and how dogs are being used in services such as the army. It was pretty good. If you’re interested, visit the site above to learn more about the show.

Of course we also watched Survivor and Lost too.

I had taped the show and we watched it late in the evening. Our puppy was getting tired and she curled up with her head resting on my leg and watched most of the show. We catch her watching TV quite often – especially if there’s animals in the show! (she also likes cartoons and hockey.)

Every once in a while Midnight would walk up to the TV for a closer look and then she’d wander around the room, pace by the door … it was as if she was looking for all the dogs she saw on the screen. I wish we’d thought of pulling out the video camera because it was kind of funny.

Does your dog or cat watch TV? What kind of shows attract your pets attention?

The puppy is chewing everything!

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I think my puppy is going to have to have a bare bones crate for a while.

She’s at the end of her teething and she’s gotten back into chewing everything in sight. Her chewing had slowed down for a while, but now she’s back to ripping things up again.

We have a bed for her in her crate but we’ve found that if we keep her in her crate for any period of time during the day she starts to bite her doggy bed so we remove it during the day. It goes back in at night as she doesn’t seem to bother it through the night but during the day’s a different story.

We also have a towel in her crate. It softens the noise of her pacing around in the crate or the noise she makes when she’s playing with her toy bones and other toys. Well, she’s in the crate now and she’s chewing like mad on her towel. I guess we’ll have to take that out all the time now too.

I feel bad for her. I want to make her more comfortable by giving her soft things to lie on when she’s in there but she keeps destroying things.

I sure hope she moves out of this chewing phase sometime soon!

I love Dogs and I’ve found a great site for dog lovers

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I adore my puppy. She’s become my new muse. I’ve spent an awful lot of time over the last three month researching everything dog.

Whenever I become interested in something I tend to do a lot of research on the subject. I go to the library and borrow books, I search the internet for more information on the topic and I also tend to talk to others that are also interested in the same topic. Often I read so much that I end up creating a website to not only discuss my latest intense interest, but also to create a place for others so that they can quickly learn all the things that I’ve learned on one site. I certainly did this when I became interested in reptiles! I’ve got two huge reptile related websites as some of you probably already know.

I haven’t gotten to the “make a website” stage yet and I may not this time round, but you never know. What I have been doing is visiting a number of dog and Labrador Retriever related websites, joining dog forums and reading up on dogs in general.

You might remember that my puppy was quite sick when we got her. I had to learn as much as I could in order to try to make her better. She’s doing a lot better these days. She’s still got some problems, but over all she’s doing quite well. I thank the many great sites that I discovered for helping me help her recover from her many ailments.

One of the sites that I came across along the way is the I-Love-Dogs.com website. If you’re thinking of getting your first dog or getting another doggy companion you can spend some time on the site reading the pros and cons of various dog breeds and of course looking at the many dog pictures that proud owners are more than happy to post.

I-Love-Dogs.com is a major dog portal where you can talk to other dog owners, discuss dogs in general on the forums, talk about your dogs health or behavioral problems or share some tips that have worked for you and your dog companion.

Along with the extensive dog forums you’ll find sections with dog games, lists of great dog names, free stuff for your dog, recipes for home made dog food, articles about dogs and dog training and many other great dog related categories. Heck you can even shop for supplies for your dog too.

If you are a dog owner you should take a moment to visit the I-Love-Dogs.com website. I’m sure you’ll find something there of interest and you’ll probably learn something new too.

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