Happy Birthday Cally

Blogging can prove to be difficult when you have children and a family to keep up with!  Cally turned #1 on July 3rd.  Unfortunately we were away on vacation and had to leave the party up to the neighbors who were puppy-sitting for us.  Have no fear we are planning a little party for her to celebrate the day we picked her up 1 year ago!  We will have party hats and a new toy for Cally and a little Puppy cake!    The neighbors had ice cream for Cally and a Happy Birthday crown, complete with a Happy Birthday Tune!!! So a Big Thank You to Kaite and Family for taking such good care of our Cally!
I wanted to update the Correction collar and how it is working.... It is working!  Cally has yet again proven to be the perfect Boxer Pup.  She has had many opportunities to leave the yard and plenty of temptations but has yeilded everytime.  The collar goes on when we are outside with her or doing chores outside.  We place her on the retractable leash when it rains or right before we leave the house to assure she goes outside.  But mostly we use her correctional collar.  I have to admitt though we have also had her out a few times with no collar or leash and she still obeyd the perimeter.
Cally is also in the process of learning how to play Frisbee and catch it mid-air and return it.  The biggest problem we have come across is she loves to run, jump and catch the Frisbee. She even loves to run back to you and show you she caught it.  The problem lies in giving it back so that we can throw it again.  It takes alot of coaxing but after a few moments of playing tug of war she lets go and we resume the Frisbee toss.
Well until the next fun loving story arises, Be well and Hug a Boxer!!

Here we are. Cally is almost at 9 months.  She continues to make progress and makes us fall in love with her more and more.  Last month we decided to purchase a wireless fence for her.  It is the best investment have made for her so far.  If you are not familiar with how they work let me explain.  We purchased ours from PetSmart. We had many concerns and were a little apprehensive of its effectiveness. It works in three ways, first visual, then audio, finally with touch or a shocking stimulation.  It has a hub which is placed in the center of your house or the area which you have for the dog to run around.  Setting up the perimeter took about 1/2 hr. It was just a matter of walking around with the collar in your hands, listening for the alert tone and watching for the light.  At that point you know you are at the furthest point of the preset perimeter mark and you place the visual flag.   If it is too far or too short for your liking you can adjust it on the hub, by dialing it back or forward.Once the visual flags are placed introduce the dog with the collar on but no shocking ability yet.  Allow the dog while on a leash to explore his/her area.  As they approach the flags, their collar should begin to alert the dog with a tone , the audible phase, and will flash a red light for you to see.  Pull the dog back into the "safe zone".  We continued this process for 1 day.   Day 2 we set the collar for level 1.  There are up to 6 levels of shocking discharge, the touch or stimulation phase.  Well as we quickly found out Level 1 is probably meant for a Chiuaua not a 56 lb Boxer.  so we quickly bumped it up to 3.  We had success.  Cally tested the boundary a few times, after 3 or 4 shocking corrections she had learned that the tone (audible) and the flags (visual) meant an impending shock (touch/stimulation).  By day 4 she wanted nothing to do with the furthest boundary.  She stayed close to the house and her people!  We had several tests that happened one including the cat escaping out a window and running through the yard and out of the perimeter.  Cally chased him to the edge and stopped and returned to the "safe zone".  And the cat wandered around in the woods for the rest of the day!  (Note: The cat is NOT an outside cat) The most recent test was yesterday, I had let Cally outside with her collar on.  My husband went to check on her and found her sitting in the "safe zone" watching the deer wander through the other side of the flags.  She showed restraint and respect for wildlife.  We were very proud of her and happy with the product.  I will continue to blog the progresses made in the coming weeks.  Bye for now!

Puppy Days 6 months old!

Happy New Year

I had all intentions of starting the New Year off with pictures and more posts, but that has not worked out the way I wanted. Well here it is January 15, better late than never.  Cally is 6 months old.  I would say she is 98% potty trained.  She has learned  to sent and learned what "Crate" means.  Over all it has been a successful 6 months.  She is growing and playing and loving us more each day.  Cally has found a love for rawhide.  She loves to cuddle up like a lap dog, even though she takes up your entire lap and half of the couch.  We have to laugh at her and her daily antics.  Cally has become very attached to my boys. She loves to play with them and loves to see them off for school every day!  She loves the School Bus, so much that she has attempted and succeeded at running out the door and trying to get on the bus with them several times.  Thank goodness for the bus driver and her love for dogs.  We are approaching the time to which we will be getting her fixed and micro chipped.  I am dreading the healing process, because I am not sure she will ever sit or lay long enough to heal properly.  Well it is Sunday here and that means rest and relaxation for the humans and puppy pent up energy for Cally. Hoping tomorrow will be warm enough to take her for a nice long walk.  We bought her a harness to help stop the pulling when out walking.  So far I would say that it has helped a little.  She is a puppy and is so excited to be outside.  We also got her a retractable leash and that has helped a lot.  Okay I will try to post a pic or two later.  Please follow Cally at 4boxerpawz on twitter.

Time Flies When You Have a Puppy.

Here it is Saturday again, I have been lazy with the blog, my apologies.  It seems as though we are fast approaching Cally's 5 month birthday.  I will work on posting updated pics soon.  We had a very nice and quiet Thanksgiving holiday here.  No major incidents to report on.  Cally has learned to sit this past week, she caught on to that one very quickly. I am concerned with how she will react to the Christmas tree.  I will plan to put all of our most precious ornaments up high as to not tempt her in to chewing on our family heirlooms.  As we pulled out some of our decorations today she was more than eager to taste them all!  Oh the puppy days!

First Snow Adventure

It is October 29th, and it snowed!  Took cally out this morning and caught her first few moments on tape too.  She loves the snow. Check out the You-Tube video posted.   I am pretty sure that this snow will not stick around this early in the season, but being that we live in Pa I am sure it will return!  I bundled up the kids and sent all three out for some winter wonderland fun!  All three returned to the front door soaking wet!  I do think we will get Cally a coat or sweater to put on if the temps drop below 30 degrees.  She did do a good amount of shaking, but still enjoyed herself.  I am not wanting to "dress up" my dog, but I have read quite a few other blogs and pet forums that suggest that this breed is temperature sensitive. Has any other Boxer owners experienced this?  Any suggestions for preparing for the impending cold weather?  Thanks in Advance!

Jeepers

Cally is now 16 weeks old.  She is up to 24 lbs, and growing up fast.  She received her shots 2 weeks ago and did very well at the Vets office.  One more set and she will be complete with all of her puppy vaccinations.  She has had many changes over the last few weeks, she is now sleeping in her crate at night.  The transition was easier than I had anticipated.  She seems to like it now.  I am so excited to have my bed back.  I still enjoy an occasional snuggle, but lets face it she was a bed hog!  I also have to admit too that I miss the heat that she generated, I guess I'll just have to get a few more blankets!
I wanted to share a funny story about Cally,  the other day we were all getting ready to go out and run our errands so no one was paying much attention to Cally.  My husband came down stairs to find her laying on the living room floor chewing on something. At first glance she looked like she was chomping on a piece of gum, you knowhow you chew it when you are bored and almost counting the chews in your head?  Well upon further inspection it was in fact a piece of gum!  Where she got a piece of gum I could only imagine.When I tried to pull the gum from her mouth she gave me a determined look and promptly swallowed it as to say "Ha you cant have it!"  What a turkey!  Her antics keep us laughing!  I do hope the gum does no harm.  I will check back this week to add more stories and add pictures.