18 June 2011

Like I typed yesterday, our little furbaby is an amazing little girl! We've just got back from spending 6 hours with Steven's family and our little Mitz was a very good girl staying in the house all alone! Steven gave Mitzi the "wait" request just before he went out of the door and again as he opened the door to come back in and Mitzi stayed where she was both times! I've just given our little girl a roasted pigs ear as an extra treat for doing so well this afternoon and she's currently on the sofa beside Steven munching her way through it! I'll need to get another box soon! lol

What this goes to prove is that not only does she recognise and obey the "wait" request when she's been out the back and I've rewarded her, she will also obey it if the front door is open and also if Steven gives her the request too!

She's an incredible girl!

17 June 2011

I�m owned by a truly spectacular doodle doggie... nothing new there yet, but keep reading and I�ll tell you about my favourite little pup!

After reading on the Westie list about getting Mitzi to get used to the �wait� request in other situations other than only when she�d been out to relieve herself I decided to try it out just now so I took 2 carrier bags of rubbish out to the bin and asked Mitz to �wait� while she was sat in the living room with hubby there to stop her if she didn't obey.

I went out and left the front door wide open while I put the rubbish in the bin, then closed the door and gave the "OK" to let her know she could move about now and went into the kitchen to get her a biscuit as a reward and she shot out of the living room to the bottom of the stairs and came to a skidding halt as soon as she heard me open the biscuit box. Bless her little heart!

Not only, but also, the hubby found another bag of rubbish for me to take out, so we repeated the �wait� request and yet again she did as we asked and got another reward for being such a good girl. She�s a truly spectacularly brilliant little pup who is more obedient and easy to train than any other dog I�ve come into contact with in my life!

Everyone should have a Mitzi in their lives!

22 May 2011

Our little girl, Mitzi, is a wonderful little girl and not only does she understand me and the hubby, but she also understands TV programmes too! Not even dog training programmes but a programmes that are made for humans about animals which is incredible on it's own but she has amazing feelings for the dogs on the programmes too!

How do I know that?

Well, we were watching an animal rescue programme and a dog was shown in worse (but similar to what we had been told about her when she first went to the Dogs Trust) condition than when we got our little pup and Mitz went up to the TV and cocked her little head then ran back to me, leapt onto the sofa and smothered me with kisses every time this dog was shown!

It might just be me, but it seemed like Mitzi was saying thank you for re-homing her! She's an incredible little puppy and I'm so happy she is ours!

24 April 2011

It's been a while since my last photothon so wanted to share these with you! Steven took them of our little pup while I was in the bath - she needs a brush, bath and to be trimmed which we will get done soon, but in the mean-time, here are 10 photo's of her!

Not only but also, our little girl has just impressed me even more... yes, again! lol I went downstairs to take my pills and asked Mitzi if she wanted to go out, she trotted into the kitchen, waited for me to open the back door and not only did she wee, she poo'd too which in itself is great but she must have been desperate because she went straight out instead of sniffing the air first like she usually does. As if that wasn't enough, she sat herself down as soon as I asked her to and waited until I got a biscuit out for her then I asked her to wait for a few seconds before giving her the biscuit. We are working on "beep-beep" and "wait" with her now and she's a fast learner and a really intelligent little girl. I'm so glad she chose us back in July!

22 April 2011

Mizi was an incredible little girl last night! Yes, again lol Usually we put a stair stopper up at the bottom of the stairs so that our little Mitz can't get up here then not be able to get down again. Not last night though! Steven came up here to fiddle with the router at about 11.30pm and he said to Mitz "you stay down there pup!" and she did! Not for a couple of minutes but for about half an hour! Our little girl is a spectacular little girl!

3 March 2011

Our little girl is incredible! Up until today I�d been encouraging her to go out every hour... not today though! I've said to her "do you want to go outside for a wee Mitz?" cue her ears standing to attention. "You comin' out then?" cue her jumping down off the back of the sofa and padding out to the kitchen then stops right in the way of me going through to open the back door for her so I say "beep beep girlie girl" and she walks backwards into the kitchen, waits for me to go through and open the door and I say to her "door's open for you if you want to go out Mitz?" cue her going out the door and squatting down. When she has finished, she trots up to the far end of the yard and has a bit of a sniff around.

After a couple of minutes I say to her "you coming in then my favourite little pup?" she turns around and trots back inside and waits for me to close the door. Then I say "I suppose you want a biscuit now, don't you!" She licks her lips so I get a biscuit out of the box and ask her to sit which she does. I give her the biscuit and make my way in here while she is munching. When she's finished the biscuit she comes in here, jumps onto my thighs and starts kissing me while I hug her.

Literally the only words we've trained her to recognise when it comes to house-training her are "outside" and "wee" the rest of it was just normal conversation!

Maybe it's just me but I think Mitzi understands more English than anyone had given her credit for! I'm thinking she understands basic sentences which I've never witnessed before in even the most trained dogs! She's an incredible little girl and I'm glad she's ours!

18 February 2011

A while back I asked for advice on how to stop Mitzi's sudden fear of stairs and I got several really helpful suggestions which I tried out but didn't work so we put a stair gate up at the bottom of the stairs so that she didn't come up and not be able to get down which worked until this morning... she managed, somehow, to get through the gate and come up here where she fell asleep on the bed.

I didn't want to wake the poor girl up so I booted up the laptop and started reading messages. After a few minutes our little girl woke up, ran to the top of the stairs and went down them on her own! No encouragement or bribes or anything... she was half way down the stairs by the time I got to the top of them! I got her a roasted pigs ear out of the box as a special treat and went down after her.

When I got to the living room, Mitzi was sitting on the floor waiting for some of Steven's chicken roll that he's having for lunch and he said she had probably heard him opening the chicken roll as they usually share it at lunchtimes so Mitzi's hearing overcame her fear and she did it all on her own!

Mitzi is a spectacularly wonderful little girl and I'm so glad she chose us last year!

4 February 2011

For the last week or so Mitzi has been petrified of going down the stairs in the house! She's been fine with it for the last 6 months (since we rehomed her in July) but last Saturday she refused to go down so I had to go to the top of the stairs, sit on the top step and Mitzi immediately got onto my thighs and laid down, I put my arm around her so that she didn't fall off my thighs and bounced down on my bum. That was fine until Wednesday when she didn't get on my thighs so I had to lift her onto my thighs.

Today, she refused to let me lift her up and point blank refused to get on my thighs. She loves her walks so I got her lead and went to the bottom of the stairs to encourage her. She stood up and yapped and wagged her tail, but her fear of the stairs was greater than her love of walks. I put her lead back, came up here to put my shoes on in Mitzi's full view then went downstairs to get her lead and dangled the lead while calling "walkies Mitz! You coming for a walk?" as encouragement but her fear of the stairs still had control of how she was feeling... she was desperate to go for a walk but her fear still overpowered her.

We eventually got her down the stairs by putting dog biscuits on every step of the stairs, putting her lead on, then putting one arm in front of her so that she didn't fall down the stairs and gently pushing her bum with my other hand, we got down the top 2 stairs like that but I couldn't keep doing that to her so we went back to the top step, Steven used her lead to keep her on her feet while I picked her up and put her on my thighs then bounced downstairs with her and took her for a walk.

She's been fine about going downstairs for 6 months and she's got no problem with coming upstairs. AFAIK nothing has happened here to make her scared of going downstairs and I doubt that anything happened with her previous owners as surely the fear would have been there from day 1 wouldn't it?

Has anyone got any suggestions on how we can help our little girl overcome her fear please?

21 January 2011

It's been a while since the last photo and Steven has just sent me this one so wanted to put it up before I forgot!

I don't know how he gets her to look at the camera and stay still long enough to take a decent photo of her but isn't she just a little cutiepie in this photo!

20 January 2011

Our little girl impressed me yet again in the early hours of this morning and also when I came downstairs just before Steven headed off to work (bless her little heart) but she was also naughty too but only in a small way!

The 2 big positives were that I discovered that she keeps an ear out for Steven overnight while he is asleep... he's got a cpap machine that he is supposed to wear at night but he hasn't been wearing it recently so she keeps an ear out for him snoring and/or not breathing and she gently wakes him up a tiny amount to make sure he's OK then let's him go back to sleep... I don't know how she does it, but she should come on prescription!

The other big positive is that she went out for a wee and poo while it was not only dark at 6am but was also cold and wet but she still did it... she hasn't liked going out in the wet or dark since we re-homed her back in July and she's not fond of being cold but this morning she did what she needed to when it was like that outside!

The minor negative is that she poo'd at the bottom of the stairs in the early hours of this morning without asking to go out. Nothing major... she's still a little puppy and it's not like she does it every night or anything like that!

I'm so glad she is ours!

15 January 2011

The boss (Mitzi) met a couple of huge dogs on her walk today and when I say huge I mean that she comes half way up my shins and these dogs were easily chest height! lol She was standing at the corner with her little tail wagging and totally ignoring me asking her to turn around so that we could go home, not knowing why she was wagging her tail, then these dogs came round the corner wanting to greet Mitzi and say hello to her and our little girl suddenly got cold feet and hid from them at the back of my legs.

Apparently the 2 huge dogs had a Westie at home who was the boss of them both which is why they went on separate walks... our little girl is really friendly with everyone but she gets scared around people and animals she's never seen before, bless her little heart!

~*~

I've just taken my prescribed pills and went to kiss Steven goodnight when Mitzi put her head between us so that she got a kiss from each of us on each side of her little head! She did it for the first time a few months ago but not since then until just now!

We praised Mitzi and had a little giggle about how intelligent she is then moved in for another kiss and yet again, Mitzi put her head between us so she got 4 kisses plus the ones I give her every night! There was me thinking she'd forgotten about doing it but she was just waiting until we least expected it again! She's a very intelligent little girl considering she's only 18 months old!

I'm so glad she chose us back in July!

9 January 2011

I'm impressed (yes, again lol) with our little girl as I've just got back from meeting a friend (hi Chris) and his friend (hi Hannah) and I introduced Mitzi to Hannah and they got on really well together! I used the opportunity to take Mitzi for her walk as she was already on her lead and it was starting to get dark. Our little girl doesn't usually wee or poo while she is on her walk but she squatted down for a tiny wee today! I'm so proud of her!

6 January 2011

Yet again (I know this must be getting boring but I've never had the pleasure of owning such an obedient pup before) Mitzi has just impressed me!

A waist-height, reasonably heavy, box has just been delivered so I told Mitzi to stay when the delivery man knocked on the door and she didn't need to be asked twice, she just yawned and sat up while I went to the door and stayed put until I struggled to bring the box in even though the door was wide open and there was no way I could have stopped her if she decided to make a run for it!

We are having the food shopping delivered between 7pm and 9pm tonight and I was going to take her upstairs with me until the shopping had been and the door was closed but I honestly don't feel I have to any more!

The paranoia about her running off through the open door was from several months ago when she disobeyed the request for her to stay and she ran out of the open door... I've been paranoid about it ever since but not any more! I'm going to have a really early night tonight and for the first time in months I won't be paranoid about her running off through the open door! That's a major step for me!

Mitzi is an amazing little Westie and I'm so glad she owns us and chose us back in July!