O Christmas Tree

Another plus about Christmas is that we have a big tree in the living room and it is planted in a big bowl of water. I really am glad that they added the new dish in the living room. The water has a bit of a kick to it, a slight pine flavor. Mmmmmmmm, I love it!

Molly and Anthony brought the tree home one night and Jason and Megan helped them decorate it. Right in the middle of the tree is my soccer ball. The tree is decorated in pink and one of the boys found my soccer ball and figured out how to hang it on the tree. Mamma left the ball there since it is pink and almost looks like it belongs there. They put it high enough up so that I can’t reach it. I am hoping I get to play with it again after Christmas. Our tree is very pretty and I am a good dog because I don’t chew on the ornaments!

It's Christmas!!

Christmas is a special day, there are presents under the tree, lots and lots of presents, and food everywhere. I am not allowed to eat people food, only dog food but I have made a most remarkable discovery. If I sit by the front door very quietly mamma forgets that I am here and she puts food on the bench next to her chair. If I am very clever (which I am) I am able to sneak up and help myself to the food. Sometimes they forget that I am tall enough to reach the coffee table and people put food on that! Molly is definitely a big help when it comes to finding food, she always leaves food on her plate. I have discovered that all I have to do is follow her around and wait till she walks away from her plate because she hardly ever remembers to take it to the dishwasher.

We also have a lot of shiny presents with pretty bows. I am not allowed to touch any of those presents but I discovered this morning that one of those gifts is for me, it’s a bed. I thought it was a big chew toy and started to chew the ends of it but mamma quickly explained that it is a dog bed. I guess I was confused because I have never seen a dog bed before, I sleep in a crate at night. I am very excited about the new bed because I am hoping the dog bed means freedom at night!!! Yeah, that would be a lot of fun to explore the house at night. I’ve already got some ideas about that and can’t wait till I’m in my bed pretending to sleep and everyone else goes to bed and closes their doors.  I’ll be sure to let you know about those adventures! Yeah, I’m sure I like Christmas!!!

Pappa's In Trouble

Today when mamma came home from work I could tell that there was going to be trouble! The first thing she noticed was that the newspaper had been shredded and unfortunately it was the sports section, the part that mamma reads first. My pappa is retired and his job is to watch the dogs but mostly he watches TV! Today he was upstairs on his computer and I was bored. I found the newspaper on the sofa and had a good time shredding it, well, shredding it and eating it...

I don't think older dogs get bored during the day because Rusty seems quite content to just sleep and watch TV with pappa. I like to explore and taste things and I have a real enthusiasm for life!

Soon before it was time for mamma to come home I went upstairs to see what pappa was doing. Pappa is a retired art teacher and he has a room with lots of interesting things. When I walked into the room with his computer I noticed a big orange crayon. It was quite interesting and looked like it would taste really good, so I ate it. Yep, I got it before Rusty or the cats found it! Later I followed pappa downstairs and all of a sudden it hit me, I was not feeling so good!!! Hmmm, I'm thinking it might have been the crayon. Sure enough it didn't take long at all before I blew orange chunks of crayon all over the carpet. About that time mamma came home and it didn't take her long at all to find it!

She took one look at the carpet and called for pappa to come into the sunroom. She figured out real quick that I ate something that was not on my diet and pappa was in trouble. In fact, he had to clean it up. According to mamma, puppies need constant supervision and I was not being properly supervised so it looks like pappa is going to have to do better on the supervision part and he will have to play with me more. So as it turns out, today was not such a bad day!

Sparkie!!

One of my favorite things to do is to tease Sparkie. One afternoon we were playing hide and seek in the living room and it was Sparkie's turn to hide so she jumped into mammas basket filled with dried hydrangeas. Ok, we didn't know at the time that the dead looking weeds had a name but I learned pretty quickly that they are actually hydrangea and mamma picks them from a bush in the yard and arranges them into a basket to look pretty. Who knew all that!! Sparkie sure didn't because she saw those weeds as a cool place to hide. She jumped into the basket and tried to cover up with them so that I couldn't find her. About the time she got comfortable mamma walked into the room and took one look at the basket of cat and was very angry, it seems that when Sparkie jumped into the basket she crushed the flowers and they dropped off the stems and onto the floor and the bottom of the basket.

We both got into big trouble for that. I don't get it that she was mad at me, I was on the other side of the room watching. But she yelled at us both. Here is a photo of Sparkie hiding in the basket. Don't ya think this is a great place for a cat to hide!

Obedience Training

It seems mamma has reached her limit and she has decided that I need obedience training! Yeah, tonight was my first lesson. A very nice guy that was one of pappas art students came to give me my first lesson. His name is Ray and mamma took a photo of us together. Ok, so I am a little confused about this obedience training. So far what I gather is that I am no longer allowed to jump up on people and bark and show them how happy I am to see them. I am also no longer allowed to jump on Sparkie and play with her. And it looks like I have to sit whenever mamma thinks I need to sit and there are quite a few more rules that I don't know if I will be able to remember. It was quite a night....and all the attention was on what I do wrong in life. On the plus side, I heard Ray tell mamma that since I am a terrier I need lots of exercise and she will have to walk me everyday.

I heard Ray tell mamma that my next lesson would be on how to walk on a leash. I think that lesson might be a lot of fun because we will be outside. I'll keep ya posted on my progress.

Thanksgiving

I'm not sure what it was all about but I know mamma was getting a bit ouchy as she cleaned and cooked for about a week before the big day. Molly's cousin Megan came to spend her Thanksgiving break with us which was kind of fun for me because she stayed out in mamma's shop and had lots of pretty stuff to play with out there. No one warned her that I like to play with anything that isn't nailed down.

We had a big meal on Thursday, that was the day that mamma was preparing for all week and there was lots of food. Aunt Lindy came from CT, she doesn't care much for dogs, she likes Rusty, but I don't understand why, he really didn't do anything to make her feel welcome. I mean when she came in he didn't run to greet her and try to jump on her and try to get her to play with him like I did, I did my best to let her know how much we were preparing for her visit and how happy we were to see her.

I got to eat my first "people food" mamma was not happy that papa gave me turkey. I liked the turkey and would like to have it again soon. I would have loved to try some of the other stuff that smelled so good but all I got was dog food and turkey.

So now things are back to normal, Molly and Megan both went back to school and it is just me and Rusty and mamma and papa again.


The photo is of mamma cooking Thanksgiving dinner!

First Haircut

Today was a big day for me! I had my first trip to the groomer and had my hair cut and nails done. Here is a picture before my hair cut. My buddy Rusty went along and I was glad that he went first because I really didn’t know what to expect. My groomer’s name is Evelyn, she is very nice. The first thing she did was gave me a hair cut and then clipped my nails. I really did not like to have my nails clipped. After that she gave me a bath. I tried to get out of the tub, just like I do when mama gives me a bath at home. When she was done she blew my hair dry and put a red ribbon in my hair. I do not like ribbons in my hair. I repeat, I am a boy dog and with my new big-boy hair cut I do not think I should have to wear a dumb ribbon in my hair. I got rid of that as soon as mamma put me in the car. So now I am very cute and I don’t smell like a dirty dog anymore. Mamma says that the Thanksgiving company will think I am very cute and will not be offended by my smell. I am also posting a picture of how cute I look. Minus, of course the red ribbon!!!

Toilet Paper

Toilet Paper

I have discovered an absolutely wonderful toy. In every bathroom in this house there is a roll of paper that when not attached to the wall is absolutely one of the most fun things to play with. In the big bathroom mamma has a wooden stool and on top of it is a pile of towels and rolls of white paper. The rolls of white paper are very soft and they smell great. So I have discovered that if I take one and run under the bed I can shred the whole thing into hundreds of pieces in hardly any time at all and roll in it and make a bed out of it. I have been able to do this about a half a dozen times. It makes my day and is quite a lot of fun. Don’t tell anyone, but I have found the white paper wrapped in plastic in her closet. If I chew through the plastic I can get to the cushy paper!

Mamma has moved the white paper to another location and I can’t reach it anymore so I am very sad about that. I will be watching for mamma to move it back.

Housebreaking 101

Training 101

According to mamma the first lesson a dog needs is housebreaking. I think that means when mamma starts yelling at me I should run to the door
and then she will let me out.

I think I have housebreaking figured out. Our back door has bells attached to it and I have discovered that when I ring the bells someone jumps up off the sofa or runs from another area of the house to open the door. It is working out wonderfully for me. I am liking housebreaking, any time I see something outside that I want to investigate, I just ring the bells and someone appears and the door opens. On occasion the door does not open even when pappa is sitting on the sofa next to the door but I have discovered that if that happens all I have to do is make a puddle on the floor somewhere and pappa opens the door. I think pappa is just about housebroken.

Coming Home

Hey! I’m a West Highland Terrier puppy and I have quite a life. I’m going to be sharing that life in my blog. I was born on June 9, 2006 at Stoner’s kennel and my big sister who is off to college named me “Stewie the Stoner”. Mamma and Pappa were not too excited about the name but went with it anyhow. Mamma thought she needed a puppy after watching an episode of Dr. Phil where he suggested the best way to fill an empty nest is with a puppy. I’m that puppy and I guess my job is to keep mamma busy so that she doesn’t worry about my big sister off at college.

I came home to live with my new family on August 2 and was able to spend three weeks getting to know the family before Molly went off to college. Now I am just living with pappa and mamma and my new best friend Rusty. Rusty is a Westie and Cocker Spaniel mix and a few years older than me. I also have two other buddies here at my new home but they are cats. Their names are Sparkie and Fluffy. They don’t like me much at all.

So that’s my story. Well that’s the beginning of my story, I’ve got lots of adventures to write about so check back often.