cockiness

The infamous dog head tilt.

What?
Why are you yelling at me?
I don't know what your saying?
I KNOW what you're saying but I am cocking my head to get the same reaction I get every time" Awwwwwwwwwwwwwww

Irresistable and they know it.

I took Ernie a few months to actually tilt his head in that fashion, and now a year later we can get him to do it any time of day using a trick we learned from our friends Nikky and Marco... we look at Ernie and say, "Do you wannnnnnaaa??" and he gets so excited at the prospect of the next word out of my mouth being 'treat' 'go for a walk' 'go for a ride' 'go upstairs' that he tilts his head and whimpers.

If we really wanna torture him, we lie. We say 'Who is that?' in a high pitched voice and he speeds to the front window and starts going bonkers thinking we have a visitor. Or I can say, "Grammy's coming" and it's all over, he is zoned out for the next 10 minutes, running around looking for my mother. When he doesn't find her he attacks my face with a barrage of licking!

I never thought I would EVER EVER let an animal with 4 legs lick my face. But Ernie loves to French kiss, and I am of French decendency, so just let it happen naturally.... He does try to slip friends and family the tongue quite often. One time, there was a dead ant clutching to the tip of his tongue and I don't think he even noticed. More on the ant game later...

To sleep or not to sleep?

I stole this from a greeting card, but I no longer have the back panel of the card because Ernie ate it off the coffee table, so I don't know where credit is due. But this represents Ern in a nutshell...

"A squat little creature with Napoleonic delusions of grandeur; is a natural born comedian with bed wetting tendencies; prefers co-dependent relationships; is a light eater and a cheap date, this courageous little digger is a fiercely loyal friend."

Any puppy owner can confirm, a puppy's 1st night away from it's litter is probably a traumatizing experience. No more stepping on each other, no one else is crying, no one else is saying how hungry they are... now he's all alone. And we are miserable. Ernie wouldn't stop crying alllll night. He had a cushy little doggy bed in his confy kennel in the family room, nice, dark, in a temperature controlled environment. Ernie didn't know at that point that this was to be his new home, for the rest of his life we would be his new mommy and daddy. If he HAD known, maybe he could have cut us some slack and shut the heck up!

In the first few days we had our new puppy we made it a habit of taking him out multiple times to go potty. Potty training is supposed to be one of the hardest things to teach a dog. Ernie learned very well thanks to our never giving up and endless supply of edible rewards. He rarely had an accident in the house and when he did we forgave him because it was probably 'our fault'. According to those darn books again, if your dog has an accident, it is the owner's fault for not taking him or her out in a timely manner within the time since a meal was given.

Up next, puppy training classes at our neighborhood PetSmart. Once a week for 6 weeks, us, Ernie, a trainer, and 5 other teemingly stupid youngsters who are all more than three times Ernie's size...

new puppies and grimacing questions

i heart puppies. yes, I said it, the perpetual dog un-enthusiast loves puppies. all shapes and sizes and colors. Is my puppy the only one who does not stink? Or is it because he 'is' mine, his sh*t doesn't stink? Up until the past year, I never would have thought loving an animal as a member of the family is a possibility... enter Ernesto P. Rockefeller. I wrestled with my hubby Tim over the idea of expanding our family to include a reckless little bastard who pees and poops inside the house, eats things no living thing should eat, cries when you sit down to dinner without him and lets every neighbor dwell on his eternal cuteness...

After reading Marley & Me by John Grogan, I have decided to keep track of every little thing this dog of ours does. In pale comparison to Marley, Ernie is not the world's worst dog, he is just OUR dog.

After months of entertaining the idea of a pooch, I made some phone calls to ads in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette regarding the dog of choice, a Dachshund. German for badger-dog. Why a Doxie you ask? Have YOU ever seen a doxie you couldn't resist oohing and ahhing over? I was met with voicemails, left messages. Talked to a lady named Doris who wanted to meet her at a produce stand to see a puppy. I'm looking for a possible family member, not a vegetable! How could I make one of the biggest decisions of my future on the side of a road? Not to see where it was raised during it's most impressionable time???

We ended up getting Ernie out of the back of a pickup truck in a Park-n-Ride lot off interstate 79, the Evans City exit if you must know. He was on sale because he was 13 weeks old already, had been living off of Dad's dog food (which is like a human eating hot dogs for every meal) was born to a family with 2 Dachshund's of their own and needed a family. Little did I know, he had 3 overprotective sisters left in the litter as well. It was raining, and The Doxie Deliverer from Butler PA opened the tailgate of his cabbed pickup truck and I crawled in.

Inside were 4 very noisy, very dirty, very stinky, very active little wieners. It was like a men's bathroom at a gay bay, or so I've heard. The puppies were crying and clumsily walking around, clamoring on my legs, sniffing my every inch, licking any exposed body part, how was I to choose? I've read not to pick the one that shys away, not to pick the overly rambunctious one, but none fell into any category. Tim wanted a girl, I wanted a boy, I didn't turn them over to see who was who, it came down to a single display of affection. One little puppy came over to me and rested it's snout on my forearm in the confusion, looked up at me with those puppy, puppy eyes. SOLD! It's a boy! Cash exchanged, new dog in hand we sped outta there with a dog wrapped like a burrito in a blanket! Tim named him Ernie, I picked the dog, he picked the name. Both are perfect. It was love at first sight... or so we thought...