Lucy and her socks

Lucy has a weird fascination with socks. Terry put it best when he said "Whether they are clean, dirty or smelly she will still love'em!" We first discovered her fascination with socks when she started carrying Terry's socks into bed with her and sleeping with them. Well then she discovered that not only do they make a perfect bedmate but also a great playmate! She started playing with them. She is hilarious when she plays with socks! She loves to run around with them in her mouth and tossing them in the air. When she gets bored of playing with them she starts to chew on them. Almost all of Terry's socks have holes in them now, mine not so much. ( I wonder who remembers to pick up their socks??)

We try not letting her have socks because she does chew them up. One night I was upstairs watching t.v. and Terry was downstairs on his computer with the door closed between the rooms. All of a sudden I hear Lucy outside running around. So I jumped up to see what she was doing and lord and behold she was running around the yard throwing something in the air and catching it. Not knowing what she had found in the yard I quickly called her to me. She ran to me and proudly showed her new toy to mommy. It was one of Terry's socks. So I asked her did Daddy give this to you or did you steal it? I went downstairs to ask and as I was asking Lucy grabbed his other sock and started making towards the door. It had turned out they were stolen socks.

The best is when you catch her with one and she acts like she doesn't have it by laying her head over it. When we went camping awhile back ago I was packing and had all of our clothes laid out. I walked out of the room to get something and little Miss Lucy followed with a pair of clean socks in her mouth! If you want to keep your socks don't let Lucy alone in the same room as them!

Lucy's New Squeaky Toy

Last night Lucy found herself a new squeaky toy. Here is the story of how it happened! Last night I sent Lucy outside to go potty for bed time. After awhile Terry asked me if she had a squeaky toy outside with her. Currently she only has one and I located it inside fairly quickly. I then too heard the same squeaking. So we went outside to investigate. I found her on the side of the house and she looked very happy with what she found. Terry called her to him and she came running with something in her mouth. Terry told her to drop it and to our surprise it was a baby bunny! Bigger than last year's bunnies, but still a baby. I quickly tried getting Lucy inside and to get a box for Terry. When we returned outside Terry had lost the bunny.

That was the beginning of his and Lucy's search for their bunny. We quickly concluded that it must have went under the deck. Lucy was sniffing everything like crazy. She even squeezed under the deck following the scent. I quit and started getting ready for bed. After awhile I went out looking for them. They had ended up in the front yard and Lucy was still following the scent. I interrupted them, but Terry was convinced that it was in our garden up close to the house. As he was searching I was watching Lucy behind him by the fence. And all be darn she found that poor bunny! It squeezed through the fence but Terry went and got it out of the neighbor's side yard. He was convinced we should keep it. I kept telling him to put it back. He did put it down and it hopped to a nearby grown bunny.

Today Lucy continued tracking that poor bunny in the backyard. I think she wants it back! Oh what an adventure!

This is from last year.

My noise maker!

Lucy is a noisy dog but not the way that most dogs are noisy. She does bark but she is good at stopping when told to stop. The noise I am talking about is her groans and whines! She is the most vocal dog I know. I told Terry she takes after her mama when she is sick. When I am sick I whine. I let everyone know that I don't feel good. When Lucy gets sick she whines off and on. One day she got sick from a pill we were trying with her and she was laying on Terry crying. I felt so sorry for her.

She also groans! For example if she is sleeping next to you on the couch and you move you will hear a low groan from her. She does not like being disturbed while sleeping! The best is when she is in bed with me in the morning after Terry has left for work. (She sleeps in her crate at night but gets to sleep with me after she goes outside when Terry gets up.) She has a tendency to use my legs as her pillow. Well I like to roll over a lot in my sleep and every time I roll over I get a groan from her. The  other morning she wasn't even touching me and I rolled over and heard a low groan coming from her! Sometimes at night we put her in her bed and then we will lay there talking for awhile and occasionally we will hear a groan come from her kennel, telling us that we are keeping the sleeping beauty awake!

You can't say she lacks personality!

Lucy vs the cats

This past weekend we had the pleasure of going to Post Falls, Idaho, to see Terry's "second" mom. This was a true adventure for Lucy considering that Patty and Mic have 2 dogs and 6 cats. To my knowledge Lucy has never really been exposed to cats before so we were kinda nervous on how she would react to them. When we showed up at their house late Friday night Lucy got to meet their 2 dogs, Sissy and Bebe. Sissy is part border collie and Bebe is a large black lab. They quickly tried putting Lucy in her place. Bebe quickly learned that she could intimidate Lucy. It got to the point that Lucy couldn't get around Bebe!

Sissy



Bebe, she's very camera shy

 The next day Lucy got to meet the kitties. Squirt was the first one she met. He taught her that kitties paw at her! Squirt is known to drive the dogs nuts. Terry has told me how he likes to sit in front of the dogs water dish and make the dogs whine until someone picks him up and moves him.

Lucy and Squirt

She met Henry who also learned he could intimidate her. Lucy wanted to play with him. Henry would hiss and paw at her anytime she got near him. At one point she couldn't get to me because Bebe was sitting next to me and Henry was on my other side on top of the couch. Bebe wasn't doing anything but Henry was hissing.



This picture is of her looking out of the corner of her eye watching Henry.

  Downstairs where we stayed is the cats' area. She loved going down and try stiffing the cats and eating their wet food! Saturday night we introduced her to Pudgy. Pudgy was more willing to meet her. Terry held Pudgy as I held Lucy and she got to sniff him. The next morning I caught her wanting to play with Pudgy. I tried taking a video but it didn't record when she was really trying but I did get her trying sniff Pudgy. Well I was going to upload it but it wouldn't let me. But in the video Pudgy goes to raise his paw and Lucy takes off running! She learns quickly sometimes!

I was so proud of her! She was not a huge pain and did not try chasing the cats. We had a great time. They have an amazing house that overlooks Post Falls and the surrounding towns.

Anniversary

A year ago Terry and I started our search for a puppy. We thought it would be easy, but oh my it was difficult. We went to the pound but there was never female puppies in the type of breeds we wanted. We searched for hours online. We actually fell in love with one puppy and applied for her. But we never heard back. We even had our parents apply for her too and they never heard back too. It was very discouraging. Not to mention a lot places wanted to come to your place and do a home study. At the time I had cousins trying to adopt from China and I felt like I was going through a lot of hoops just like they were but mine was for a dog not a baby!

I started going to the pound just about every other day looking and hoping to find the right puppy. One Saturday morning we stopped by the pound and found nothing that appealed to us. Later that day on our way to my parents I suggested to stop by again. I walked into the dog kennel area and laid eyes on  the cutest puppy. I quickly hurried over not wanting anyone else to see her. I quickly looked at her paper work to see what she was and age. I was happy to find out that she was a female, Australian Shepherd mix and six months old. I called Terry over and started pleading my case for her. I talked to her through the kennel as Terry found someone to talk to about her. I filled out the paper work and then they allowed us to go into a clean and empty kennel with her. We sat on the floor and she quickly climbed in my lap. She did not want to leave my lap! I finally had to carry her over to Terry so he could hold her too. I knew she was the one!

This is our first picture of her from Terry's cell phone.

The only sad thing was we had to wait until Wednesday, June 30th to pick her up she had to get spayed first. Those three days were long days. Those days were hard trying to find a name for her. I didn't like her name, Dottie. We argued over names for days. He would shoot down my names, Ella, Luna, Zoe and several others. And I shot down all of his names, Jessica, Jennifer, Kahlan and others. Finally, I came up with Lucy. He thought about it and even though he wasn't thrilled he agreed as long as her middle name was Xanthecar, which is the name of his favorite character from one of his games he plays.  I couldn't wait to pick her up! Finally June 30th came and Terry finally got home from work and we raced over to pick her up. We walked into the kennel area to find her. (We were slightly hoping she would look cute like another puppy we saw who just had his surgery. He had been laying there sleeping with his tongue sticking out.) I spotted her quickly and she knew us right away too. She was jumping up and crying when she saw us.

We brought her home and slowly introduced her to the house starting with the back. At first she didn't know how to do our stairs and I had to help her up. She played around in the back. That night 2 friends came over for dinner. Anthony and I took a walk around our back and found out that she likes to herd because if I walked slow she would run between us until we were together again. My parents came to meet her and she learned from early on that Grandpa always has a treat for her! I was very happy to have her in our lives! She has changed our lives but I couldn't dream of a life with out her!

Lucy's First Camping Trip

This past weekend we went on our first camping trip together. Wow, what an adventure we had! Lucy is just now starting to regain some of her energy. We went to Fort Stevens park in Oregon, which is on the coast. Our first night was really rough! She barely slept! We now know to wear her out some before we go to bed. The next morning Lucy was outside and Terry and I were in the tent getting dressed. Well she decided she wanted to be with us.  So she first tried to climb the side of the tent and I guess she almost made it to the top. When that didn't work she made her own doggy door in our door. It was a brand new tent! Now we have a duct tape door! (Sorry no pictures of that).

We then went on several walks and spent some time on the beach. She of course loved the beach and was everyones' entertainment!

This is her posing with the Peter Iredale a shipwreck.

Everyone took turns throwing her chuck-it. She even supervised the sand castle building!

Later we went to the South Jetty. She proved that she is a mountain goat like her daddy! Terry decided to climb the rocks and she of course had to follow him.

But got tired and decided to lay down!

We walked down to the Columbia River. Where she preceded to chase all the birds off the beach. At one point she got out to deep by the rocks. She then decided to give up and come back in! But that bird was taunting her!

She did a lot of exploring and mosquito eating during our trip. I have never seen her so pooped out before!

We took her kennel in case we needed to lock her up because she was a pain, which we only did the first night. But Saturday night I was so surprised when I found her sleeping in her kennel on her own accord! I even went to check and make sure she was still alive. I spoke to her and got no response so I tugged on her leash and finally got a low grumble from waking her up.

She was also a little wearied of the fire. Our family and friends all made popcorn over the fire and of course some spilled. Our lovely neat freak Lucy had to help clean up. It was hilarious watching her try and grab the popcorn close to the fire. She would move in and grab it real fast and cautious!

She slept the whole way home and only awoke occasionally! But she tried sleeping like this, which does not look comfy at all!

Last but not least is her sleeping (and peeing) in my mom's lap. (you can kill me later mom)

She likes sleeping with her head dangling over things. We had a fun time and she had a blast!!

Lucy vs The Ocean

When we first got Lucy, we had a heat wave. So I got my old kiddie pool out for her. Yeah, she hated that thing. I had to force her to stay in and if she jumped out she wouldn't come anywhere near me for fear I would put her back in the water. Then when it first rained she wouldn't go outside unless she really had to and then she would try and go on our deck or the pavement. So I came to the conclusion that she hated water. But my husband and I, us being our evil selves decided when we took her to the ocean for the first time we would throw her Frisbee or ball in the water and trick her. Well no tricking was necessary!

We decided for our one year anniversary to day trip to Ocean Shores with Lucy. We loaded the car with tons of towels, Frisbees, and balls for Lucy. We got to the beach played a little ball and finally threw it in the water. I was expecting a freaked out puppy when she hit that water but instead she fell in love with the ocean! She was the cutest thing ever! When she runs through the water she hops like a frog! Her back legs fly behind her just like a frog.

She would also wait for waves so she could jump over them. Or just jump right in!

At one point she was out deep and a wave went over head. After that she was done. She didn't want to go back in the water. So we decided to dry her off because it was a very cold and windy day. So we dried her off and then went for a walk down the beach. Well we wanted her to get dry so Terry carried her over the little stream and then put her back down. Well that goofy dog decided to chase seagulls out into the ocean. It was quite funny and I'm pretty sure that seagull was laughing his butt off at her. Then we found these rocks which had tide pools around them. Well one of them we couldn't see the bottom because the water was really murky brown, but our Lucy found the bottom! She found it by trying to walk to the rock and went completely under water again! Then she had issues getting out but was able to do it on her own. Her fear of water is over I am sure now!

She also thought her ears made a good wind breaker or she liked the sound of the ocean a lot! She had her ears up a lot and the next morning I looked at her ears and they had so much sand in them! I think there might still be some in there a month later!! We have a very cute video of her hopping through the water that I will have to get posted on here at some point. Now I can't wait to go back with her for more than one day. She will be exhausted for a  week!



Lucy's Best Friend!

A few weeks back I took Lucy out front to get the mail with me. Usually she is really good at staying with me and not leaving the yard. Well this day my neighbor was out front with her dog. Lucy saw them and took off running before I even got down our stairs. I of course was yelling at her. But it turned out to be one of the best things she has done! That day she met her BFF, Rylee! Rylee is a gorgeous Louisiana Catahoula cattle dog with piercing blue eyes! She is about 30 lbs heavier than Lucy but will lay down and let Lucy crawl all over her. They played wonderfully in our neighbor's front yard.

Well today she did the same thing, while I was on the phone none the less! But it is so fun watching them play. Rylee likes to put her head under Lucy's body and lift up, so Lucy does the same thing. This time another neighbor was over with her dog Princess. Princess is a lab/chow mix and is 14 years old. But she did her best to keep up with the young ones! Lucy led them in races around the two front yards, over obstacles such as bushes and through legs of us women, nearly taking one out! They had so much fun! At one point Lucy led them over a bush, Rylee made it over and poor Princess tried and didn't quite make it. They finally found some shade in the garden under a bush. They looked so cute! I wish I had a picture of them together. Oh well I will get one when Rylee comes over for a play date one day!

The amazing thing was that they stayed in the yards for the most part. Lucy took off to say hi to another neighbor walking down to get his mail. She is a little social butterfly. She has to say hi to everybody! I think she has my Grandma's friend's spirit in her. Alice used to say hi to every stranger she saw especially if they had a baby! It was sad when we left to head home. I was carrying Lucy to go across the street and poor Rylee followed us down the drive like asking why we had to leave. She looked sad to lose her playmate.

She is a tired pup now!

Lucy and her 6 baby bunnies

When we moved into our house we discovered that we had wild bunnies in our yard all the time. One time when we had our first dinner guests over and were enjoying dinner we saw some bunnies going through the yard. By the time I turned around to see them they started doing what bunnies are infamous for doing! We thought it was so funny and still make jokes about them.

Well last summer I was cleaning house so I kicked Lucy outside. While I was coming downstairs I heard this high pitch crying. It didn't sound like Lucy but I couldn't be sure. So I ran outside to our top deck and yelled for her. I found her on the side of the house, she looked up at me and then ran back to something small and brown in the yard. She looked so happy and when she went back to it I heard the crying again. So I quickly called her to me and locked her in the house. I went down and discovered a baby bunny. His eyes were still closed. I called Terry and he was excited and was going to bring home a box.

This little guy eventually made it through our chain length fence, so I felt safe to let Lucy out again. That time she found another one in our garden. So when Terry got home with the box we put the two gently in the box. Then Terry felt around where we found the second one and discovered 3 more in a nest. So now we had five bunnies and no idea what to do with them. We couldn't leave them in the backyard with Lucy there. We weren't sure how the first one got so far from the nest. Either it got away or Lucy carried it away. I honestly don't think Lucy would've hurt them but we couldn't trust her.

Terry looked up how to feed them and went out and got all the stuff we needed. It did not come easy. They wouldn't eat. I finally got a couple to eat from me. Later that night we were researching more about them and Lucy was outside, when I heard that crying again. All I could say was "Shit! There's another one!"  So now we had 6 baby bunnies and no idea how to get them to eat.

I know it looks like she wants to eat the bunny in this picture but she didn't and wouldn't! Lucy was just curious of the bunnies. Every time we took them out or was trying to feed them she wanted right in on the action.

Well the next day we were able to give them to a friend who had a friend on a farm that could take care of them. She was able to release five of them. The runt was the only one that died.

Laser!

So, I just have to post that the best gift Lucy has ever received was her Easter gift from my parents. They got her one of those laser lights. I love it! It tires her out so quickly. We live in a Tri-level house so I love shining it up the stairs, then back down to the living room and then down the stairs to the office. It is so funny when she is coming down the stairs because she slides across the hardwood floors. It is so funny watching her try and stop herself. She has learned that if she tries to sit she can stop a little faster. We love playing this game with her. I've also discovered that if she acts tired I just have to shine it on her paw and she goes at it again! Very entertaining and a must have if you have a hyper active dog!

Which reminds me, I really believe that Lucy has ADHD and maybe some Autism in her. I constantly say if she was a kid she would be riding the short bus everyday! So do they make Ritalin for dogs? I swear she can't focus on anything for to long, and she is hyper almost 24/7!
 Now you are probably wondering why I think she Autistic. Well she is very routine, meaning if I change my morning routine she will let me know! For example, this week we haven't been playing Frisbee outside because the grass has been to long and wet, and I don't want to get my feet and bottom of my pants wet every morning. So she has been crying more in the morning and when I let her outside to go potty before I leave she runs out and pounces on a Frisbee and looks up at me. Or if I go to the bathroom before I go downstairs for breakfast instead of after I eat she seems to think that we need to go outside and play.  I have also noticed lately that she starts whining about 7:15 am. I couldn't figure out why until one day I really looked at the time and remembered that we use to go out at about that time to play, but I have been running late lately and haven't been getting out in time. I guess she was letting me know I was late!
I love my very special girl!

This describes her best at times!

Couch Chewing Puppy!

We knew pretty early on that Lucy didn't like her crate and didn't like being without us, but we didn't know to what extent until late August. In August I came home to find that she decided that our couch was a chew toy! Luckily for us she moved the big back pillows and attack that part behind the pillows.

 So we were able to do some patch work with the help of my mom and cover it back up and nobody was to the wiser. Well that was until she did it again. I'm not sure how many times she tore open that part, but one of those times I stitched it up and bought a nice brown fleece blanket from the Goodwill to put on the couch. My mom told me to stitch it onto the couch. Then one day in October I came home to discover that she tore open the arm rest of the couch. That was the day I put her in her kennel while we went to dinner and found her sticking out of the kennel (crate 2). That time she attacked the back of the couch where her kennel was sitting. I'm not sure what her issue is with that couch!That's when we started her on sedatives and working on training her more. We were told to take her on a walk before we leave the house, which we started doing. We then started putting things on our couches so she couldn't get to them. We put all of our kitchen chairs on the couch with bar stools on top of them, we put boxes on the love seat and blocked off behind the couch with her kennel and more boxes. It is now work to leave the house! Well one day she got back behind the couch and chewed on it more by standing on her back legs. Then in March I came home to find that she finally attacked our love seat. She attacked the front of it.

Luckily I was able to find some fabric that looked good and was able to make it look like new. The next day I made sure we put stuff in front of the love seat so she wouldn't destroy it again. I couldn't afford to have to stitch it up again with my husband's birthday party being the next day. So Friday when I got home from work I collapsed and start crying when I came up our stairs. She had totally destroyed the back of the love seat which is one of the first things you see when you walk in my house. We have since called the vet and got her on new meds which are helping I think (knock on wood). We moved the love seat so she can no longer get to the back of it anymore.

I'm pretty sure I could start a business fixing couches that animals have destroyed! The positive to all this is that I am finally learning how to sew and becoming quite well at it too!

Lucy and her 3 Crates

To start off with you need to know that Lucy has severe separation anxiety from her momma! Therefore let me tell you the story of her 3 crates. We first started her with a metal crate we got from my mother-in-law. It was a little small for her but big enough for her to lay down. The first night we had her, we first put her in our bathroom downstairs because we felt the crate was too small. After an hour of hearing her tearing that room apart, I went down and tried sleeping on the floor. I quickly decided that was not going to work for us especially since she wanted to sleep with the light on. I decided to try the kennel and lay next to it until she fell asleep. Victory for me it seemed to work, key word seemed! I woke up a couple hours later hearing a pitiful cry coming from downstairs. When I went in the room I found Lucy's head sticking out of the kennel. She had pulled back two of the metal bars and got stuck. She had also pulled in the towel that was outside of the kennel and my blanket and tore up the rug that was there. We quickly learned that she needed to sleep in our room.

Crate 2 was bought and was a nice large plastic one. We tried training her and leaving her in following all the protocols every trainer seems to give. But slowly over time she chewed through the hard plastic and got a 1" by 2" hole in it. Well one day she did something really bad while I was at work (she chewed the couch) and we were going out for dinner so I had to put her in her kennel. After two hours she made that small hole into a big enough hole for her head, neck and paw to come through.

Crate 3 was bought the next day. We went to the vet got some sedatives for her and had an appointment to meet with a trainer one on one to fix the problem the next day. I left her in the new kennel when I went to work. When I got home she had chewed two of the bars off towards the back of the kennel. The worst part and the part I don't understand was that she dragged her bed through that hole and destroyed it. When I left her bed was outside of her kennel at the front of the kennel close to the gate. I can not for the life of me figure out how she manage to get the bed towards the back of the kennel! Needless to say she doesn't not stay in a kennel. Although she does sleep in one and does great at night. I hope one day she might be able to stay in a kennel when we are gone, but I am not holding my breath!



Meet Lucy

Our lives changed dramatically almost a year ago when my husband and I decided we wanted to get a puppy. We searched hard! It was actually sad at times. We both fell in love with a puppy on an adoption website where you had to apply and they never responded. We would visit the humane society a couple of times a week but were disappointed each time. Finally, one Saturday we went in the morning and found nothing. We happened to be driving near it again later that day and I convinced Terry to stop again. We walked right in the kennel area and it was like a magnet I was drawn right to her. I quickly read her information she was six months and an Australian Shepherd mix. Perfect I thought, a puppy, a female, and a breed that should get big! Not to mention she was the cutest thing ever black and white with a spotted white ear. We filled out the paper work and got to sit with her. She crawled right in my lap and refused to see Terry. I was in love! We had to wait 3 days since she had to get spayed. During that time we had to figure out a name. All the names we suggested to each other got shot down by the other. I finally suggested Lucy from my favorite show I Love Lucy. That was it! I compromised on her middle name which is Xanthercar. Well I guess the name either fit her perfectly or she took after her namesake, since she is always getting in trouble!
In the past year I have come up with so many struggles with her. But I still love her like the day I met her. People tell me all the time that they would have given her up. (You will understand after I post more stories) But to me she is not a pet she is my child, my baby! If I ever have a child who presents as much problems as she has I would never get rid of my child, therefore I will never give up Lucy until she takes her last breath. (Which at times I wonder if that will be at my husband's hands! Just kidding he only jokes but he loves her too!)
So this blog I hope to share my stories and the funny things Lucy does!