Last week we celebrated the second year anniversary of Ash joining our family, and our estimation of Ash's fourth birthday. To celebrate his special day, we threw a "pizza party" for him and invited David's sister to join us. We made homemade pizzas for ourselves and two small homemade pizzas with bacon and sausage toppings for Ash and Pepper. We cut the pizzas up small and put them on a plate for each of them. Ash was a little apprehensive about this new food and delivery system but before long he realized it was a delicious treat and happily ate it right up. He spent the rest of the night curled up next to us on the couch while we watched a movie, and we made sure to give him some extra attention. Pepper spent the rest of the night trying to acquire more pizza :)
Sausage pizza for the dogs
Ash checking out his dinner
Looking back on things, it is sometimes hard to remember how far Ash has come in the last two years. I still remember Ash standing on his hind legs with his front paws on the window sill, watching as his foster parents drove away. He then nervously explored the unfamiliar house and started to decide whether or not he could trust David and I. For the first week or so, putting the leash on Ash was a chore because he was scared whenever we approached him. The futon became his "safe zone" and we were able to use that as a space to gain his trust - petting him, giving him treats, putting the leash on him, etc. Over time Ash learned and became willing to play with toys, to play with us, to enjoy walks, to chase balls, to swim, to cuddle, and to meet new people and dogs. Some of these daily tasks came easily to him, others did not. We are so proud of Ash's progress and couldn't be happier to have him as part of our family. He is a joy to wake up to in the morning and the way he bats at toys, balls, treats, and hands with his paws when he is excited always puts a smile on our faces.
For more pizza party fun, check out this video of Ash enjoying his birthday treat:
P.S. We have discovered that posting to our blog on Friday is difficult to do now that we are both working outside of the house. I think we will try to get back to the once a week blog posts, but will aim to post on Monday's instead!
Dear Mom and Dad,
One week ago you LEFT us in the middle of the night; it took us completely by surprise! When we woke up and found you missing, we were so sad!
So alone...
Why did you leave me here??
We thought - maybe this was a mistake, you would come back and pick us up!
Waiting for the cab
My bags are packed and ready to go!
Even though we were TOTALLY ready for Hawaii, you were nowhere to be found.
Getting tired of waiting.
Eventually, we decided to go experience our own version of Hawaii! We went to a wildlife reserve to check out the local flora and fauna.
Sniff sniff - a Hawaiian monk seal has been here!
We saw some really cool birds!
Suuper interesting sights to see
Next time don't forget us ok?
We bet our leis are fancier than yours...
Love, Ash & Pepper
***Disclaimer - post written by dogs(itters) with an excellent memory for passwords! ***
About a year ago we made the leap to adopt Ash (read more about that here), and we couldn't be happier having him as part of our family. He is perfect! We love him so much and he has brought so much joy to our lives. Because he is a rescue we don't know his actual birthday, so we declared the day we adopted him as his birthday; Happy Birthday Ash! To celebrate the day, we brought him home one of his favorite treats :)
Last week David and I dog-sat for Mom and Tommy while they were in Florida with Dan and Purvi. This meant that instead of having just two poodles running around the house (Ash and Pepper) we had four doggies to care for (Coal and Brandy being the temporary guests). One evening we left all four dogs alone while we went to take care of a few wedding tasks. We had been meaning to video Ash while he was alone in the house to try and catch him in middle of his shoe arranging act. We decided that with all four dogs it would be a great opportunity to see what the little fur balls do without any humans around.
This is just an image of the video - click on the link below to watch the clip!
The video we took is about 50 minutes long, and the majority of it is quite boring - you just see each dog change position, or go for a walk. In the first 5 minutes though the dogs are really vocal. It's actually sad to listen to, because you can hear how upset they are to have been left alone. In the video you will only see 3 dogs, and this is because we left Pepper in the crate as we were unsure how he and the other dogs would get along without us around. Either Pepper or Coal starts off the howling, and then all three black poodles join into what becomes a miniature poodle symphony (Brandy seems oblivious to the chaos). If you skip through the rest of the video you may be lucky enough to catch Ash in the act of carrying a shoe or two!
To watch the video, click on the link below. It's a large file, so we have stored the video elsewhere and made it available for you to watch. You'll get a good laugh!
For quite some time now David and I have been discussing fostering a poodle through Poodle Rescue Vermont, the organization we adopted Ash from. A few weeks ago we decided to sign up and see what happened. Almost immediately, we were met with a very warm reception and a request to foster one of their very special poodles, named Pepper. Pepper is special because he has had a very serious fungal infection, and so has needed quite a bit of medical care and attention from PRVT. He is doing well now and his most recent tests came back completely normal. He is still on a couple of medications, that we give him in the morning and at night.
To help keep all of Pepper's followers up to date on his progress, we have created a second blog devoted to Pepper and any future poodles that we foster. You can visit it here: http://fosterpoodles.blogspot.com/. There is also a permanent link to to the fostering blog on the sidebar of THIS blog.
Pepper will be with us until PRVT finds his forever home. So far Pepper has done a fantastic job settling in - he is very much a people person and not at all timid like Ash was in the beginning. He and Ash aren't quite sure how they feel about each other yet. The first day was met by an exchange of low growls and general apathy towards each other, and then on the second day Ash decided that he wanted play with Pepper and so invited him to play on many different occasions by pouncing towards him or tugging gently on his ear. Pepper isn't sure how he feels about this though, and so hasn't reciprocated yet. Ash isn't sure how he feels about David and I giving Pepper attention, so that has led to a few small snafus. However, I think they will warm up to each other with time - once they work out what their roles (e.g., right now I think they both think they are top dog).
We will keep this blog devoted to our lives, updates about the house, and stories about Ash. If you would like to follow Pepper's journey, please visit our fostering blog!
