the sheltiechick blog

She finally found something to play with!

I was sitting on my bedroom floor cuddling Auggie, and Pepper picked it up and brought it to me. I threw it across the room and she ran over, picked it up, and brought it back. I threw it again, she retrieved it again. I took it in the living room to show my mom, threw it, and she retrieved it again!

Unfortunately “it” is one of my running socks. That’s not going to work. It’s a dirty, sweaty, icky running sock, too. Yuck.
I’m wondering if I should put a dog toy in my bed and sleep with it there a few nights and if she will want to play with it then!


I just heard clanging…

Loud clanging.
CLANG. pause. CLANG. pause. CLANG.

I thought Auggie was throwing a party in his crate or something so I turned around all prepared to tell him to knock it off… and discovered it was Pepper. She was laying down with her tennis ball and kept pushing it with her nose against the side of the crate – CLANG – and then lifted her head a bit so it would roll back towards her – pause – and then she’d push it with her nose against the crate again – CLANG.
Repeat.

Maybe my next dog will be a normal one.


Auggie + Kong = ANNOYING.

It’s not like I call him The Annoying Thing for no reason.

Every night this week Auggie has gone into his crate and lay down to lick and chew his Kong. He spends maybe an hour with it and then he falls asleep.
Now, this is nice. He gets out of my hair and leaves me alone.

What’s NOT nice is the slurping, the squeaking, the terribly disgusting, annoying sounds.
AUGH. SQUEAK-SLURP… slurp slurp slurp… SQUEAKEDY SQUEAKY… slosh slosh slurp slosh… SQUEAK… slurp slurp… SQUEAK-A SQUEAK-A SQUEAK SQUEAK… slurp squeak slurp squeak…

I even put a squeaky tennis ball into his crate hoping he’d start obsessively squeaking it instead, because that would at least be a positive change. NOPE. Still licking and slobbering all over the Kong.
I don’t want to take it away from him because this is the entire point of the Kong, he’s supposed to lick it and keep himself occupied… but UGH.
I’m pretty sure he knows it disgusts me and that’s why he’s doing it. “Don’t want to play with me? Okay. I’m going to go be noisy and gross! Enjoy!” Sometimes he follows me around making these nasty slopping and slurping noises just to annoy me, without even having eaten anything, so that’s why I’m pretty sure he is doing this on purpose too.

The other day I told him I’m going to get a terrorist puppy and make it bother him all day long and THEN he’ll be sorry.


Auggie’s Christmas Toys – Part 1

For Christmas, I ordered Auggie some new puzzle toys off Amazon. I racked up a few Amazon gift cards using Swagbucks so it was pretty cheap to order a handful for him. Tonight I gave Auggie his dinner in the Kyjen Paw Hide toy. Below is a video of how he did with it, sped up. I thought this might help since people are always asking about puzzle toys and treat dispensing toys and stuff. My main comments are in the video description.
It took him ten minutes, including the times he stopped and stared at me like “helloooooo, I’m supposed to be getting DINNER here…” and his half a minute barking fit (Auggie temper tantrum – I’m surprised it only lasted 30 seconds, but I think he was hungry.)

I’m not over the moon about it, but it only really cost me $5 out of pocket, so it’s not a huge loss if it doesn’t work out well. I might be able to sell it to some other agility people with border collies if I continue to be lukewarm about it.
I also bought him the treat wheel and I’m thinking I will like that one more. I wish the cups weren’t so darn flimsy though, they are the same in the treat wheel. There’s no way I can give him this and then go cook dinner, because I know he’d start chewing on the cups and would break them, and he’s not even a “chewer” the way some dogs are. The tug-a-jug and other puzzle toys I have, I feel confident in giving those to him and walking away… this one, nope. Kind of a bummer since I was hoping to get some more stuff to keep him occupied and leaving me alone. But at least it only cost me $5. I didn’t buy the star spinner which is the one that doesn’t have cups… I sort of wish I had to see if my opinion would improve without the flimsy cup aspect.