China Bees

It's only 3 in the afternoon and today has already been a full day.  We still have our walk to go on.

Our day started with an attempt to journey to China.  She was outside for only 5 minutes, and when I went out to get her, she was waist deep in a hole and still digging.  I wouldn't look so down on digging a hole to China, except that it was in the flowerbed around our pond.  For some reason of all the area she could dig in, she always chooses the flowerbeds.

Then, later this afternoon I had to fight to get her inside due to a bee population.  She hadn't ever encountered bees because of the cold winter, but they are out in large numbers today, which freaks me out. All I see is flying needles.  But, either Bella wanted to protect me or they looked tasty, because she ran around trying to eat them.  She must have eaten at least three, so hopefully those aren't harmful to her.  She wasn't too happy that I took her away from the flying fun fest, so she is barking at me by the door.

Fun times.

UPDATE: She lost another tooth today.  And stole half of my orange and ate it.  I hope it doesn't hurt her.

Shots and Mange

Today I took Bella to the vet.  She got the last of her 3 Parvo vaccinations and her Rabies shot.  She wasn't too excited about those, but she seemed to stay pretty calm.  She also got her first of the worm prevention pills, which she actually liked to eat.

She also has puppy mange, otherwise known as demodectic mange.  It's localized on two small spots on her muzzle, barely even visible.  I got to see the little cigar-shaped things under a microscope which was actually pretty cool, and kind of gross. But the vet explained what they were and treatment and such.

Hopefully my little rescue puppy will get better soon. She was pretty sleepy all day, but I guess it is wearing off because she is currently chewing up my checkbook box.

Now to rescue my checks...

Destructo-Puppy

Yesterday Bella was the worst she has ever been.  She kept testing my patience all day and snapping back at me when I took something she wasn't allowed to chew away.  I am hoping that this phase will pass.  She was still testy today, but not near as much.  I blame in part the cold weather (preventing long walks) and aching teeth.

Luckily I have found ways to combat her boredom.  It seems the best toys are always the free ones.  She spent about an hour yesterday chasing a 7-Up bottle yesterday.  It was hilarious.  She scoots it around the room, under the bed, under the dresser, and then back across the room.  Every time it gets stuck somewhere, she comes to me and whines so I will get it out for her.  This has become an everyday game.

My room has also become wilderness grounds again.  She has caught on to the fact that I take the sticks away from her if I see her bringing them inside.  Now my crafty little pup chooses sticks small enough to completely hide inside her mouth.  Then, she brings them upstairs and destroys them all over the carpet.  I vacuumed today because it looked like I had spread mulch all over the ground.  Not two minutes after cleaning, though, she got out a stick she had hid under a blanket in her bed.  It's hopeless...

She also chewed up a hand towel...must have been exhausting because this is how I found her and her accomplishment.

Then she went into the backyard and decided gardening was her next best thing to do.  I found quite a few holes around the pond and in the flower beds.  My first step outside was just a slight introduction to the destruction.  The old cast iron bird house was not only knocked down, but had been dragged at least a few feet from it's original place, and she had gotten out all the plastic things you put under planters to catch the excess water.  Those were thrown about all over the yard, and she was attacking them one by one.  It was pretty hilarious.

I love my little destructo-puppy.  No matter how bad she is, she can't help but be adorable.  I do my best to train hr right, but sometimes you can't help but laugh.

On another note, Bella lost a tooth today.  She has probably lost quite a few, but today I found one next to her as she was chewing her bone.  Weirdest thing to find.

Morning Breath

I have started letting Bella sleep in my room now.  I used to lock her up in her cage at night, but I decided I would try out leaving the cage door open and letting her sleep in my room.  Sometimes she gets hot and likes to sleep on the bathroom floor, but for the most part she sleeps in my bed.

I know some people think it is bad to let a dog sleep in bed with you, but I love having her there.  I have a hard time sleeping on my own anyways, and I sometimes have nightmares, so I feel safer with her loose.  Plus, she is a cuddler like me.

We always start out with her sleeping at my feet.  I have one of those pillow cushions with arms to lean against at the foot of the bed, and she loves to cuddle with that.  She pretty well stays there all night unless she wakes up to get some water or move to the bathroom floor if she is hot.  But she has gotten in this funny habit in the mornings.

Since I don't have a real job yet, I get to sleep in as late as I want.  This is pretty nice, although I am ready for more to do during my day.  But anyways, we tend to sleep in until 10:30 in the mornings, sometimes 9 if I am feeling extra motivated that day.  Once sunlight creeps into my bedroom, Bella moves up on the bed.  She lays herself as long as she can get right next to me with her head on my pillow and normally one paw will be on my arm.  I love waking up like this. She is such an adorable girl.  Although, once the licking starts, I tend to finally get up and get us ready for the day.

Sticks and Brooms

Bella has completely changed my cleanliness ways.  I clean my room every other day, and yet shower quicker and less often than before.  She has a knack for getting into things, so my showers come during her nap time, after she is dead asleep.  And during those showers, I must get clean as fast as possible to beat her waking up.  During one shower, I thought she was flat out, she seemed to be dreaming, and I came out in my towel to her eating a sock.  Another time she fooled me into thinking she was asleep, only to have her try to eat the shower curtain.

While my hygiene suffers a little, my cleanliness in my room is excelling.  I have to keep everything of value off the floor at all times, and now she has gotten tall enough to reach the tops of my dressers, so those are kept as clear as possible, too.  I also vacuum and sweep the bathroom floor about twice a week, because she has found a new item to destroy...sticks.

Somehow she sneaks them inside.  I am not sure how.  Most of the time I catch her before she gets through the door, but I think she found out how night blind I am, and maybe she sneaks them in when I let her inside in the dark.  Anyways, I came up to my room the other day only to find fragments of bark and sticks all over the carpet.  It looked like I had spread mulch all over the floor.  On top of that, she was laying in the middle of the room trying to disguise the fact that she was chewing a stick.  She had her bone in front of the stick so that I couldn't see the culprit of the mess.

All this cleanliness must have gone to her head, because yesterday I caught her dragging a broom back and forth across the backyard.  Whether she was attacking the broom or trying to sweep the yard, I will never know, but it was a pretty hilarious sight to behold.  Even funnier was when the tip of the handle would catch on the floor and slightly pole vault her.

Needless to say, the broom won't be of much use anymore.  Luckily we have more stored in safer quarters.  She can have that one now.

Her view on my unemployment

I have been job searching lately, because I hadn't taken time to actually look for a job in my field since August.  I majored in Graphic Design, and do photography, but lately I have gotten in a rut of being lazy and a little afraid of the whole idea of career and adulthood.

So for the past few days I have made myself sit for hours and hours looking for jobs and filling out job applications.  Unfortunately I have been picky, which I need to stop.  I am more of a poster / album art designer rather than the corporate brochure / letterhead / strict guidelines type.  I can do both, but maybe the painter in me comes out when I have more flexibility.

So I had been looking for jobs.

I don't think she likes that idea too much.  It seems now that every time I would sit down and look at a page of job listings, she would start chewing on a chord or the chair I am sitting on.  What she doesn't realize, though, is that I need a job to keep feeding her.

Or maybe it is just coincidence.  But she never seems to do it when I am blogging about her.

Currently, she has found a place on the wall that is appealing and is trying to chew on the wall.  Luckily that venture is unsuccessful so far.

She's Electric

Bella ate my power chord for my Macbook today.  I don't think I have ever been so upset with her.  It is now ghetto taped together.

I was getting ready to take her for a walk, excited about doing something nice for her since she had been cooped up and bored all day.  She was alone for one minute and BAM! Let's eat some electricity!  I am glad she didn't get fried, but it was still pretty upsetting.

Now, she is busying herself by chasing an empty 7-up bottle.  She has been at this for about 45 minutes, and this is by far the loudest game she has come up with.  She sprints back and forth ramming the bottle into everything she can.  Every now and then she stops by to bite my feet, though.  I guess she wants to make me feel involved.

I feel it, alright.

Fitting

It's funny how dogs work.  Anything and everything is a toy waiting to be chewed.  While I normally would have reprimanded her for chewing things she shouldn't, I let her have her find last night.

Long ago, like back in high school, I dated a guy who one day decided that I should learn baseball.  That failed.  But for some reason his glove was still here, and Bella found it last night.  I guess that was her statement on that relationship.  She spent all night destroying the glove, and is still working on it today.  

Fitting.

The Beginning

This is the story of Bella Donna, the newest member of my family.

I found her the night of December 22 online.  My parents had told me that day that they would be buying me a dog of my choice for Christmas.  I spent all day looking on Pet Finder for a puppy, and there she was.  Out of the hundreds of dogs I saw, I just couldn't get her off my mind.  She was located at the animal shelter in Decatur, which was fairly close by.  I dreamt of her all night, and then the next morning I woke up and called before the shelter was even open to see if she was still there.

Here is what she looked like in her ad.  

When I got to the shelter, she had grown, but we definitely bonded.  Ever since I took her home, she hasn't stopped following me around the house.  I can't even be in a separate room without her coming to find me.  She is pretty adorable.

But she is definitely a character.  I have never had a puppy of a large breed of dog. She is lab/ chow/ golden retriever mix and about 14 weeks according to the vet, and she is growing pretty fast.  

We recently had a battle with an infestation of intestinal worms.  That was horrifying.  She hadn't been eating much, and then one day I saw a tape worm wriggling on her poop.  I called the vet and made an appointment for the next day.  That night, she started vomiting worms! These things were more like snakes, and I am that mom that bags the samples to take to the vet.  He gave her a dewormer, and then the next day was like poltergeist.  She was pooping and vomiting snakes all day.  It was pretty disgusting. But now she is healthy and eating me out of house and home like normal.

She also experienced her first snow.  It wasn't much, but she seemed to enjoy it.  So here are some pictures of her so far.  More to come.