6 Months Old

Now that Ziggie has turned 6 months old, I realize how much he has learned and especially grown. He has at least tripled his size, and he eats through a large bag of puppy food in a week. He has been potty trained, fully vaccinated, neutered, and knows many tricks such as sitting, laying down, and sitting up. He also knows high five. He knows what outside means as well as go and stay. He is good in the car as well. He has had many obstacles throughout the way. He has chewed up only my retainers and broken picture frames so far, but I'm sure there will be more to come. I can't help but love my Ziggie puppy!

Jumping

Now that Ziggie is just about full grown (I hope), he really needs to get the point that I am extremely against him jumping on me. He has officially given me ten open cuts in just the last week. He only jumps when I get home, but it is tedious never the less. He is learning that I don't want him to jump up, it is just the fact that he feels he needs to beat Maui to the punch when she is also present. When Maui isn't there, he doesn't jump, and he is the perfect angel. Oh, Ziggie!

Still Roudy

Getting Ziggie neutered was my attempt to make him calmer. Sadly, this failed greatly due to the fact he is about ten times more hyper than I could have ever thought was possible. He no longer is as aggressive or attacks Maui, so I suppose that was the real goal behind taking his man card. Still, now he requires two daily walks and tons of attention. If my alarm doesn't sound in time for his morning walk, he decides it wouldn't be a bad thing to jump up and lick my face until I roll out of bed at last.

Possible Infection

Ziggie had to make an emergency visit to the vet last night. From his surgery, he could have developed an infection. After 5 hours in the animal emergency room, we got news that he had just given himself a minor sore from what I call his cone of shame, and we needed to just keep it off of him, but keep an extremely close eye on him for the remaining week he needed to heal. He just had to be obnoxious to the attending vet as well; he ended up giving her a minor cut down her entire arm. Sounds just like my Ziggie.

Home at Last

Ziggie is finally home! I'm so happy. I missed him like the stars miss the sky or peanut butter misses jelly. He has a funny cone on his head now for another ten days. It's really very annoying. He's such a klutz. He will just run into things as often as he pleases: doors, windows, food/water bowl, me, and just about any other object his face can reach. I officially have bruises from his cone on his head from feet to mid-thigh. Sadly, his neutering slowed him down absolutely not one bit. He is his monster self just as much as ever.

Missing My Ziggie

Today, Ziggie actually went through the procedure to get him neutered. He has already been gone one night and tonight he will be gone as well. He did really well last night and today during surgery. I miss him so badly; however, because now I don't have him waking me up and greeting me at the door when I get home. I really liked how spazy he was and now that he's gone a couple days, I value it much more. When he gets back and rips up my personal belongings, I may just be happy. He will still get punished to teach him a lesson, but I won't truly be mad. Poor Ziggie!

Fetch

I figure with two days until Ziggie is an impatient for three days for his neutering, I should try to get my playing with him in before. He really isn't getting the concept of the ball, stick or Frisbee all too well; however, he is just loving his brand new big rope I got from petsmart. He brings it back and everything when I tell him to "fetch." The problem: when he brings it back, he won't drop it. It's simple enough to push between his jaw lightly until he releases, but I would still prefer him to just let go when I say drop. It will just have to be a work in progress.

Neutering Time

In a couple days, I will take Ziggie into CSU veterinarian clinic to get his balls removed. He may just hate me forever, and I wouldn't do it without good reason. I think that he would make beautiful puppies, but as you can see, he is much bigger than Maui now. He pushes her around with such aggression, I'm worried for her. Hopefully this will calm his temper towards her or I don't know what else I can do but get rid of him or move out. Also, maybe he will think he did something wrong and this is why he is getting this punishment. Maybe his holy terror days will be over . . . wish me luck on that thought.

Mr. Monster

There is no other way to describe my little boy other than a complete monster! He is my house's holy frickin’ terror! He is obnoxious and is so full of energy its crazy! He has now learned how to open the door to the trash and rip everything out from beneath the sink. No matter what I try doing to punish him, it just doesn't seem to work. He also jumps onto counters. He not only ate two whole boxes of Girl Scout cookies by himself, but he also took the newspaper I could have sworn he was afraid of, and buried it in the backyard.

Potty Trained

With much time and work, finally Ziggie is potty trained! This is the one of the only times I really believe in hitting a dog pretty decently. I don't hit anywhere besides his butt, before anyone gets all, "I'm going to call the cops for animal abuse" on me. He is a fairly large breed dog, and it takes a lot of power to get any reaction out of him, so I adopted a rolled up newspaper due to my lack of strength. This worked GREAT! He is learning that when I go for the newspaper, he gets the heck out of the house and knows he's done something wrong. Normally, I don't even need to hit him due to the fact that he gets that when I pick it up, he's in trouble already.