Well, thanks to Debbie and Vince, not much happened when Avery came home, because Posh wasn’t here. But we had to take her back eventually (probaby as much to her dismay as ours…she gets lots of love from Vince and Debbie and LOVES her playmate/boyfriend Sparky). Well, much to my surprise, Posh has really risen to the occasion. She loves Avery and is surprisingly gentle with her. Don’t believe me? See for yourself:

People told me that dogs have this sense, and they just know to be gentle and even become protective of the baby. I didn’t believe them. Maybe that was true of other dogs, but Posh isn’t exactly the delicate type…more of a bull in a china shop, despite her blonde and furry exterior. I was also concerned that she’d act out when Avery replaced her in some ways. For example, whenever I used to sit in the recliner (which I spent a significant amount of time doing in the weeks leading up to delivery) Posh would be up in my lap sleeping within about 4 seconds. Well now, if I’m in the recliner, I’m usually feeding the little monkey. So I was very surprised when, instead of jumping on Avery’s head or barking at us, Posh just sniffed Avery’s head, then did this:

The moment Posh came through the door (sidebar: Debbie is awesome, she even picked Posh up and dropped her off for us), she knew something was different. She could smell it! Avery was sleeping but that didn’t stop Posh from smelling everything in the house that was different – mostly the nursery. She sniffed around in there for a solid half hour. And this morning, when I let her our of her crate, instead of running to our bed to snuggle with Brian, she immediately went into the nursery to “check” on Avery. Which she also does every time she cries. I thought we’d have problems with her barking at the crib when A cried, but that’s not the case. She does do this little dance on her hind legs to try to see into the crib (a lost cause). She has more success protecting her little sister (big sister or little sister?) when we put her down in the pack’n'play:

Will she be our new babysitter? Ok, that’s a stretch. But so far, we’re very happy with how Posh is adjusting to our growing family.

In anticipation of the neglect and, likely, depression, that will face young Posh in the coming months, I decided that she needs a little love on the blog. After all, she won’t be the baby in the family anymore! Like any sane childless couple, we have become enamored with her in the past year and obsessed over her as though she were a child. So here it goes, a tribute to our little Poshie Poo.

Here are some of the things I love about this little pooch:

• Her big floppy ears. Yes, they are prone to infections, but they are so darn cute.
• Her recent affinity for naps. She is the best snuggler and will come in handy this winter keeping me warm!
• How she waits right outside the shower (usually peeking in) the whole time you’re in there, waiting for that glorious moment when you step out so she can lick your legs for the next 15 minutes.
• How she has taken up chasing moths around the house. For a clumsy dog with ridiculously oversized paws, she has incredible accuracy. And they have a tremendous advantage over her…they can FLY! I would like to see her play whack-a-mole, she would be awesome.
• One word: consistency. Every day when you get home, she is sitting in the same spot on the stairs, waiting for you to pull into the driveway so she can run down the stairs and greet you.
• How she is obsessed with Brian. I usually let her out of her crate in the morning, and she immediately runs past me and checks the bedroom and the bathroom for Brian. If he is sleeping and I have denied her access to him by closing the door (how dare I), she will lay outside his door until he gets up (so unfair that she loves him more than me by the way).

But most importantly, Posh has taught us that although she is a lot of work, a complete inconvenience and, at times, drives us crazy, we love her anyways and can’t live without her. I’m thinking that concept will be taking on a whole new meaning soon.

I also realized that, since I’m driving out with my friend Rachel, and Posh will certainly make herself comfortable in Rachel’s lap for the duration of the trip-both there and back-it would be the nice thing to do to give our little Poshy-Poo-Poo a bath. She’s cute alright, but cute doesn’t cover up stinky. Or maybe she’s just not cute enough. (While we’re on the point, wouldn’t be nice if cute covered up stinky with dogs and babies? Hmm…)

So when she got her ears cleaned they told me she was already starting to get matted. Aaaah, the luxuries of having a cocker spaniel with long lustrous hair. Last time I got her groomed I had to pay like 10 bucks extra for all the matting they had to get through (as a result of 8 weeks of neglecting to brush her on our part). So I went home and decided that BEFORE bathing her I should try to get some of the matting out. 20 minutes later, I had barely gotten through her ears. She was patient and stayed pretty still, but after about 20 minutes, I think she was enjoying it about as much as I was.

And I think we both agree now. What’s a little matting between friends? I’m ok with having a slightly matted dog if all I have to do is pay 10 extra bucks every couple months. And I think she’s ok with having a little extra matting if she doesn’t have to sit still and endure my attempts to get the matting out.

Gotta run, it’s bathtime.

Today, like I said, was not a good day. Lots of construction, trucks being stuck in driveways and blocking country roads (that I don’t know an alternate route for)…you get the picture. I was in the car for a while. By the time I got home the pain was unbearable and even stretching out in the recliner wasn’t helping. So eventually, I decided to not be miserable in the recliner, I figured I was already in pain, I may as well try taking posh for a waddle, I mean, a walk.

If you recall, loose leash walking was not her specialty back in her dog school days.  Usually our pace is at least moderate, so she’s not pulling me too hard and she still gets to trot at a nice little Poshy pace. Today I had flip flops on (it was either walk up the stairs for better shoes, or just go for a walk in whatever shoes you can find down here…I opted for the latter). By the end of our walk, she was pulling so hard and yet walking extremely slow. And I realized it was because I was walking extremely slow (I wish I could go back in time and exercise REGULARLY throughout this pregnancy).

Then she stopped abruptly and looked up at me, which was very surprising since she’s usually looking at anything/anyone but me and charging forward. But I think she was trying to communicate something to me. She gave me this confused stare, as if to say “Are you kidding? This is as fast as you can go?”

Taken aback by her boldness and lack of consideration, I responded with a confident glare, which I hope conveyed two things:

“This is no picnic for me either”

and

“You got fixed…you will never know…”

We went away for vacation in April and I think our dog, in an act of revenge for leaving her (although she was in very good hands), managed to un-housebreak herself as soon as she got home. It has been almost three months since then and we had to go back to the drawing board with training her. Waiting by the glass door for ten minutes and waiting for her to pee, teaching her exactly what she did wrong when she has an accident, and, yes, the occasional spanking when her rebellion was particularly apparent. The training was kicked into high gear when we realized we didn’t want our new carpet to smell like our old carpet. Talk about motivation.

So over the last two days I have been enjoying some rewards of all this hard work. She is finally learning! She is still having accidents but, slow but sure, she’s having less and less. And the time I spend waiting for her to “do her thing” outside is getting shorter, which makes me happy. Very happy.

So what have mommy and daddy learned through all this? Train your kids now…it may be hard work but you’ll reap the rewards! (Hmmmm sounds familiar…train up a child the way she should go and when she is old she will not depart from it.) We realize we were sort of pushovers with Posh and we definitely learned that the hard way. Fortunately we messed up on our dog and hopefully it will give us some small bit of insight when we have to decide what to do with the human we will be in charge of.

Who am I kidding…we will still be clueless, but at least while we’re figuring out what to do with our kid we will have a better behaved dog.

• singing “Little Poshie Poo Poo hoppin’ through the forest” to Posh…several times
• picking her up before putting her to bed, holding her up so she was looking in the mirror and saying “who’s that?”
• slow dancing with her to a sappy country song
• massaging her paws at night after HIS softball game

Can’t wait to see what he does with an actual child!

For all of you who were losing sleep wondering, Posh is making great strides with the commands wait, come, leave it, stay, and go to bed. Her main weakness is loose leash walking, which means she has no hope for heeling right now, but that’s ok. I learned a valuable lesson last night – all things are possible with food. If she doesn’t perform the command, I just get better food out of my purse. I have everything from plain old dog food to the ultra indulgent beef jerky-ish stuff (her obvious favorite).

By the end of class she pretty much falls asleep on the floor, which makes me realize how under-exercised she is. I suppose that I am too, so hopefully when the weather improves that will change for both of us. In the meantime, I also learned at school that while Posh may not be the smartest (although she’s definitely pulling mostly A’s and B’s), she is definitely being informally voted cutest, softest and most hilarious (I promise – it’s not just me, everyone in class says so)! Aaaaah, she makes her mom so proud.  

• Posh still thinks she is twice her size. She tried to bully the big dogs. They are all much more chill than her, and didn’t really fight back. I think that made her think that she was actually somewhat threatening.
• My greatest fear was not realized – she was NOT the worst behaved dog in class. Although she was one of only two to spontaneously bark and disrupt the entire class.
• About 45 minutes into class, she stopped pulling on the leash and laid down. I’m sure it was because she was exhausted, but I like to think that she’s just so superior in intelligence that she was bored by such elemental concepts as “sit” and “stay.” You know, an overachiever, like her mom
• I have rugburn on my hand. Obviously she has not mastered “sit” and “stay” (definitely not stay).
• Posh’s report card would look something like this:
  • Polite greeting – A-
  • Sit – A+
  • Stay – A+
  • Attention – A+
  • Loose Leach Walking – F-

 Looks like we have some work to do after all.

Last night was owner orientation, or parent orientation as I like to call it. It was owners only, no dogs allowed. I quickly caught onto the fact that this was more of a class to train Brian and I than it was to train our dog. We learned about how dogs learn and how badly we mess them up by responding to them the way we do. We learned all the things we have to start and stop doing so we can live in peace with young Posh. 

We also learned that food is the best incentive ever to get our dog to obey us. So I’ve come to the conclusion that in order for us to have a pristinely behaved dog, she is boung to end up overweight. Our only homework was to start using this clicker-trainer, which basically means every time we click she gets a treat. We did a lot of clicking last night.

Next week we bring the dogs along. Our class has nine dogs…two labs, a mastiff, a couple shephard mixes and a terrier…and little Posh. It should be interesting to see how she does with dogs twice her size. Posh is usually quite the aggressor in “social” situations but I’m thinking that might change significantly next week…