Dried Saliva and Highly Digestible Rice

Due to a series of unexpectedly messy events, we were driven to give Primo a bath today.  I was slightly concerned when I noticed that the directions on the bottle of puppy shampoo literally state that you should "secure all possible exits," but he did great.

All of this cleanliness came about because Primo recently spent a few days with the love of his life, Cera, and came home covered in dried Cane Corso saliva (we'll have a future post on Cera soon!).  It actually made his fur stiff and I thought he might have a vitamin deficiency for a split second.  The situation was only compounded after a romp with George, the five month-old Newfoundland who drools when he wrestles, and a three hour stint with a Busy Bone.  Lesson learned - the "highly digestible rice" in the bone is actually code for small, sticky white pellets that will be ground into your carpet over time and secured with more dog saliva.

Overall, the bath went pretty well.  Only one good towel was destroyed (totally my fault - I was drying Preems kind of aggressively and I think he felt manhandled) and the water was contained to the bathroom.  We also found that hot dog bits were quite effective for keeping the little guy in the tub.  Although, that's not a total surprise because hot dogs are the trick to get him to do anything.

Like any good dog, he's now fresh and clean - so he's currently sitting by the back door and pining for the mud in the yard.  You can see it all over his freshly-scrubbed puppy face.

Funny about that training...

While Primo may be an expert when it comes to sit, stay, and leave it, we haven't exactly gotten him to stay off the furniture. 

I mean, if you just look at this picture, you can tell we're victims in this situation.  Who could be expected to resist this level of cute?  No one.  At least, no one with a heart.  And, if you consider that Preems truly is a puppy of leisure (see previous posts) while being an instinctively good snuggler, well...  We didn't stand a chance. 

Thank goodness we decided to wait on buying that new couch.

Who's really being trained here?

Happy New Year!  Primo enjoyed a nice holiday with an absurd amount of toys, and is now relaxed and ready to work on his manners in 2012.

Preems recently started training at a local, holistic pet shop (which are more common than you might think) and is doing really well.  In fact, one very nice woman who is the proud mother to a Schnauzer/Poodle mix named Dottie swears that he's one of the most in-tune dogs she has ever seen. 

During this exercise, owners jump up and down while the puppies look at us like we're idiots.

Little did she know that I had hot dog bits in my hand throughout the entire class.  Our trainer prefers to call Preems "independent" and, upon discovering the hot dogs, whispered that I smuggled in the "good stuff."

Part of me wants to get a fanny-pack to keep the treats readily available. 
But it's a very small part of me that I'm choosing to ignore right now.

Primo has some pretty cute classmates, too.  In addition to Dottie, Preems is joined by Sophie, a 14 month-old cattle dog mix recently rescued by her owners.  Remi is a 5 month-old German Shepherd that likes to guard the water bowl during class and George is a 5 month-old Newfoundland that's a bit of a drooler.  Penny is a 4 month-old Golden Retriever rescue with the sweetest personality and, occasionally, we're joined by the twins - Henry and Ruby.  They're English Bull Dog littermates and are completely hilarious.

Stay tuned for more updates on Primo's progress.  I've already publically declared him to be a genius and my current goal is to get him to flop over when I make my hand into a gun and yell, bang!