There was no snow last night. Well, it did snow, but it was all gone in the morning. So Holly had to stay at home with no company and I had to go to school-sigh. Because of the winter weather we've had over the past week, Holly's gotten used to having company all day. So when we go, she doesn't know what to do with herself, no matter how many Kong Toys we stuff with treats. And our fridge and freezer are covered in picture magnets, certificates, and so on. We don't usually have a problem with Holly chewing them, but today, we came back to find one of my praise certificates from school, a swimming certificate of mine, and some magnet that was almost unidentifiable all chewed-up and torn.

In fact, Holly's becoming quite naughty; pulling on the lead, peeing all over the floor, chewing stuff from the fridge, etc etc. I know we haven't gone to the dog training classes that were at a vet a few miles from here, but that's because there was a mad German Shepherd, a copy of this rubbish book called The Perfect Puppy on the table, a tiny, tiny room, and a trainer who's methods didn't work-even when she tried them out! All she did was stand around talking about complete rubbish, like not to say anything when your dog does something bad, gave us a vet check-up we'd already had, and not train us ANYTHING!

Best Dog Toy Awards 2009

Ah, the launch of my best dog toy awards 2009...it's not a big event, two people know about it, and I already know who's gonna win...the Kong Toys! You stuff 'em with treats, and your dog will entertain itself for hours trying to get those treats out. Unfortunatley, once the treats are out, the fridge magnets are next in line!

Training and snow

It's meant to snow again tonight-YAY!!!-so I hope we'll have another day off school so we can play in the snow with Holly. She's a great little dog when you're at home with her all day; calm, affectionate, and a good lstener, but when you're away all day, she gets so excited when you come back that she goes beserk. I see I now have two followers of this blog-feel free to post comments!
But anyway, I was thinking of submitting a picture of Holly into this dog magazine I have a subscription to; I've chosen the best pics to post on this blog, so I'd like you to enter the poll I'm adding to see which one's best.

I thought I'd show you some stuff about Holly's progress in training...

• SIT: Very good at it, does it automatically sometimes!
• STAY: Getting pretty good, needs a bit of work though.
• DOWN: Pretty good, but she can't do it unless she's already in the sit position.
• HOUSE TRAINING: Slowly getting worse-a bit of retraining neccessary!
• COMING WHEN CALLED: Good, unless a dog/person happens to be around.
• FETCH: Very good.

I'll add that poll tommorrow. Anyway, gotta take Holly for a walk, hope it snows tommorrow!!!

The snow is melting. Fast. Yesterday we went up to Noah's Ark Zoo Farm so I could do a Zookeeper-For-A-Day experience. Up there, the snow is deep, about half a foot, and it still hasn't melted after two days without any more blizzards. But, unfortunatley, we couldn't bring Holly up to see the snow. She stayed at home with my sister and my granny.

She wasn't exactly calm when granny and Roger came around. Well, she wasn't calm at all. But this is because granny has no "bad dog voice." But unfortunatley, she never calmed down so that granny or Roger could see her calm side. Last night, we were watching the rest of Harry Hill's TV Burp Gold accompanied by a small dog, curled up on the sofa, head resting on my lap, fast asleep. She's no working dog-if you tried to make her one, she'd just sit on your lap whenever she got the chance.

Holly was the runt of the litter. Originally, she was an endearingly active little puppy, even when she was only a couple of weeks old, but even then she would curl up on your lap and lick your face as a sign of affection. She loves people more than she loves other dogs, which is why we chose her, but it does lead to one problem.

She gets really over-excited when she sees people, even people on the other side of the road. She forgets to obey commands and runs off (or tries to if she's on a lead) and jumps up on them. Now this isn't because she's trying to kill anyone, it's just her way of saying she's happy to see you, accompanied by a lot of licking. But when she's big enough, she could knock people over by jumping on them, and she already scares little kids.

She knows a few commands; sit, down, stay, come, and all the basics, but we're really trying to work on the jumping. But anyway, who wants to see some more pictures?

Welcome

SNOW!!!

That's right, for the first time in ages, we've had some decent snow that's been on and off all week! It was great when the snow fell on my birthday, but I'm not the only one enjoying the snowy weather; Holly is too! There's three inches of snow, so her first snow experience hasn't been dissappointing. She rolls around, jumps around, churns up and runs around in the snow, and, um, eats it. Also, she's realised that it's extremely fun to chase your owners down a hill on their sledge! She's really funny, it's great watching her leap around in front of your sledge, tail wagging from side to side.

But, before we get onto Holly's snowy experiences, I should probably post some of those pictures any followers of the previous blog were desperate to see. So say Hi!, Holly! When the photos have downloaded into their files that is...Ah-ha! Here they are!

Sorry I can't post any more, we're going to watch a DVD I got for my Birthday with Holly, but there'll be more pics, descriptions, stories etc. coming soon (in two days, to be specific.)