Snow!
At last! Not much, but enough to get some photos.
How I discovered 100% Pepper was in season – she sat in the snow, stood up, and left blood behind. YEP that’s what I thought.
Payton nom-noming snow.
More Pepper.
Ack such perfect sits on this puppy.
LOL Snoface.
How much snow can I possibly cram in my mouth??
Throw snowball plz.
Perfect.
Auggie <3
This photo makes me so happy.
Snow makes Auggie frisky. Normally he doesn’t care to play with Payton outside (too many things on the ground to eat) but he plays outside in the snow, haha.
Auggie’s FACE.
Snow makes Auggie so happy he levitates!!
Ahhh boys <3
BROFIGHT
Really really ridiculously good-looking.
Tomorrow I think I will try and get winter coat pics.
Sheltie Christmas 2012
Spoiler for anybody who hasn’t gotten my Christmas card yet. These are the photos I shot to pick one to go along with the card:
Christmas Eve… I tried to take some of those “glowing” tree shots and I got laser eyes on all the dogs in several of the photos. So forgive the weird looking eyes in some of these. I thought to myself “I am buying an external flash in the new year!” and then I saw how much they cost and NEVERMIND. I’ll just shoot with the lights on and forget this.
Perfect Auggie.
Little P.
Ahhh Miss Pepper!
And Georgie who was pissing my mom off mostly because she listens to me better than she listens to my mom…
Then I tried close up shots on everybody, which worked better as far as the camera settings went, but since I had my focus on manual because the autofocus kept trying to focus on the tree instead of the dogs, Auggie and Payton didn’t come out in focus. I’m horrible with manual focus. It looks sharp on the preview screen and then bam, out of focus when I open the photo.
That said:
Pepper wins the “cutest Christmas photo” contest this year.
Though Georgie got a pretty cute one too.
Presents!! Payton helping Georgie open her present from me.
I told him to leave her alone and come open his own LOL.
“But I wanna see what SHE got!” Georgie ceases to care because I put a little baggie of treats in their and she only wanted the treats.
I found this gator super cheap at Gordman’s and since he hasn’t managed to tear up Sherman, I bought the gator too.
He pulled it out of the bag by himself.
I think he likes it.
Auggie is an expert at getting his presents out of bags and dragged this shark skin right out and started running around shaking it at people and asking to play TUG. I was thrilled because Auggie isn’t a big tugger, but he wanted to tug with this thing!
Georgie stole the shark (I took it back and told her I’d kill her if she ripped Auggie’s new shark toy) so Auggie got his second present out of the bag – a big sheep ball that is supposed to be extra tough.
Payton’s second present, another gator that makes a grunty-squeak sound. Super annoying so perfect for P. Georgie also tried to immediately rip THIS up so my mom had to take it from Georgie and give it back to Payton.
Auggie went to lay down under the tree once all the presents were cleared away, as is customary since he was a teeny tiny puppy playing chase games with his tiny puppy brother under the tree at his breeder’s house… I admit this moment is always one of my favourites…
Poor Pepper didn’t know how to open her gifts and didn’t want to even stick her head in the bag so I opened them for her. I bought her a pink sheep all of her own. She was too worried about my dad sitting on the floor across the room to play with it though.
Both of her “gifts.” I’m working on getting HER to tug next.
I had a pile of the bows sitting next to me and Payton kept thieving one and running off like it was a ball LOL.
Stockings from this morning! Most of these didn’t turn out but you get the idea…
Auggie got a new ball for the Chuck It!
I bought Pepper another sheep all her own LOL. It’s got long legs so she can tug on it… because again, tug with Pepper = next. She also got a rope bone that tastes like peppermint and she LOVES it. None of the photos of her chewing it turned out though. =< I didn't realize she was going to like it so much but she immediately curled up with it and chewed on it!
Auggie’s other ball, haha. He has a large one of these that we use on a flirt pole, this one is just for fetch AND ALSO FOR TUGGING BECAUSE AUGGIE NOW LIKES TUG SOMETIMES YEAH.
Payton playing with Auggie’s new Chuck It ball. He got a new ball on a rope toy to tug and play with for agility so we tugged with that for a while but he was quite interested in the ball too.
That’s it! Merry Christmas. I didn’t get a puppy. (My mom keeps going YOU DON’T NEED ANOTHER DOG YOU HAVE THREE. YOU DON’T NEED ANOTHER PUPPY YOU HAVE PAYTON. I may not NEED another dog but that doesn’t stop me from WANTING one…)
Santa
Look at Pepper.
She went right up to him to sniff him. I put her on the bench next to him and she sat there no problem.
I can’t get over this.
The other dogs are pretty good too. ;>
Hoodies
So I bought these hoodies for the dogs… Payton’s and Pepper’s were on MEGA clearance (five bucks each!) and Auggie’s was pretty cheap too. I just think they’re cute. It’s warm enough that I was out in just a hoodie today so they all got their hoodies too.
Payton was zooming around in his hoodie and I imagine he was pretending to be a hot rod.
Pepper’s!
It has little wings on the sleeves and everything <3 it's SO CUTE.
And of course Augs has a skull on his. <3
Typical Payton. He got nice and worn out chasing after balls and running after Pepper, he is currently recharging his batteries so he can annoy me in ohhhh probably twenty minutes.
“Tee hee I just peed in my sweatshirt!” Payton’s needs to be altered. *facepalm* Just a touch too long… he peed all over it.
Okay, so Pepper was feeling sassy. This is a series of photos of her yapping at me. Bark
bark
BARK.
This girly. <3
And meanwhile, Payton.
Okay, so I don’t know if anybody remembers, but Pepper likes to hop up and down. Vertical. She does this when she’s really excited (which means not often) but she was doing it today and I was trying to get a photo. Unfortunately she doesn’t stay very far away from me and I had the 50mm on so I wasn’t getting the photo I wanted and was kind of bummed.
Then I opened the photos to see what I got and I think these are even better.
Perfect.
The Pepper I know and love and I wish everybody else could know and love it too.
Since she was thinking about playing and kept running after Payton and his football, I went ahead and got the tennis ball because I know she will play ball if she’s in the right mood…
I love how I’m trying to take a photo of Pepper but Payton is the one who shows up non-blurry.
SHE HAS THE BALL. We played ball for a while then Auggie would spoil it by getting the ball then walking away with it, I’d have to go get the ball from him, throw it a few more times, Auggie spoils the game… repeat.
What? I would NEVER do that. I’m not a jerk.
My best girly. Be still my heart.
Pepper playing ball
Not monumental for most dogs, but Pepper is so goofy about playing it’s a pretty big deal!
And Payton is kind of annoying, sorry. Ignore him.
Pepper perch work
After “spin” wasn’t going well with Pepper, I decided to start perch work with her instead.
What’s funny is how many times she was offering me a left head check… I guess she WAS getting the spin shaping after all!
Trick Training: Spin
This week our trick training challenge is “spin.” Auggie and I worked on this one a few years ago but I never really put a cue on it or had it perfect, so cleaning it up will be Auggie’s challenge this week. I haven’t done this at all with Payton or Pepper.
Once again I just started shaping with Payton, clicking for back end swiveling. Payton already knows “pivot” of course, and starts offering that (it’s one of his favourite tricks to offer.) I decided to go ahead and reward that and see if we can’t turn that into spinning.
I tried to lure Pepper but she isn’t handling my arm going behind her back well, so I decided to just try and shape a head turn instead.
After this video I decided Pepper was just having a hard time and maybe she isn’t ready for something of this level yet. Having only just started clicker training with her a few weeks ago and so far only really doing some targeting work, this might just be too much. So I think Pepper will sit this week out in favour of me trying to shape her to do something else, like maybe climb into a box?
Final video! Just Auggie and Payton:
Both of them can only spin one direction reliably – teaching them to spin both directions is my next task!
Trick Training: “Sit Pretty”
The dog forum I belong to is having a trick training challenge. Each week we get a new trick to work on. This week we had “sit pretty” which is a trick I’ve been wanting to train anyway, so I worked on it with all three dogs. At first I just decided to lure with all three, but that wasn’t working very well for Payton who is quite good at shaping anyway, so I scrapped luring with Payton and switched to shaping. It worked out just fine with him. For both Auggie and Pepper, I lured, and then switched to targeting (which is also more or less luring, I know) my thumb. This will turn into my hand signal for the behaviour at a later point.
On with the videos!
This one has all three dogs in it:
Just Payton in this one:
All three dogs for the “final” version here! Of course we still have some cleaning up to do, but this was the end of the week so this is our final video rather than final version of the trick. Auggie is the one struggling the most with this, but I think physically it’s difficult for him. We’ll keep working on it though.
Auggie is seven
So I am a major idiot and completely forgot what day Auggie’s birthday ACTUALLY was. You would think it would be easy. Auggie 15th, Payton 16th, Pepper 17th. But NO… somehow I thought it was 11/11 instead of 11/15.
So these first few are from Sunday when we had Auggie’s party.
I gets cakey?
Yes you get cakey! These are based off a recipe I make for myself… just a mashed ripe banana, one egg, and some peanut butter, and I microwaved them until they were like a moist cake.
Birthday boy gets to sit at the table.
Okay, since I was originally planning on giving Auggie a caramel apple I got free at work and then I opened the caramel apple to discover it was moldy, I had to hurry up and make the cake in a rush. So I took them out and they were hot so I was blowing on it to cool it off, LOL. Auggie was like DON’T CARE WANT CAKEY.
NOM
Everybody else got theirs out of their bowls.
Pepper… took a bite and I’m not sure if she was surprised it was soft or that it was warm, because she then dropped it on the kitchen floor and ran off.
Don’t worry, Payton will clean it up. (Don’t feel bad he got two, Auggie got two also actually. I gave Auggie one, gave the other dogs one, then Auggie had another while I sat at the table with him and ate one too LOL.)
Georgie!
Happy birthday boy!
Then once I realized TODAY was actually Auggie’s birthday, I knew I needed something better. Payton and I shopped for a present at PetSmart but I didn’t see a toy I thought Auggie would like, so we agreed that a bully stick was the best Auggie Present.
Auggie also agrees.
He also got ALL OTHER DOGS shut out into other rooms while he had a blissful hour+ to just chew his bully stick. He was quite happy with this.
Happy birthday little old man. I hope you stick around for many many more birthdays.
Pro Christmas Pics 2012
Annual Christmas photos were yesterday… huge photo dump impending…
Georgie first! New prop this year, A SLED. OMG.
Serious Auggie is serious. Sigh.
My boy. <3
Aaaaand here we go with the annual “I love my dog a whole lot more than he loves me” photos!
THIS one I think is the winner… I like his face in this one.
Annual “Auggie hates me” photo LOL.
Payton. OMG. LOL.
My HAIR again. I almost cut my bangs before we left to prevent this from happening and I didn’t. Sigh.
Sometimes he is kinda sweet.
I like him a bit.
It’s a PAYTON!!
See, Auggie? PAYTON loves his mommy. PAYTON will give me a kiss on camera.
My little guy. He is sometimes proper…
and sometimes cute.
Slight bit of handsome devil.
I think this is my favourite. He looks naughty. He looks like Payton. XD
This is his “I just licked the floor and there was a bitch sitting here” expression. He was chattering. Stupid intact male dog.
GET IN THE SLED
“Call him, see if I can get him jumping out of the sled,” the photographer said. WELP. Future agility dog in the making LOL.
Peppy girl!
Remedial stays are still in progress. =|
I don’t even know…
SIGH this is what so many of my photos look like LOL. Bad girl.
Hey, THERE’S a cute photo!
Me ‘n my girl. <3
I love love love this photo because of how she’s looking at me. She is MY GIRL… no mistaking it.
And I kinda like her too.
The best of us I think.
Now time for ALL THREE DOGS. This was totally photoshopped together, not gonna lie, and it’s still not even perfect haha.
…oh dear.
“Quick quick, take the photo, I’m losing them!!”
This is my life guys.
I gotta admit it’s pretty hilarious LOL.
Watch me try to direct my dogs without even looking away from the camera. “Payton you come here…”
“…Pepper YOU should lay down too…”
Also shopped. Again, not gonna lie, LOL.
THEN… Auggie’s breeder was there with some of her crew so we tried a big family photo. Top row is Georgie, Pepper, Twizzle (Pepper’s sister, Georgie’s mom) and Twigley (Georgie’s sister.) Bottom row is Payton (Pep/Twizzle’s half-bro, for those who don’t remembered they are related), Raleigh (Auggie’s dad, Georgie’s grandpa), Georgie (Auggie’s grandma, Payton and Georgie’s great-grandma), Quigley (Auggie’s brother, Georgie’s dad), and of course Auggie.
I was behind the table, by the way, holding butts down. The front row was for “dogs who will stay.” I was very proud to be able to put Payton in the front row. Good boy little P.
LOL at the three young boys looking all excited.
OMG Quigley is SO bored of this!
Not sure what they’re looking at, haha.
Pepper will NOT stop sniffing her sister. STOP IT.
This one would probably be good except PEPPER is trying to plot her escape obviously. PEPPER.
I think this is the best one we got.
If only Pep and Twigley were looking at the camera! Georgia gets a pass because she’s mostly deaf and blind so she doesn’t have to look anywhere, she just has to wake up every morning.
THEN Payton decided he wanted to try and get away. He recalls somewhere on that floor a bitch was sitting and he would like to find that spot again please.
But wait, it gets better.
We got Payton to sit back up, then Georgie wanted to lay down.
Again, really close. I might be able to shop something together out of some of there haha.
BUT THEN.
Pepper was like “I BAIL BYE.”
Look at EVERY DOG’S EXPRESSION IN THIS PHOTO. I can’t stop laughing. By the way, Georgie decided since the big girly was bailing she was bailing too.
Payton is like “Crap she’s gonna land on my head! ABORT ABORT”
And poor Grandma doesn’t even know what’s happening LOL. (LOL at my arm in this one haha.)
The really funny part? Pepper jumps down so Georgie jumps down and then Twigley got down and everybody else was up and running around and we’re laughing and I’m like OF COURSE IT WAS PEPPER WHO RUINED IT ALL
And then I sit up and look down.
And there is Auggie.
Still sitting, still staying, right where I told him to sit and stay.
AUGGIE IS THE BESTEST BOY IN THE ENTIRE WORLD.
Halloween Costumes
I was trying to decide what Pepper should be when I browsed PetSmart’s website and saw this. Then I went there and they had one in her size and it was 75% off.
PAYTON GET OUT OF THE SHOT. STOP TRYING TO EAT THE PUMPKIN STEMS.
She’s supposed to be Wonder Woman anyway. Since all my dogs get superhero alter egos. But I could totally fashion a better Lasso of Truth for her…
Look, I don’t know what Auggie is, okay? I just saw those pirate socks and they were cute, and also that shark fin was like two bucks. He’s a pirate eating shark. Or maybe he’s a pirate ship in disguise.
Look it really doesn’t matter because he’s Auggie and he’s awesome and adorable so who cares.
I have cuffs that I intended to put on him too… somewhere. I have no idea where they are. =< So he just gets to wear his tie.
The idea is that it goes with his registered name and all. Y’know. Sharp Dressed Man? Silk suit… black tie… don’t need a reason why…
Yes, Payton. We all know. Thank you.
Georgie has a sock monkey hoodie, by the way. We bought it at Old Navy. It’s adorable. No pics because she’s annoying (I’ll get some later.)
More Clicker Training with Pepper
Second target training session with Pepper! Once again, watch the video, then look below for more on what I did (and why) in this session!
I started this session with the same criteria as we ended last session: I wanted a nose push. She offered to dig at it with her paw pretty quickly, so I started rewarding for any kind of paw touch. I also flipped the frisbee back over at this point since I was no longer trying to catch my cookies in the middle of it. I pretty quickly got her to dig at the frisbee reliably. At this point I started holding out for a sustained touch rather than just digging. This is the first point where she starts to check out a little bit because she’s not sure what I’m wanting… I went a little too quickly for her. So I went back to rewarding for persistent pawing, and started rewarding low to the ground and in front of the frisbee, hoping that would result in her accidentally stepping onto the frisbee and getting the paw touch I was really looking for. It didn’t totally work, but I was also almost out of cookies in my hand so we just ended there with some pawing at the frisbee so we could end on a good note with success!
Punkin Pictures
I bought pumpkins yesterday morning. They were on mega sale so I was like “I will take all your pumpkins plz.” Actually I only bought five, but I wanted more…
Uhhhh unfortunately most of our family photos looked like this.
This was the best I got, haha. Pepper needs remedial stays again.
Just the boys <3
Auggie saw all the pumpkins and the leaf pile and was like “Oh. *strike a pose*” He just knows… he knows. What a good boy.
I told Payton his turn was next and he decided this is what he wanted to do. Also pivots using the pumpkin as his perch. I’m not sure if I should facepalm or be proud.
Since Payton started it I asked Georgie to do the same thing. SHE IS SO CUTE AHHH
Not in focus =< but it's sooooo cute.
The over-achiever, LOL. Oh Auggie.
Aaaaaand the under-achiever, haha. Poor Pep.
Clicker Training Pepper
Miss Pepper has never really been trained with the clicker before, at least not that I remember. I have started shaping behaviours a lot more often since getting Payton, so I don’t think I really did a lot with her previously. So now that she’s here, it’s time for the clicker training. Previous to this video, I did one quick session where I asked her for sits and downs and C&T for each. With Payton I really didn’t do any “charging” of the clicker and it has obviously not been a problem for him, but Pepper has four years of learning WITHOUT the clicker so I thought I would put a small deposit into her clicker training bank account before starting. But that is all I did.
I tried to figure out which behaviour I thought would be best to start with and decided one of the easiest things to do – and the easiest to “show” for video purposes – was to teach her how to target an object. Both of my boys are very good at this and even Georgie is pretty quick to try targetting stuff if she thinks it will get her a cookie… so easy enough, right? Right.
Watch the video, then read below for how I approached this training session!
At first I wasn’t sure what she would do when I put the frisbee (my favourite starting target) down on the floor. Would she go sniff it, mouth it, maybe even paw at it right off the bat? So I put the frisbee down and just watched to see what she would do before I decided what to click. Well, I should have predicted she wouldn’t do ANYTHING, but as usual I forgot that she is completely unlike my other dogs. So after a few seconds I knew my first move was to just click for looking at the frisbee. I quickly realized I also needed to use my treat placement to help out and started throwing the cookies towards the frisbee. I flipped it upside down, which is usually how I use it when it’s a food target, because the cookies would then get trapped in the frisbee. This let me reward for sniffing the frisbee, then I started waiting for an actual nose touch rather than just a sniff.
I started waiting for forward paw movement, but before she really started doing that, she actually pushed the frisbee with her nose. This was exciting to me, so I clicked it and decided to reward that for a while. We ended the session there!
Something has moved in…
Surprise!!
Payton thinks Pepper must be a gift JUST FOR HIM.
Pepper thinks Payton is the most obnoxious dog in the world. (And she’s probably right.)
Payton is trying to get her to play and crying because she won’t play, she’s trying to decide how much snark is necessary to tell him to piss off, and also she is alternating between jumping in my lap when I least expect it and showering me with kisses, and standing two feet away clacking happily away at me and staring at me like “Is this a dream? It feels like a dream.”
No, Pep, it’s not a dream. You’re home and you’re never going away again.
Some pics from today, plus a Baby Pepper
This could have been a great photo… but overexposed. >=< I have so many problems with forgetting to adjust my camera for bright sunlight and ending up with overexposed photos… ughhh…
Eat da snow!
I don’t know how he got snow on his eyebrow LOL.
Auggie says “I also eat da snow!” Auggie is kinda skinny right now… I’m not sure if I like it or not. I cut back just a bit on his food since it’s his agility off season and all his muscle was getting soft, but I dunno… and yes I realize you guys probably can’t tell from this photo LOL.
Inside… for some reason he likes to play like this. I finally managed to get a good photo of it, haha. He’ll have a toy and then start rolling around on his back making wookie noises and flailing his legs around.
And in fact yesterday morning this is how he tried to wake me up. By putting his head on my BUTT and then rolling back and forth on his back making wookie noises and flailing his legs around. w.t.f. payton.
Then he grabs at the toy and makes more wookie noises and rolls around… because he’s so weird…
Also, yesterday I drove to Indy to watch Auggie’s breeder run Auggie’s granny (and Payton’s great-granny) one last time in agility… today is granny’s first official day of retirement. Anyway, before I went over there she had me run by her house and pick up her scrapbook that she forgot and bring it to the trial with me. We all spent some time looking at granny when she was really young, her AOM picture at Westminster, all that awesome stuff. And in the binder I found a photo of granny and Auggie’s dad at his first show when he was like six months. And HOLY COW Payton still looks an awful lot like Auggie’s dad now that I have puppy awkward photos to compare! It’s crazy. I meant to take a picture of that photo with my cellphone so I could show it, but I forgot.
But in the back of the binder were a few other miscellaneous pictures, and one of them was of two puppies, and I picked it up and said “Who are these?”
She pointed to one of the puppies and went “That’s baby Pepper.”
BABY PEPPER?!
So when I came home I looked around online until I found the photo, because I only have one other picture of her as a baby and it’s not a very good one.
Pepper is the one on the right. She’s so cute. D= D=
Georgie’s mom is the one on the left. Doesn’t Georgie look JUST like her mom?
Pro Christmas shoot!
MASSIVE photodump below… some of these look very close to each other but I am just dumping in everything.
We started with Georgie because we thought she might get sleepy if we waited.
then we put antlers on her. and she hated it LOL. They all looked pretty much like this.
My mom also got photos with her and the baby, but my mom doesn’t like photos of herself, so I’m not posting any of those. They were very cute though, so hopefully my mom will get over her insecurities and print out a few.
Auggie-doggie was the first of mine up because, as we all said, you can count on Auggie to take good photos.
hahaha <3
Ah-ha! Happy dog!
One of my faves this time around.
though this one is really cute too!
Then time for me to get in the shot with Auggie. And time for Auggie to pretend he hates me.
LMAO.
no mommy
nonono!
no.
nooooo
Seriously, what am I supposed to do with this? LOL.
Next up: Payton!
who got his ears unglued just for the photos. Which means we have to glue them back down shortly LOL.
It’s really a shame he’s in his awkward stage LOL… but oh well. I will be really happy to have these some day.
“Payton, don’t look stupid.” LOL.
I really wanted me with Payton… but they didn’t turn out very well. He wasn’t in much of a mood to be snuggled. He wanted to eat the floor instead.
But these two are okay. I just really wish more had turned out well. =/
PEPPY NEXT.
In case you weren’t all aware of how gorgeous and cute she is, please allow her to demonstrate.
Ahhhhh she is the cutest girl <3
my girl.
LOL I know this isn’t entirely in focus but it was too funny not to include.
Time for all three… LOL. Well, we tried anyway.
Oh my doggies.
We had total “look at the camera” fail in other words. LOL. Oh well!
Holy photo overload Batman!! So many thanks to Kevin Devine Photography for these fabulous photos that they do every year.
Group photos with Pepper!
The winner winner chicken dinner!
This one came close but I liked Payton’s expression in the other better.
My boys. <3 LOL Auggie looks a little pissed. Like "remember when I was an only dog? Yeah? And all the cookies went to ME? Yeah? Remember that? Yeah."
Hahaha this would be cute but Auggie’s SadFaec ruined it. “Now I have to share my cookies… boo hoo…”
LOL boys. Pepper is being good. Payton seems to be seriously considering running off to eat leaves. Auggie is still upset about sharing cookies. And OMG I just could not get them to be close to each other… it was like they all thought the other dog had cooties… I could only get two next to each other at a time and the third was floating off elsewhere.
Derp!
I love how the ONLY dog looking at me in this one is Auggie… because he’s the only one I can say his name to and doesn’t think that means “IMMEDIATELY BREAK YOUR STAY AND COME RUNNING!!” Don’t get me wrong, I love that I can just say “Payton” and he gives me whiplash turns and runs at top speed to me, but the release from stay is “okay…” not the name…
Guess who’s here for a visit?
Hurray!!! The Peppy girl has come for a stay so I can take her along with me to our appointment for a Christmas photo shoot!
hahahahaha <3
Then Payton came over all HAAAAY GUUUUURL and she wanted nothing to do with him.
But as usual Payton thought today’s photos should be all about him… ready for this?
Glamour…
glamour…
gllllamour.
But he’s secretly a hick with leaves in his mouth all the time.
Then Pepper got to be PRETTY. This was Georgie’s costume actually but she is way too small for it right now (part of why it was so funny to buy it for Georgie.) HOWEVER. It fits Pepper!!! Pink fairy wings and a tutu hahaha.
it’s a wonder she loves me LOL.
Me & Pepper
love this one.
she likes to put her head back and try to slobber kisses all over whatever she can reach – usually your eyes and/or nose.
her face in this one hahahaha
and just to prove she can ruin a perfectly good shot… stupid tongue!
LOLOLOLOL
I wish Auggie weren’t in the background ruining this one… this is the Pepper I wish the world could see. This is how I see her. She is so funny when she’s not busy being afraid of things. I feel like I’m the only one who sees her for how she really is right now.
Playing with her bro – he went after a squirrel (almost caught it, too, because it nearly fell off the fence and right into his open mouth.) and she ran after him, then they bounced around for a while.
little peppy girl.
Pepper is helping
I decided I needed a new bookshelf for my bedroom, because my bookcases are overflowing to the point of absolutely ridiculous. I went to Target and found some organizational shelves that I liked so I bought two and brought them home.
Pepper and Auggie both said they would help me put them together but Auggie bailed first to go nap in the living room and try to sneak some chews on his sock, and Pepper’s brand of helping was mostly to run in whenever my dad would come in the house, step all over me and the stuff on the floor, then leave again when my dad would go back outside.
Well, I got the first one assembled and took everything off my old bookshelf, moved it out, and put the first shelf where it needed to be. There’s holes on the side where you can insert little dowels to stick the two shelves together if you want, and I started to do that, then changed my mind and pulled the dowels back out. Pepper was “helping” me at this point.
A minute later I reached down to pick up all the remaining parts and the instructions and realized I was missing one of those dowels. And also missing a Pepper.
“Pepper?” I called. No answer. “Pepper, did you eat my dowel?” Still no answer.
Fine. Whatever. ($&@ dog.
A few minutes later my mom walks into the room and goes “Hey, was Pepper in here helping you?”
“YES,” I said, “did she bring you a dowel?”
And my mom hands me this dowel, all chewed and soggy.
Good thing I didn’t need it.
Thanks a million Pepper. Or not.
Success with the wait command, and family photo attempts
Hurray!! I have started pushing “wait” with Pepper the last week or so (they have to wait before they get released to their bowls) and it looks like it’s starting to pay off! She is still very new to it, I can’t make much noise or anything or she’ll get up and come to me, but she at least has the general idea now. Unfortunately this means I can’t do much to get her to focus on me (she hates the camera and thinks it’s evil) or try to make her look a bit more excited, LOL.
Testing… testing… how far back do I dare go?
I’m maybe ten feet away and kneeling. HURRAY!
Except she’s eating grass.
Grass chew… wait for it…
graceful CHOMP
“Pepper stop eating the gr- crap.”
Okay, so I called Auggie over. He was having NONE of this.
“At least try to look like you like each other,” I said. “No,” said Auggie.
*facepalm*
Pepper is losing interest… Auggie still loathes me for ever bringing this bitch home…
Pepper got up so now it’s Auggie’s turn for solo portraits.
Except he hates me. Hates. me. from the bottom of his soul. (This one cracks me up.)
Sigh…
Grudgingly looks at me…
One nice shot, aaaand-
now he’s done.
Try #2 with them both. Uhhh…
“Pepper don’t eat the-
– crap!!!”
Auggie then took pity on me, or decided to show off. I’m not sure which.
Lookin’ at the flower…
Obviously weighing in his mind how much he hates me versus how much he loves me.
Oh, be still my heart. He can be a handsome little monster when he wants to be.
Or a big cutie!
And then I had to ruin it all by bringing Pepper over.
Ummm… can we both look in the same direction?
oh LOL Auggie and your stinkeye.
Then Pepper had to blink, apparently.
Semi-nice… the focus is not very sharp but it’s close…
aaaand then Pepper makes a ridiculous face that looks like somebody drew on her with marker…
Aaaaaand Pepper’s outta here! Game over.
Good boy Auggie sat there until I said “good boy, come here.” He’s a very good little monster who will hopefully not kill me in my sleep.
How’s this for adorable?
Pepper was in the kitchen looking down the stairs (my dad was down there and she wanted to make sure he didn’t come upstairs and surprise her.) There was an empty plastic bag on the kitchen counter and it blew onto the floor.
Pepper jumped and came in here all “Waaah! A bag fell!! It’s scary!”
Auggie was laying next to my chair and he got up, walked into the kitchen, sniffed the bag, then stood there looking over at Pepper.
She went back in the kitchen and looked at the bag, then went back to stand at the top of the stairs again.
It’s like he was all “DON’T WORRY… I shall check out the big scary bag for you!”
I do think he helps her sometimes learn to relax about things… she sees him go up to something and smell it and she feels more comfortable smelling it herself.
Auggie is a good big brother.
Moar Panties
Baaaahahahahaha…
Playin’ in panties…
Auggie does not want the panties.
Pepper likee. Apparently she thinks Auggie is sexy in his panties. Flirt flirt!
Here she goes again. Dang it all Pepper STOP FLIRTING.
They were playing in the other room and I hear “Auggie… Auggie you can’t hump her… AUGGIE… ….ummmm…”
So I go in there and there’s PEE on the floor. But Pepper is wearing her diaper, so it HAD to have been Auggie. I thought this might have happened last time but it made more sense to have been Pepper, but now I know for sure. Auggie is trying to hump her and then pee on her like he used to do with his puppy bed. That all stopped after he was neutered but now that Pepper is around with all her girly hormones going, I guess we’re back to square one.
Freaking. hornball.
