A blog about David Chartier

Five cheezburgers - we needz dem!

nobody@vox.com(David Chartier) — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 14:03:47 -0700

Only you can help get an 8 week-old Oscar to the front page of the new Loldogs site.

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Puppy troubles

nobody@vox.com(David Chartier) — Sat, 15 Sep 2007 11:56:44 -0600

We trained our older dog, Oscar, quite a bit when raising him and he's turned out to be a great dog. He still gets a little too excited when friends show up, but other than that he isn't a barker, doesn't chew and couldn't hurt a living thing. He's obedient, comes when called and can catch a frisbee with the best of them. However, our new puppy, Maddy, does have a few bad habits still and Oscar has developed some strange quirks since her arrival.

First, Maddy is a barker, but not a hostile one—she's doing it for attention. Whether she's inside or out, she'll bark once or twice at a person (with or without dog), sometimes in rapid succession, until the person or dog comes closer so she can go say hi and start playing.

Early on, back around Feb-April or so, Maddy also developed the revolting habit of trying to eat stools, whether they were her own or someone else's. Now we got Maddy out of that with a few tricks fairly quickly and Oscar didn't seem to pick it up back then, but on a walk this morning I caught Oscar trying to take a bite out of what looked like a cat stool (we have a few stray cats around the townhouse complex that Animal Control never seem to snag).

My questions for you, dear Voxverse, are: what can we do about Maddy's barking? We're crating her more often and I'm training with her on more basics like come, sit, wait, etc., but I'm wondering if you have specific ideas on the barking. We're told that better training across all the basic stuff will help straighten out a dog, but we want to nip the barking thing in the bud. There are few things that suck less than a dog that can't shut up. The other question is about Oscar's potential new taste for stools. While one instance a habit does not make, I want to stomp that immediately. Aside from being disgusting, I don't want Oscar picking up any diseases.

So, what say you Voxers? Got any tips for the puppies?

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My supplemental workout

nobody@vox.com(David Chartier) — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 19:20:49 -0600

PuppyWorkout

Who needs a gym membership when you have two puppies? Granted Oscar (the bigger one) is about 50 lb and full grown at just over two years old now, and Maddy (the smaller, mostly-black one) is about 23 lb at 5 months, but still - Oscar's a workout by himself, at least for a computer nerd. When Maddy's full-grown I might be able to cancel my Bally's membership! :)

Btw: sorry about the lighting. I didn't want to spend too much time on this so I figured one take was enough.

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Blogging with my homie

nobody@vox.com(David Chartier) — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 13:46:05 -0600

Kickin' back, bloggin the web, havin' a bud wit' my bud.

Ok fine - it's actually a Fat Tire, and my bud is my dog, but who's counting, right?

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The puppy adventures continue

nobody@vox.com(David Chartier) — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 22:16:23 -0600

I'm gonna try something different with this post and just embed a whole bunch of pics and videos at max size in-line. Thumbnails are for fools! (just kidding; thumbnails and I go waaayy back). Enjoy more puppy stuff!

Maddy's tongue - 1

Maddy's tongue - 2

Puppies and screen doors

Oscar, Maddy and a ball

Maddy whining at a ball that whines

Oscar and whistling (April '05)

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Extra random image and video dump

nobody@vox.com(David Chartier) — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 07:36:45 -0700

I felt like going berserk this morning and uploading a whole lotta pics and videos. Some of this is from my trip to Macworld in January and some of it is from my brother Mike's wedding years ago, while others are assorted family shots and even the occasional dog trick. Oh yea a couple of these are even from the time I got TP'd when I lived with some friends in a house (I'm a hard sleeper).

I might have to fill out some info on a few of these to give them context, but I have other work to attend to for now. I hope you enjoy.

Pics:

Videos:

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Maddy and Oscar around the Ottoman...

nobody@vox.com(David Chartier) — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 20:09:56 -0700

... and around the ottoman... and around...

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More of the Maddy and Oscar show

nobody@vox.com(David Chartier) — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 09:46:15 -0700

Admit it - you love it.

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Oscar is starting to play with Maddy

nobody@vox.com(David Chartier) — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 11:46:59 -0700

Oscar is starting to get more comfortable with Maddy, and it makes us *so* happy. These are four more videos I shot of them between last night and this morning (click to watch). They're playing more often together - at first it was with a toy, and usually playing tug-of-war with it. One day they even started chasing each other up and down the house. Now they're just going at it with each other, which is great to see. Not even a whole lot of barking or growling; just good clean fun. Yay!

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Oscar's strange postures

nobody@vox.com(David Chartier) — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 08:52:14 -0700

Oscar's strange postures

He does this all the time; he sits up on the landing itself, but then stands with his front legs on the next stair. Is this weird? Keep in mind he's a cattle dog, so right now he is more or less watching over his pack.

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