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.