Feb 17, 2015 Chronicles of Holly-our Standard Poodle

 

Happy Anniversary With Us, Holly!

©February 17th, 2015

By Vijaya Sundaram

On this day last year, we brought home our beloved Standard Poodle pup, Captain Holly Short (aka Holly) all the way from Colbrook, N.H. — from our Crabapple Downs Standard Poodles breeder, Arlene, and this day last year was the day on which our lives changed completely, and for the better.

Holly (also known as The Hod, Hoddles, Goofampuppum, SillymaPup, ThoThaPooThaPup, and various other difficult monikers) is the goofiest, sweetest, nicest, cutest, silliest, bestest Poodle in the world.

Happy Anniversary, Hoddles!  We love you, HollyPollyPoodlePie!

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Addendum (Feb. 18th, 2015):

Today, post haircut (not a full one, but just a trim):

 

Tags: Chronicles of Holly, Crabapple Downs Standard Poodles, First Anniversary with Standard Poodle Pup, Holly

Mar 16, 2014 Awake in Real Time: Coffee-induced Meditations and Journal Entries

Chronicles of Holly: An update.
We don’t give Holly “people” food. We plan not to feed her scraps from the table. However, I have given her Puréed pumpkin, as recommended by our breeder. I’ve also given a few slices of peeled apple recently. She LOVES them. As time goes on, she’ll graduate to certain “approved” vegetables. Her dog food is really good quality, no preservatives, all-natural crunchy food. She gets a couple of dog biscuits after “training” with me (that is, when I teach her tricks). I change her water a few times a day, and she has three water bowls — two upstairs and one downstairs. She drinks copious amounts, it seems.

Holly gets to take plenty of walks — twice or thrice a day. Long ones. We take turns. One good side effect of this? I’ve actually lost about four pounds in a couple of weeks.

She loves other dogs, but is still getting the hang of “making friends” the doggie way. She’s still a little nervous with certain bigger dogs, but still wants to play, barking out little invitations, and taking on “play” posture.

She never bothers us at night. Sleeps peacefully in our room, but starts off by sleeping in S’s room, then pads over to ours and sleeps on her little “bed” there.

She’s almost totally house-trained. Has been almost since the first week. The second week she had a few major mishaps, because I went back to school after being with her for a week, and I think her routine was disrupted. Since then, only the occasional minor incident. Almost always, she goes to the door, and lets us know what she wants. Luckily for her, we’re attentive.

I’ve taught her “sit,” “stay,” “lie down,” “shake paws,” “roll over,” (that last one is still hard for her, but she does it 70% of the time), — oh, and I’ve also taught her “fetch,” and “drop the ball.” It’s amazing what this little puppy has learned within three-four weeks!

I swear she has a sense of humor. She grins, and definitely likes to play a lot. She always goes for clothes that hang down, or things close to the edges of tables, or our coats or shoes. She does this in a grinny sort of way.

She’s very patient when I give her a bath (I’ve given her three). No trouble at all. She’s as good as gold. She doesn’t mind her teeth being brushed (W does that). She seems to like the toothpaste!

We almost never leave her alone at home. The longest she’s been alone at home was about half an hour a couple of times, when W had to leave for work, and I came home with S half an hour later.
She is secure, cuddled, well-loved, well-fed, well-walked, and well-groomed (that is to say, wiped or bathed, and brushed by me).

One negative: She chews our clothes and nips at me a little too much for my liking. HAVE to get her to be less nippy with me. She doesn’t do that to W. On the other hand, I’m the first one with whom she bonded — she leaps up to greet me when I come home, and her mouthiness turns into nippy-ness. A few days ago, and today as well, I did the Cesar Millan thing of ignoring her and going about my work, and she followed me around desperately willing me to notice her. It was hard. However, the reward? She didn’t nip. The problem is, I find her too cute. I have to train myself. Of course, I have chew toys with which I try and distract her. It works if I really mean it — she has a couple of mice, braided and knotted ropes, a couple of squeaky toys, a couple of balls, a cow horn or hoof given to us by the breeder and a nylabone. When we go out into the backyard, he adores picking up an mouthing pine one’s and sticks. The butterfly bush is a favorite to chew on, if I let her.

On another note, I love her undocked tail which wags happily when she eats her food, and droops in a strange way when she drinks water. That tail is SO expressive.
And her snout? That lovely nose? I could write poems about it!
And those rolling black eyes, so expressive, so sweet!

Thanks for reading.

Tags: Chronicles of Holly, Crabapple Downs Standard Poodles, life with fourteen-week old standard poodle pup, Puppy-Training, walks ith fourteen-week old puppy