Bath Time & Workouts

Summer is here!

Emmy had her first "big girl" bath the other day. She really hasn't been one for getting very dirty so we don't have to bath her that much. Granted, she still LOVES to hop into the bath tub and play with the water dripping from the faucet...but she has only had a few full baths in her lifetime. It was about time for one, so Emmy and mom climbed in the tub for a good ol' washing. Emmy did very well with it...but of course she wasn't the only one dripping wet by the end of it! Now she's all squeeky clean again!

It also is the end of the school year so all the students are moving out and going home for the summer. We will have a few students here for the summer as this is one of the buildings they use for summer housing, but it won't be full. While preparing for the students to leave, we decided to clean the storage room and we found "Work out Care Bear"...or that is at least what we call him. Anyway...it sings and does a "workout" with you...pretty much like Tickle Me Elmo. We tried it out on Emmy to see how effective the workout is...haha...actually we thought it would be a good test for her around Children's toys. Check out the third video!

Spring Fling

Emmy visiting Bob at the dunking booth

We had a chance to enjoy the wonderful weather today and take Emmy to Hope's "Spring Fling" - basically a large carnival of sorts in the commons of campus. There was an inflatable obstacle course, jousting, a mechanical bull, concerts, BBQ's, and LOTS of college students! We started out by visiting Bill's brother, Bob, who was being targeted by his peers at the dunk tank. When Bill took his chance at dunking his little brother (yes that's correct...the older more responsible one tried...and succeeded in dunking his little brother) Emmy got really excited and wanted to play fetch with the oversized balls they had. The splashing and noise got her all in a dither and it took some cheese stick treats to get her to focus again. During a lull in the crowd, Emmy was able to go and visit Bob while he sat in the tank. Bob even spashed a little of the water on her, which was great being it was an 80 degree afternoon!

After that, we wandered over to "The Push" which is basically a shopping cart derby around the common area of campus. A bunch of students get involved and dress all crazy, make lots of noise, and push shopping carts around, while hundreds of other students line the sidewalks to cheer them on. Emmy and Amy met up with Aspen and Griffin (two other PAWS dogs being raised by Jim and Trudi VanderPloeg) at the starting line and watched The Push start. Emmy did very well on staying controlled and maintaining eye contact, especially when students started running past us to get to the next best "viewing spot".

We obviously received lots of attention at Spring Fling too because it's not every day that students see a dog...especially one as cute as Emmy (well ok, so Griffin being only a 9 week old black lab kinda takes the cake on cuteness...but Emmy is still pretty darn cute)! After walking back home, Emmy was pretty beat. In fact, she fell asleep in the kitchen right next to her water bowl (it probably would have taken too much energy to walk across the room to lay on her mat).

It was a great day! We're definitely excited for the nice weather and a chance to go out and about the town more.

Beautiful Weather

We have had some AMAZING weather this week. Today the high was 73! Emmy has been loving this week because she's been able to go for longer walks and play outside on her tie-out in the afternoons with Bill. She has been exploring a lot as well, especially since she has never really seen much grass until this stage in her life...so she insists on smelling and exploring every inch of the lawn.

Tonight, Bill's brother Bob came over to play video games, and Emmy definitely enjoyed watching them play (see the videos!). She has been doing so good lately. She is in the midst of another growth spurt in which we're noticing her getting taller. In fact, just earlier today we caught her sticking her nose on the coffee table to see if she could snatch something off the table now that it's the same level as her head. When we caught her she looked like the cat who ate the canary!

Emmy is also just getting over her first cold! For about the past week, Emmy has had a running nose (especially in the morning and after lying down), sneezing, bloodshot eyes, and has been more sleepy than usual (hard to imagine!). We checked with the PAWS vet, and they didn't think it was anything more than just a common cold or even seasonal allergies (much like people!). We felt lucky though because just this week we found out that kennel cough is going around the area, and had hit a few of the PAWS dogs even...including some foster puppies. Luckily Emmy was not one of them. Thankfully, she's feeling much better now (I think the warm weather and sun had a lot to do with that!).

Happy 6 months E puppies!

Today the E puppies are 6 months old! YAY!! Happy (1/2) Birthday to you! We celebrated today by upgrading some of Emmy's toys. Because of her age and weight (we went the vet just the other day...and she's just shy of 50 lbs!) some of her "puppy" stage toys are no longer appropriate for her to have...and many of them she's beginning to destroy. So, for her birthday we got Emmy a regular sized Kong (and she LOVES it because there is much more peanut butter in it!), a Galileo bone from Nylabone (Duke had one that she loved, so we got one just for her), and we tried out "Greenies" which are edible bone-like things (shaped like bright green toothbrushes) to help clean her teeth and give her fresh doggie breath (or at least as fresh as doggie breath can get!).

Puppy Class & Reunions

Puppy Class @ Paws

Emmy & Emma (it's hard to get two puppies to sit still long enough for a photo!)

Emma (left in background) and Emmy (foreground) waiting for the beginning of class

The resemblance is uncanny! Emmy (left) and Emma (right)

Emmy & Bill train together during class

Today we went to puppy class which is always exciting, but today was especially exciting. First of all, Bill is done with church activities on Wednesday nights (at least for the summer), so now the three of us can go to puppy class instead of just Emmy and myself. Second, we were able to see several of Emmy's siblings- Emu, Elwood, and Emma! Emmy and Emma haven't seen each other in a while and they enjoyed being able to "catch up"! We can't get over how much the two of them look alike, especially since most of the rest of "E" puppies look different than each other. We were also early to class so we were able to take Emmy out to the fenced in play yard to let her run around. Boy does she like that!

Emmy is doing very well in classes. We have been working a lot on heeling and staying recently and Emmy is really picking up on it. We did have to laugh though. At one point we were asked to get the dogs excited by rubbing them, talking to them, etc to give them some physical love as an affirmation. Most of the dogs got really excited and jumpy...but Emmy...well, Emmy just loved the rubbing and actually just put her head down on Bill's knee and looked like she would fall asleep! Silly pup!

Emmy's Still Growing!

Let sleeping pups lie!

Bill: "La,la,la..." Emmy: "woof,woof,woof...."

Yeah, um...I'm tired again.

Hi everyone! Sorry it's been a while since we've written. Honestly, we have been forgetting to bring our camera with us on adventures and such and then we forget to make posts to keep you all updated. Well...the biggest news...Emmy's still growing! Recently we have been looking back at our old pictures and realizing just how much Emmy has grown! You all probably notice it more being you don't see her everyday! Emmy has had a good time going for lots of walks (yay for nicer weather!) with Bill, visiting me at work, and just doing normal daily activities with us...oh yeah...and lots of sleeping! Here's some of the latest things we've caught her doing this month!