I Have a Smart Dog

Well I have 2 smart dogs but this post is only about one of them. Milo is his name. He's awesome.


In the Snow
Anyway, a year ago we didn't have dog doors and the pups were new to the house and still learning how to go outside for potty business. They weren't quite learning how to let us know when they needed to go out so I hung a bell on the door.

The dogs were of course interested in what I was doing by the back door so I figured I'd go ahead and show them. I leaned over, said "Potty outside?” rang the bell then opened the door. Later when I took them out again I did the same thing.


At the Dog Park
The next day I was hanging out on the computer and I heard the bell ring. I thought, "No way... I only showed them twice, one of them must have bumped it." Then as I was headed toward the back door I heard it again. Milo was standing there at the door, looking at me expectantly. I was shocked and excited! So I praised him like mad and let him out.

Shortly after that we had doggie doors installed so the bell method fell by the wayside and I took it off of the door. It stayed tucked away on my desk for probably 6 months. In that time the cats figured out how to get out of the doors and over the fence so we had to monitor the dog doors again. I thought, while they are closed we'll just revert back to the bell method. I didn't expect him to remember the bell but he did. I heard it one day and just started laughing.


We actually have two back doors and two dog doors. One leads from the house proper to a closed in back porch. Then the porch one leads outside. The bell hangs on the outside door. The other day both doors and dog doors were closed. Milo barked at the inside door and as my Honey opened it for him, he ran to the other door and rang the bell! I guess he really wanted out!


Super Happy at the Dog Park!
In April I purchased a dog training kit that focused on clicker training. The book said to get the dogs to connect the clicking sound with good I needed to give them a food reward. After several clicking sessions over a few consecutive days the dogs will learn the pattern. Within the week of buying the book I did this multi day acquaintance test. After that I totally dropped the ball and have yet to teach them a trick. It is on my list of things to do.

Well some months later, let’s say July, I found the clicker and thought "I wonder if they remember what this does?" I should have known due to the bell training that they would but I was still surprised and excited when after just one click they both came to full attention and waited for their treat. I of course gave them one.


Silly Boy
Now fast forward to last weekend. Milo got out of the house. When these darn pups do that they do not respond to my calling them. That has yet to be trained. Their noses get the better of them and off they go down the street. So Milo took off. I immediately thought "Get the clicker!" I ran in the house and tracked it down then went out on the porch and yelled "MILO!" and clicked. That little mutt turned and bolted toward me like lightning!!


Milo Loves his Tennis Ball
I jumped up and down, hollering praises at him, clapping my hands, let him in the house and lavished him with treats and petting and all sorts of verbal praises.

So now I know, basically, that he is trained to come to me by the sound of that click. Fabulous smart dog!


Grassy Tongue


He was Chewing


My Sweet Boy Milo

More Walking?

I thought I did this part already. Well I did but...

My friend over at Nothing to see here turned me onto a 6 week walking program she started a few days ago.

Since I have a pedometer and recently bought a new battery for it, I figured I'd join her. Also, since I'm already climbing stairs, I figured counting those steps along with a few others wouldn't hurt the size of my keister and it will most certainly make my pups much happier!

If you're interested, check it out at America on the Move.

The cool thing about the interactive website is that once you register (for free of course) you get to choose a trail to walk, virtually. As you log your steps for the day it moves you along the trail. It's neater than it sounds. Check it out for yourself if you want to see. My friend chose the Iditarod Trail and I chose the Oregon Trail.

We'll see how far I make it down the Oregon Trail in the next 6 weeks!

The Stairs

You may or may not have noticed the little rabbit hopping along in the tall green grass there on the left hand side of my blog. I put that there to keep track of how many stairs I'm climbing.

But why is it there?

Well there is an answer and an explanation:

Answer - I'm a nerd and I like to track things.
Explanation - Without all of the long winded details, I'm backpacking to the bottom of the Grand Canyon next year.

*GASP* "That's a big deal Sarah... are you sure you can? I mean, I'm sure you can but you're going to have to work for it you know."

Yes I know. Hence the stairs.

Anyway, so the plan is this, I work up to walking 3000 stairs (up and back down again) 3 days per week. That's 9000 steps in one week. Huge, I know. Pretty scary really and I'm not looking to beat myself up if I never reach that many, however, you have to start somewhere.

So I started with 1 set of the 6 flights in my building PLUS 2 sets of 4 flights (because I work on the 4th floor).

The routine goes like this, 4 up in the morning, 4 down at lunch, for back up after lunch then 4 down again when work is done. Those are given. No matter what, I'll do 8 flights every single day.

Now the build up comes in on adding in the 6 flight routines. Last week I just put in 1 set of 6 for 3 days. This week I'm doing 2 sets of 6 for 3 days. Next week I'll add in one more and do 3 sets of 6 for 3 days.

The number on the cute little rabbit counter represents 1 day's worth of stair stepping for each week. So I'll update it weekly. As you can see it is at 384 now. That's how many steps 6 flights + 4 flights + 4 flights equal. Have I bored you yet?

Except for a couple of weeks that repeat the pattern (such as 6 sets of 6 for 2 weeks) I'll be adding one set every week. The plan is to be at 3000 by the end of March 2009. That's the earliest we can go. We may go in October '09. But if we go in March, I'll be ready.

Step, step, step, step, step. It’s hard but when I'm climbing and sweating and huffing and puffing and I think "Holy crap!" I envision the Canyon and think, "Oh this is so worth it."

Plus my ass is gonna be like POW!

Mini Vacation

I spent the last four days with my Honey and his parents. The parents were visiting from New Hampshire and we filled the weekend and days around it with things to do and see in the area. We went to a rodeo, the botanical and Japanese gardens, a museum and an Omni show plus we took the train to Dallas and went to the Dallas World Aquarium.

I'm pretty tired from my 4 day vacation and am looking forward to a quiet weekend coming up. Other than a baby shower on the 20th I have no other plans and I aim to keep it that way.

I've used a Kodak EasyShare DX4330 for about 5 years and it has been very good to me however I recently played with a Canon EOS Digital Rebel XTi and am forever spoiled. The point and shoot just isn't going to cut it ever again but since that is all I have for now I took it out and about with the visitors and shot what I could.

Here are a handful of highlights.










I'm glad it was a bright and sunny day. This camera has always done better with outdoor photography. I have to say also, the dragonfly picture is the crowning jewel if for no other reason than it is extremely difficult to snap them. They normally don't sit still long enough, and certainly not when you only have a point and shoot and have to lean in within a foot to capture it!

I was so excited that it turned out. Now all I have to do is save my pennies for the camera I REALLY want.

Oh one more thing, I don't believe in touching up photos so what you see here are original from the camera.

Do Over

As I mentioned in my previous post, I spent some time over the last 2 weekends replanting the front beds. I originally added them this past spring. Since then I've learned some things and also I've paid more attention to how the sun hits the area. I've come to the conclusion that I didn't put the right plants in there initially.

So I pulled them out (mostly all dead) and put in new ones.

Lets just take a little picture tour down memory lane.


April 27th 2008


April 27th 2008


May 3rd 2008


Sept 7th 2008


May 3rd 2008 - Torenia, Polka Dot Plant, Coleus


Sept 7th 2008 - Variegated Lilyturf, Mexican Petunia, Dianthus
I'm confident that the plants I've put in now will do very well in the spot and in my opinion they look better too. :)

Random Crap

It has been a week and I don't have much to say really but I bet you anything by the time this blog is finished it'll be quite long. I do that sometimes.

The Cowtown Classic is off for me. I'm not ready. It was a sudden and eager decision; this year is just too soon. I do want to do it though, so expect me to bring it up again next year. I'm also going to continue riding my bike. I'm really looking forward to cooler weather so those rides will be more enjoyable.

The 3 day weekend was good. Leading up to it was hectic but since then things have been laid back. We had friends coming in Friday night for a visit so I freaked out and worked to get the house in order the couple of weeknights before. Other than 3 boxes, everything finally has a place in the house and it is CLEAN! That just isn't the norm, but now that it is, I like it and have kept it that way since.

After the friend visit we spent the weekend relaxed without any pressure from unfinished projects. Sure there are things to be done, but almost everything is in order now and the general maintenance of the home has been easy. It was nice to realize on Saturday that I didn't have a pile of boxes in the living room to deal with.

So I went plant shopping and bought a bunch of things to fill in the front beds around the boxwoods. I had purchased plants earlier this year for that spot but they didn't last the summer. I've learned a lot since then and bought new plants that WILL last our long hot summers. I spent some time Monday morning putting some of them in the ground but not all of them have been tended to. I'll get the rest of them in this coming weekend.

I also spent some time painting. I whipped out 2 watercolor paintings just for fun. I haven't drawn or painted anything in a very long time. Years. I'm pleased with them only because I didn't set myself up to do something fabulous, I just wanted to get some color on paper for fun and it WAS fun.

Yesterday I came to the conclusion that I need to reign in my fast food consumption (again). I go through phases and it has been getting increasingly worse to the point that I'm starting to see how much money I'm just throwing away on garbage. So I promised myself that when I got home last night I'd put together 3 bento lunches for the remainder of this week.

Now a lot of the time I have the grand plans of what I'm going to do when I get home and by the time I DO get home I'm so tired from the long ass drive (46 miles) that all my dreams and motivation for the evening projects is gone. So last night I allllmost bailed on the lunch making but I stopped myself and said, "Nope. You promised!" So I got out all my bento bits and dug a bunch of food out of the fridge and built myself 3 little bentos!

I was so proud. I even made peanut butter hummus and cooked some rice to incorporate into the lunches. By the time I was finished putting them together it was time to cook dinner. So yea, maybe I did prepare food for over 2 hours last night but I tell you what, it sure was nice to be able to spread everything out all over my perfectly clean kitchen counters and have zero stress while doing it.

I guess the whole point to this brain dump is this, after a year of being in this house; things are finally starting to come to a place where I feel normal and settled. Life is good. Really good.

I told you it was going to be a long post. ;)