8/20 - 8/23/06 - A new puppy AND new carpet? Are we crazy? Possibly, but we've wanted to replace the carpet and we found a product that fits perfectly in our dog-loving house - InterfaceFlor Carpet Tiles. If "someone" has an accident, they're easy to pull up and clean, although she's been very good about housetraining. We (meaning Dan, Kevin and Dennis) pulled up the carpet and painted concrete sealer in the extra bedroom, the dining room and the living room. Once it was dry and the carpet was ready to be laid, the dogs were allowed to come back out. They thought it was great - no furniture to get in the way of racing through the house! Cali was thrilled since Angel and Josie allowed her to play with them more than usual. Cali seemed to like using the box of carpet squares as "home base" - she would race around with the big dogs, but always ended up back in the box. Cali was very helpful bringing the gloves when we needed them (or was that running away with the gloves when we needed them?).

Poor Angel was distraught without any furniture to sleep on and had to resort to sleeping on the box of carpet tile. We're so excited - the dining room's almost finished!

The dining room and living room are done!

8/23/06 - Cali has a boyfriend! Arlo is two weeks older than Cali, and they have a lot in common: they're both blue merle border collies, have one blue eye (Arlo's is opposite of Cali's), and have pink spots on their noses (Arlo has two and Cali has one). They are in puppy class together and also meet once a week just to play.

8/22/06 - Cali gets lots of exercise every time we get out the water hose. It's been incredibly dry and hot so we've been supplementing the lawn with extra water, and Cali likes to take advantage of it. If the water hose is on, it must be for her! The hard part is getting the water where we need it and not just on her.  

8/21/06 - Oh no! Cali's discovered that there's a place to play in the water in the house! I was taking picture of her playing with Angel & Josie (or stalking them), when she darted in the bathroom and was in the toilet before I had a chance to stop her. I figured that I might as well take a picture since I had the camera! Now we make sure to close all of the lids (although I'm sure if she were given the chance she would figure out how to open them). Her left ear has finally decided to come back up - it's been flopped over to the side for weeks and suddenly it popped back up!

8/14/06 - Happy Dog! Cali enjoys racing around in the backyard with Josie and Angel (although she doesn't actually play WITH them, she stalks and chases them).

8/4/06 - Another puppy torture device: dog food in a plastic bottle! It makes LOTS of noise as she pounces on it, bites it, and and slides across the floor with it.

8/4/06 - It turns out that Cali is quite a water dog - we've discovered that she LOVES water! If the fridge isn't available to cool off in, there's always the sprinkler or the baby pool. She cracks me up with how she looks so scruffy and long-legged when she's wet. She doesn't look like a little pup anymore!

July 30, 2006 - After some training, I fed Cali the rest of her dinner in a Coke carton and then in a box with one end cut out of it. They're like homemade Bustercubes, except easy enough for a puppy, cheap, and disposable. I have plenty of food-dispensing toys, but she loves the boxes! I figure that it helps with her problem-solving skills, gets her used to different, weird things, (and it's incredibly amusing to me!) although I'm sure some would say that it's puppy torture. She loves batting the Coke carton around, sticking her head in it, jumping on top of it - anything to get her dinner to come out (and make noise). When she finishes the food that I've put in it, she comes over and sits in front of me, giving me a look of "Can I please have some more?" so I put another handful in and she dives right in after it. What a great way to burn off some puppy energy!

July 25, 2006 - Playtime in the kitchen is exhausting! Frozen water bottles are fun to play with - they keep you cool and make a lot of noise sliding across the floor.

July 17, 2006 - Cali loves playing with the tug toys and balls in the backyard. She's still not quite sure about joining in with the big dogs when they're playing, but she's happy to race around them at a distance and "herd" Josie and Angel.

July 10, 2006 - Posing with her new sisters.

Cali absolutely LOVES her new sisters (and they're tolerating her quite well). She's very good about not jumping in their faces like most puppies do, and they're finding that interacting with her gets them LOTS of rewards from me.

July 7, 2006 - What a cutie! She pounced on the camera right after this picture.

July 3, 2006 - Taking to the trails! Cali loves walking/running on the trails with her new sisters (although they prefer to ignore her)

Cali also LOVES the sheepskin dog beds - she sucks on them and kneads them with her front paws just like she's nursing.

July 1, 2006 - Cali is enjoying all of the toys, but there's so many to play with that it's exhausting! When she's tired, her favorite place to crash is on the kitchen tile, frog-dog style (although sometimes the toys jump on HER while she's sleeping).

June 28, 2006 - Cali comes home from California! We flew out to California to pick up our new puppy. She was a wonderful traveler and didn't seem very stressed by the hour long car ride, the shuttle bus ride from the car rental place to LAX (which was loud and bumpy), and then the whole airport experience with everyone wanting to pet her (including the security screeners). She flew under the seat in front of us and slept the whole 3-hour flight!