Sunday, September 30, 2007

Elphaba - 1 week update

Well, little Elphaba has been home a week now and I'd say things are going pretty well overall.

Zella seems to be warming up to her...she still runs off most of the time, but she is letting Elphie get closer...and of course Zella and Joey love Elphie's food so they are REALLY close by when she's eating!

Housetraining is going .... probably good for this age....during the day I've been gone up to 6 hours and come home to no mess in the crate. Problem seems to be at night...and its not wet, but dirty... :) I thought we'd gotten passed that Friday night when it was wet but not dirty...but then last night..nice little present again when I got up in the middle of the night. As far as in the house outside the crate...I've figured out her signal for when she needs to go #2...so thats not a problem anymore. I just have to watch REALLY closely. She does like to go to the kitchen and pee....so again..have to watch REALLY closely.

Big problem at this point is she's too small for a harness. I bought the smallest one you can get at Petsmart..and the matching collar got small enough...but the harness at 8 inches around is still WAY too big. And she's starting to get braver outside and run away from me some...so I bought a little pen I've got set up out back. She's not crazy about it...but it makes me feel better that she's not running loose. Hopefully she'll put on some pounds soon and the harness will fit. I did special order a couple to from online..but I'm worried they might be too big too.

She's taken okay to the collar...at first she was attacking it because I put the tag on it too...but I took the tag back off for now for her to get used to it and she doesn't seem to know its there...so hopefully in another day or so when I put the tag on she doesn't realize it.

Tomorrow we're off to the vet for her first checkup with ME...that should be fun.

Oh..and have you heard of Catster and Dogster? I was looking for other teacup owners for advice on the harness thing and came across Dogster and Catster...too funny.....All my furbabies are now signed up and making lots of friends!

Elphaba
Joey
Zella

Monday, September 24, 2007

Apparently she's SOOO tiny....

that everything she eats comes out IMMEDIATELY! Have to readjust schedule to go out RIGHT after she finishes eating!

Sunday, September 23, 2007

Tell me she's not the cutest damn thing you ever saw.....

ittle Elphie (short for Elphaba) came home yesterday, and I'm exhausted already!

She wimpered a little in the car on the way home..but nothing too bad. We got inside and I put her on the kitchen floor. She promptly took off after Joey and Zella. And for you to understand how funny that is.... Sweet little Elphie weighs in at 1.75 lbs currently. Zella weighs 11lbs and Joey weighs 17lbs. After the cats were out of reach Elphie took off after TMX elmo..and promptly knocked him over and started jumping on him. To put that in perspective...she only comes up to his hands!

Most of the day was spent in the crate with Elphie not too happy. I was laying on the floor working on my final paper for this class (worth 18% of my total grade) and she was CRYING away. Then Wicked came up on iTunes and she got quieter...just a wimper. Then when Defying Gravity started with the sharp "Elphaba!" from Glinda...she perked right up and got super quiet...so Elphaba it is!

We had to make a Petsmart run despite all my advance purchases, as the breeder said she needed some moist food to mix in with the dry they gave me (she'd just run out). And I wanted to pick up some Nutrical while I was there as everything I read said this was important to keep on hand to avoid hypoglycemic shock for my little munchkin. Of course we picked up a little something for Joey and Zella too. Anyway, Elhpie was the HIT of the store. We had SEVERAL people walking up to us to ask about her and give her a little pet...and she was loving EVERY minute of it. Though she was very happy to have her mama hanging onto her the entire time. In fact...she's happiest in general if she's touching me.

Oh...did I mention the worms yet? That was fun...not sure how the vet didn't know she had roundworm since .... well....her 2nd time at #2 it was QUITE obvious....spaghetti in the poop....means roundworm. I know this is extremely common in puppies...but it was a little frustrating on the first day.

Anyway, bedtime came and my little sweetie was NON too happy to be in the crate....I'd made a last minute run to CVS for a hot water bottle at mom's suggestion as the crying was driving me crazy. This seemed to help a lot and the crying turned back to a low wimper that I could barely hear while upstairs (she's downstairs). But that wimper turned into serious noise again after about 2 hours. When she quieted down for a second I ran down to see her (only taking her out of the crate when she's quiet so she learns crying doesn't do her any good). Crate was clean so we went outside and back into the crate she went. Two more hours of sleep and I was up again with the noise. Again...waited for her to quiet down and went to check on her..and she'd made a little mess in the crate (thank god no spaghetti this time though, YUCK!). So back outside we went, cleaned the crate, and in went Elphie. This was around 2am. And thankfully...when I woke up at 6:30am (thanks Joey...its okay...mommy doesn't need any sleep!) it was still quiet downstairs. I wanted to take advantage of the quiet so I went down to take her out..and she was still sleeping away cute as can be. Woke her up, took her out, tried to feed her...and then during "playtime" she promptly curled up in a ball and passed out...so...back in the crate. This time I stayed downstairs and slept on the couch..and got another 2 hours before Joey came and started hissing at her and upset her.

Anyway, this morning she seems to be doing better at sleeping...been in the crate most of the morning with not a peep out of her except when joey walks by and hisses at her. Problem now is eating...which she's not doing (the cats on the other hand LOVE her food). So I'm forcing little dabs of Nutrical onto her tongue to make sure she's at least getting her calories and nutrients. Hopefully the roundworm is the cause of the not eating and the vet can get us all fixed up on that when we get in this week to see her.

Back to my project.... oh ..and here's another pic of my sweetie.


L

Friday, September 21, 2007

New puppy comes home

TOMORROW! YEAH!!!!!! Lots of pics coming soon I'm sure! :)

Friday, September 14, 2007

New Love in my Life....

That would be my new PUPPY!!!!!!!


She's not home with me just yet because she's not even 8 weeks old yet!!!!!

She's a yorkiepoo (yorkie poodle mix in case you weren't sure) and weighs about 1 lb right now. Her parents are 4 and 5 pounds so she should stay pretty tiny! I'll have to watch her carefully around the cats since they are 11 and 17lbs!

I have to call middle of next week to check on her...they may let me pick her up next weekend...might have to wait til the weekend after that...but they said she's the strongest of the pups so next weekend is promising.

I'm so excited!

Friday, September 07, 2007

Loopy Groopy!

YAY!!! I finally made Loopy Groopy status at the Loopy Ewe!!!!!!! Sheri sent me the most beautiful colorway of Panda Cotton. Strawberries Limes. Yummy!

Tuesday, September 04, 2007

You know you have been traveling too much when....

......you show up in the office on Sept 4 and your page a day calendar still says July 31.

If only I were done....

Headed to Baltimore tonight and traveling all over MD, VA, and WV Wed/Thurs this week. Then headed out to Pittsburgh and State College PA the week after...THEN I think I'm done for a while. No..I know I'm done...I don't have any more travel and entertainment budget left!

Finally on Ravelry! Yayyyyyy!!!!!!!

So happy! I finally got my invite to Ravelry last week! I didn't have much time to play with it mid week...but I did over the weekend...I've sucessfully loaded up some projects and some of my stash! I'd taken pictures before heading to Chicago last week knowing that I was getting close to getting my invite and wanted to be prepared... Now I need to find time to finish photographing my stash!