Splish SPLASH!!!

I know it’s been a long time since we’ve been on here we both apologize, it’s been a weinderful last month with lots of things going on.

Well, Charlie has certainly come full circle and has been a pain in my butt lately!! It’s a hard life with an only child; you want to spoil them rotten and then once you do you have to watch out for the monster you’ve created!!! ;o)

The biggest thing to happen to Charlie this month was his photo shoot! Yes you heard right, a photo shoot, just Charlie all by himself! Believe it or not I’m part of a “doxie group” out here in Palm Desert. We try and get together with all our doxie’s at least once a month; it helps build their doxie character. It is true that they certainly don’t ever lack any character and most of the time they are very full of themselves, but we all have our off days and so it’s nice to get together with your own cultural background once in a while! Anyway, going completely off subject here, the doxie group is my way of networking Charlie (kind of like those moms who put their child in beauty pageants), one of the girls gave me the name of a doxie lady who actually takes pictures for most doxie calendars, petco ads and anything really that you see a doxie face on.  So I call her and set an appointment up for the morning hours, as the light outside is best then. Unfortunately I work those hours so Charlie’s “pa” decided that he would take him, we could not miss this opportunity!!! Of course I completely jinxed the whole thing! The night before I had to go open my big mouth and say, “I really hope Charlie doesn’t screw this up!” ……….

It goes a little something like this: Ari – the pa, takes Charlie over to the Palm Desert Civic Center Park where there are lots of flowers, a big lake, ducks, grass you  name it! As most children (dog or otherwise), Charlie had a ton of energy, not only did he have lots of energy but he also didn’t have to get up early for work that day. As the two of them started pulling into the park Charlie started to realize – waaaaa hoooooo the PARK!!! Mind you Charlie is very well behaved but mostly when he’s with me so the minute they get there it’s, “I gotta smell this, I gotta pee on that, oh look there’s children!! OH MY GOSH, oh my gosh is that another dog over there??? Oh, oh oh look at that lady!! She wants to say hi!! HI!!!!! You’re taking my leash off?? YES! Now I gotta catch my tail!! GOT IT!!! This tree over here? I’ll just pee on it!! Ducks??? What are those, I don’t have time to stop, there’s my tail again!!”………apparently I forgot to tell the poor lady that Charlie was still a puppy, opps!

 So they let him run around a little bit as she snapped away with her camera. She got the idea of putting Charlie up on some rocks. Ari is a little bit hesitant but gets Charlie over to the rock feeds him some treats, puts him on the rock, she gets a couple snaps as he sits still for a COMPLETE second and BAM! I guess it’s the first time Charlie has seen ducks…and in a lake! Yep, you guessed it he jumped right into that lake! It’s funny because I always thought Charlie couldn’t swim, when he was just a tiny pup we all tried to going swimming for the day....Charlie sank right to the bottom (of course we were in there with him)! Well, he can definitely swim now! HA

Honestly I’m just glad I wasn’t there because we all know I would have jumped right in after him! Ari started yelling at him to come back, he came back rolled in the dirt and then decided it was just too much fun and went right back in!! Needless to say I’m pretty sure the lady didn’t get too many shots and by that time she was just a little frustrated with ALL of us! Me for not coming, Ari for not having enough control over him and Charlie because he wouldn’t sit still......... actually let’s just face it she was frustrated with the humans! Charlie is just way to cute to do anything but laugh at.

::Sigh:: I’m pretty sure our opportunity to be in a the calendar probably came and went. Of course I’m a good mother and I didn’t yell at him, especially because when I came home from work he was just so happy to see me and tell me how much fun he had on his day off. =) All I could do was laugh and tell him what a handsome, good boy he is! Really though the lady only needed to get one good photo and I’m sure she probably got AT LEAST one. So here’s to hoping you all will see a doxie calendar from us for Christmas! Even if he doesn’t get picked to be in this published calendar something tells me you can probably expect to see some type of calendar in your mail box this holiday season! ;o) 

 Just thought I'd put this one up to let you all know Charlie is always thinking about you guys!

This is the life vest I thought I had to buy Charlie cuz he didn't know how to swim!                                              

Hiking!

I forgot to add that Ari and I found out Charlie LOVES to hike! We've been taking him on a small trail behind my house and he just has so much fun being the leader and climbing up that MTN. I should have known those giant elephant paws were good for something! =)

Thats all for now.

He even posed nicely for the picture.

Gone for the weekend.

Goooood morning everyone! So I know I never posted a video of Charlie staying in his place I guess I got lazy! Just so you can sleep better at night now he is doing very well with  his place. Stays there when people come in and stops the whole barking thing quite quickly now. Sometimes I don't always make him go to his place, because I think it is good for him to be aware of some people. He is my guard dog after all! ;o)

On to bigger and better things, this past weekend my boyfriend Ari and I went up to Big Bear (a local MTN by our house in Palm Springs where we can enjoy some snow). We made a group decision and decided to leave Charlie behind; parents have to get away from their kids once in a while! Keeps the sanity!

You know the saying, "it takes a village to raise a child."?? SOO very true!! We had a lineup of people watching him, and we were only gone for 2 days! We left him with Ari's roommates for the first part of our trip and then Charlie's second mom Lindsey picked him up for the end part of the trip. She now understands why people are so protective of their weenies! They are truly like little children. He was sad without us and of course did not understand why he couldn't come. Once she had him at home she said he would get up from cuddling periodically to walk around the house looking for us. :o( Poor kid.  Another reason for not taking him was also because he is such a summer dog. He just freezes in our 60 degree weather! Pretty much wears his sweater all day. Sometimes he even shivers if I have the A/C on too much, silly pooch. So you can now stop your judgmental thoughts about me not taking him.... I really was looking out for his best interest!!

Luckily enough we did get a free night stay to come back up and visit Big Bear so maybe on that trip we will take the little weenie. We did miss and talk about him the whole time and I'm thinking maybe if we actually take him somewhere where it is cold he won't be so cold down here in Palm Springs where it's a beautiful 70 degrees in the winter. Wishful thinking!

I'll end this small note with a picture of Charlie taken this AM...he moved his bed all the way to the heaters so he could be warm and cozy in our 46 degree cool morning! =)

Do you know YOUR place??!!!

Hello everyone! We hope you guys had a great weekend. Charlie over here had a pretty lazy weekend lots of peeing on trees, went to the dog park, slept in till noon one day (I almost resorted to a cold bucket of water)! Over ate one day and had the worst farts all night!! YUCK!! Silent but deadly is soo true in his case, he is after all shaped like a hot dog....! I let it all slide because I knew what was in store for the little weenie this week...TRAINING. Dun, dun, DUN.

Charlie has an issue when people he doesn't know come into our office or home; he barks and gets a little aggressive. As you can imagine this can be quite annoying especially if I'm on the phone so, enough is enough. I called the trainer I took him too when he was a pup but unfortunately it was going to cost me some big bucks for a personal training session. So I studied up over the weekend and found out I need him to recognize his "place".

Today we did about 10 mins of training, you never want to train for too long, you get frustrated which means your pooch is already frustrated and that = nothing good!  Check out our video below

 For the first day I think he's doing pretty good! I'll post another video by the end of the week to actually see this in "action"

Lunch TIME!

 Oh Charlie whatever are we going to do with you?! Every day I eat my lunch and Charlie sits there and watches me in hopes that I'll be a messy eater and drop some food. Sometimes I do on purpose so he can have a little excitement on his lunch break, (don't tell him that tho, it would probably take out the excitement of it)!  Well, recently he used that ticker and thought about how he could get more food, I'm assuming it went a little like this, "Okay, so she doesn't drop that much food, and she won't willingly give me any of her food, how can I get more?? WAIT she loves to give me food when I do those dumb tricks she taught me, but she isn't asking me to do any tricks. hmm…..”

As Charlie thought up this fabulous plan that was sure to work, I was off eating my lunch and wondering why he was being so calm and quiet. I should have known he was devising a plan...weenies are just too smart now a days! Low and behold that little doxie comes over to me, makes a little grunt for me to look at him I look over at him and he's on his back with all four paws in the air. At first I just brushed it off as nothing, but that really made him upset! So he does another loud grunt and again I look over, yep he's doing just what I thought... rolls over puts all his paws in the air again and does another satisfying grunt as if to say, "Okay Mom, I'm playing dead give me that treat of whatever smells so good on your plate that I know I deserve!" Still on his back, making grunting noises and looking up at me with these longing black eyes, I just busted up laughing. There was no way I couldn't give him anything. I mean to figure that one out all on his own...he's a genius! ;o)

That was the WRONG thing to do, now without fail every lunch, its grunt bark roll over, grunt bark roll over and play dead, grunt bark why aren't you giving me any food!!! Grunt bark lay down? Grunt bark BUT MOM!!!! So now I have this gruntie weenie doing all his tricks perfectly just to land some human food. Now you tell me, who owns who???!!!!!

Finally!

FINALLY! After much consideration and pushing from our friends Chelsey and Jeff, we finally decided to start a blog! Charlie really started putting the pressure on when he found out he won dog of the year; www.dogphotogblog.com. This is my first time composing a blog so you’re probably going to have to "bear with us" for the first few posts. I'm not going to lie...its a little nerve racking just thinking about the millions of people who are going to be reading this everyday! YIKES! ;o)

::drum roll please::

Charlie was born on March 26, 2010 in AZ, I wasn't able to hold him until 2 months later but the moment he came into this world he was already a huge part in my life and many of my friends! It was a task to get him as I had to convince my roommate/bff/wifie that he was just the right thing for our little household, (and by little household I mean 2 cats, 2 gold fish and 2 people).....!!! Let me tell you..that was sure a task as she wasn't the doxie loving kinda gal! After much consideration she finally agreed, (happiest day of my life to date), and ever since has been one of his biggest fans! To make a long story short BAM I got him and it was love at first sight! Actually, it was love at first sight for many of my friends and family.

If you don't know a doxie you must get one in your life, they are lovers to say the least. They are like little children who never grow up, always looking for your love, acceptance and attention. Some can be a bit yappy but luckily Charlie has never "found" his voice, some type of birth defect, but I'll take it!

Charlie is a "working" dog, I'm an office manager and he's my secretary. Not the best secretary as most days you can find him fast asleep under the desk, but if that phone rings and he needs to give someone a message he is out the door faster than you can say, DOXIE! :o)

So here we find ourselves almost a year later; lots has happened, and I will try and recap every once in a while on the past year, but for the most part we will move forward and share our stories of the new year. We thank you for stopping by and checking up on his once in a while!