Saan took Lady to the woods (read: the Maria-park in Averbode, near the ice cream vans and the big monastery) today. Apart from the fact that she saw every passerby not on a bike as a possible hug waiting to happen and so tried to give fortune a push in the right direction by trying to jump everyone, she behaved fairly well. She chewed on everything, including poured concrete ornaments several inches thick, let her me-big-dog-you-sucka-streak rear its ugly head by dragging along branches that were wider and higher than the pup itself and listened 90% of the time when Saan told her to come or to sit. She loved the car rides, as well.
She did try to rise up a place in the food chain twice, every time on different people, and got nowhere with it. Saan left the walking chain and car towel in the rain, so those're drying out still, and Lady had to do her evening walk on her nylon leash, which for some reason she resents doing. Saan's dad stood outside in the rain with the pup while Saan mucked out her pen big time. It's now vacuumed (and still not fully puppy-carpet-scraping-free), no longer covered in toys and completely clean. Then Saan cleaned out an Iams food bucket Saan's mom had gotten as a freebie for the cats once and never used, which she filled up with Lady-fuelage and put next to the pen, with the lid on. This basically means Saan won't have to turn her back for thirty seconds *after* Lady realises she is getting food, and so Saan won't have to rearrange the pen quite as badly afterwards. The water in Saan's pee-clean bucket is fresh and ready to go, Lady's walked and now all she's got to do is go to sleep.
Okay, so Lady's been frightfully obedient and following all day. To the point of literally following Saan at her heels. Which looks like a really nifty disappearing trick if you're Saan.
It goes something like this: Saan steps out, Lady follows her, normally storms off to wherever while Saan closes the door and slowly goes to the lawn. Today, she sees no Lady. "Lady! Lady, here! Here, girl! LADY!" No response. Saan, still slowly walking, looks at all the BAD GIRL, LADY!-spots (cats' feeding bowl- haypile - mosquito-infested bucket of water - Saan's mom's plants - drying brolly hole - compost heap - lawn's border in front of her) and finds nothing. Now really panicked, Saan stops, calls out for her puppy again and feels something bump her legs from behind. She looks down and finds her puppy staring at her in confusion.
This strange obedience was punctuated by shredding only one Financial Times page and peeing where she should. Saan suspects her pup doesn't like the idea of an organised economy, too. Saan, having cleaned up some Lady-poo before leaving, then went out for dinner with her bro and dad, taking along her freshly arrived book and abusing the plus of having li'll sis and mom out of the house all sorts of ways. When she came back, all papers left were reduced to rather crude confetti, one was peed on, the pen was covered in pee-sticky pawprints and Lady played with her food more than anything. After half an hour of NAUGHTY, NAUGHTY PUPPY! LEAVE! SAAN'S! JEANS! ALONE!, Saan had enough and took her back inside. Fifteen minutes after, Saan's brother decided to go downstairs to his room. He almost immediately called Saan down, too. Lady, having broken out for the second time ever and now able to climb the stairs, had not only used the opportunity of no master watching her every move to kidnap both Saan's brother's slippers to her crate, and then get the heavy walking chain which tinkles so nicely from the seventh stair-step. Saan thought it was quite a funny sight to see Lady's two most favorite-est toys which she can never ever play with as far as Saan's concerned collected along with the rest in the crate, with Lady in the middle looking surprised. Closer inspection showed she'd annihalated a bread bag to the point of some crumbs and five small pieces of waxed paper on her doggy-carpet. Saan cleaned out everything Lady wasn't allowed to have and this time took special care to close both gates at the pen properly.
FIY: Philou, Saananian tanks for the comment, but by 'Saan WANTS MAIL', Saan meant the fact that she had been secretly hoping on an ordered package arriving a day early, which it didn't, and so she wanted it to arrive on time, which it did. She's already nearly halfway in her copy of 'From Baghdad, With Love', too.
They delivered the new gardening shed yesterday. So now the entire family is helping move it to the back yard. And all it needs now is putting together. And fencing the yard. And putting Lady in there.
Okay, so yesterday, Lady was a very naughty girl indeed and got her shots. One more and she's pretty much killer-disease proof. Then Saan can dunk her in a lake and watch her run for cover. She behaved better during the night, sleeping from eleven pm till half past six am. Then Saan's dad woke her up. She was very good in the morning, but things went downward from there. So now all Saan's got to do is walk her beloved little hell-rat into exhaustion and go to sleep herself.
There is a post today, but because Saan's tired from walking (read: road-wrestling) Lady late at night and running after her sister to prevent the poor, innocent soul from discovering lewd magazine-quizzes, there's still not much to read here. So there.
Okay, so Lady's quite worn out from the annual end-of-school-year-binge Saan's family usually organises (that's what happens when all daughters from your granddad are teachers of some kind), but the whole ordeal solved the mystery as to why Lady always has peed under her entire pen by morning, even though there's her puppy peeing spot and newspapers. She, very kittenlike as she can be at times, only pees or poos in the same spot once. So you have to make sure a) that there are enough newspapers and such and/or b) that you change the newspapers in time. Or you end up pee/ood upon.
Saan's entire life is still being controlled by feeding, cleaning, petting, hugging, scolding, grabbing and doggy-doo bags. She's just worn her little bundle of fur out by a slightly longer walk with visiting relatives, one of which was grateful for the puppy-speed (read: 'slow') walk since she's recovering from a nasty sun stroke. Lady's gotten so much visitors today, her bad habits come out as soon as the visit is over. Ankle-biting, middle-of-the-street-pooing and whining to be let out. This may be due to, like, fifty people shouting her name in as many different directions. Saan'd get pissed, too. So right now, Saan's feeling really possessive and banning all visitors and visits to Lady until she's a very good girl indeed. Starting by sleeping whole nights.
That being said, Saan should probably also mention that she's back to being her sleepy/obedient/mostly naughty self. And being suspiciously unworried about her nest being replaced by an adult-size indoor kennel. So Saan's going to sleep now, to be prepared when the Lady-Ship lands tonight to wake the entire house again.
Saan's life is piling up once more. She has school, parent-teacher-student meeting, Lady and two favour waiting for her tomorrow morning, and several hours of sleep to catch up with. Help.
The novelty still has to wear off, and Lady is certainly keeping Saan on her toes. She has precious few settings as of yet. Inside there is: squeal and howl, suspicious quiet while she pees/poos where she *should not be peeing/pooing* and quiet while she dozes quietly, with the rare inbetween stages of quietly pouting and doing her business where she should. When she remembers she has them, she chews her toys, with the Kong being a special favorite, it seems.
Outside, she loves to chew on shoes and trousers, for which she gets scolded when Saan notices. Occasionally, she does her business there, too, though pulling off grass and other weeds is more popular. Chasing after Saan is something she does whenever Saan decides to breathe too loudly. Saan's ran more through the garden today than she's had since she was three. Her cillinder-tag is still Not A Friend. But at least Lady knows that when Saan's got her by her neck she's got to give up whatever she's got in her mouth. The cillinder, her leash, leaves, once an inch-long sharpened piece of wood. The last one especially worried Saan.
The fact that Saan is with her the most gives Saan a lot of time to be with the pup, even though she probably shouldn't. This, however, has made it so that Lady listens to Saan's command 'Here' *point* when Lady isn't too badly distracted. Usually, Saan spends half a minute going 'Lady. Lady. Lady. La-dy. *LADY*.' Inside, Saan has less trouble with it when Lady's inside her pen. Mainly because Lady didn't take all that long to figure out that whenever Saan was using short syllables over and over, it usually means she's allowed outside. Though she is starting to understand that 'Sit' doesn't mean the same as 'Here'. She's still trying to figure out what the hell Saan means when she goes 'Sit' at her.
Lady's sleeping downstairs tonight, because Saan got scolded for waking everyone up at the most unreasonable hour of 4 AM when she slept in Saan's room. Lady's also not going out without a leash when Saan's the only family member on site. She can't break skin with her teeth yet, but she does have the tendency to put things that she shouldn't in her mouth and goes for the hands when she does try to bite limbs. And if Saan keeps her back turned too long, Lady tends to play at exploring uncharted territory. Think room where the antifreeze is kept, the place where the gasoline for the lawnmower stands.
And as there still isn't a bench (maybe tomorrow), Lady's still sleeping in her industrial-size baker's basket like a bakery's special delivery. The type her uncle keeps the small baked goods in he has to deliver. At least she's a lovely golden brown.
Picture enclosed, hopefully better than yesterday.
Okay, so this is the long-awaited new member of the Saananian household: Korden's Red Lady. Lady for short. Her eyes aren't *really* cerulean blue, that's just the camera's wonkiness. It's also how her ladyship is spending her time currently: sulking in her nest because she's got to sleep alone and no one wants to pay any attention to her.
She behaved almost perfectly (poo on the floor and hour of squeaking left out) today: she's been quiet and collected, slept all through the car ride without peeing on Saan and sis. She did chew on her dog tag cillinder (or tried to, with her five tiny teeth) and tried to eat her leash, but the leash-eating got pretty boring after ten minutes, so she decided to be a good little puppy and walk neatly next to Saan.
Saan's tired again. She should probably stop sitting behind screens and books so much. And there'll probably be little sleep tonight. Puppy's coming tomorrow evening and there's Pimp My Pants at Saan's school before that. Excitement galore, in short.
Saan's nearly pissing herself, mainly because she hasn't been near a toilet since nine am, but also because: - she had to stand up for ninety minutes - sit down in the most uncomfortable theathre chair for the two hours before - she shouldn't have drunk two large glasses of lemonade on an already full bladder.
Reason for all of this is her sister, who had her proclamation today. Meaning she graduated from primary school. And had to bring up this little play, which was funny enough to make Saan really want to run from the hall, but one of the players was Joeri, as in "I am Joeri. I wish to be addressed as Joeri. I'm in charge of security this evening. There are three rules. Rule one: cell phones are turned off. I've got handcuffs. I've got pepper spray. Anyone got trouble with that, I solve it *my* way. Rule two: no gum in the hall. I've got handcuffs. I've got pepper spray. Anyone got trouble with that, I solve it *my* way. Last rule: everyone remains seated, even if it's crappier than ever. Anyone got trouble with that, I solve it *my* way."
