Happy New Year

Happy New Year! Brie and I would like to wish everyone a very joyous year and safe travel during the holiday season. Brie is already tired of all the holidaying and she has been a very lazy dog today.

End of Year Clean Up

The end of the year is almost here and our house is hardly tidied up, and today Brie was supposed to help me clean up her house, but it turned out to be silliest idea I ever came up with. She just pulled all the toys and her blanket and everything that she had decided to horde in her house out and left it there. I guess it's much easier vacuum when it's empty, but I had to put everything back in. I don't think our little poodle is very helpful when it comes to tiding up around the house.

Working out

It has come to our attention that Brie might have gained some Christmas weight, sure its understandable for people, because we eat Christmas roast followed by heavy Christmas pudding. Plus the Christmas cookies and the pie and the ham and lots more. Brie didn't feast out on a Christmas meal, but lately we've noticed that Brie might be getting a little tummy. To be on the safe side, today we encouraged her to work out little with her new Brie size soccer ball.

Messy little Poodle

Brie loves nature. This doesn't mean she likes to go to the park to enjoy the clean air, what it means is that Brie loves to bring outdoor things inside. She loves rocks, leaves and wood pieces, and she will bring in branches to shred into little tiny pieces that I have to vacuum up. She never does this in one place so my entire living space gets covered. Also, Brie has a knack of carrying things around the house and then onto the bed, so my vacuuming has to be extended to the rest of the house.

Christmas present

Brie got given lots of Christmas presents this year, and I feel almost bad as Brie hasn't given any presents out. Brie doesn't shake the present or peek inside, but she smells it and if she knows there's a treat inside, she will maul the wrapping paper. Since Brie lacks opposable thumbs we gave her a little help and unwrapped it for her.This year our biggest hit among the presents was little reindeer antlers, they are so cute and it also has little brown ears. I'm not sure what we were thinking but at least Brie is colour coordinated wearing both Santa's outfit and the reindeer ears. Thank you to all our family and friends who gave Brie presents, and since she didn't get anyone a present hopefully this hilarious picture of Brie will bring a smile in this post Christmas season.

Ham stealer

We tend to get a festive ham on festive occasions, and this gives Brie a new reason to celebrate. This is because she loves ham, of course ham is too salty and not suitable for dogs, but there are always little windows of opportunity that Brie has found to steal ham. The first tactic she goes for is when the ham is being carved she waits for it to be accidentally dropped and pounces, then when this fails she looks up at my husband with those puppy eyes and whines. Sadly, this sometimes works. The last desperate tactic is used when all of the guests leave the table, Brie swiftly jumps up and steals the ham off the plate. The first time when we saw this we were so angry at her, and now that we know what she can get up to we have been extra careful, hopefully this works.

Last year she was so tiny that the ham was bigger then her.

Merry Christmas

Brie and all of us at SNIFF dogwear would like to wish all of our readers and our doggie friends very Merry Christmas!

This is my crude ginger bread cake, it came as a kit but I still found a way to mess it up. If only Brie was a better helping hand

Sleepy hooligan

Brie likes to support my husband's favourite soccer team with him. But due to the inconvenient time difference, English soccer games are on live either very late at night or early in the morning. So this is a test for a true supporter, to see who can really stay up until the end of the match.

Brie is undoubtedly the first to dose off, until the occasional cheer and chant by my husband wakes hers up, causing her to give him a very bothered look. She also demands to go out for her own half time break.. when the game is still on. Usually I have to be the one letting Brie out, as my husband might miss a crucial goal.

Just after kick off, settling into her seat..... The end of the first half.... and the end of game.....

Faster than the speed of light

Brie loves running, and even though she is a little wee poodle she runs fast. OK, she doesn't quite run as fast as light, but she definitely runs faster than my husband, which isn't saying much I know. For her daily work out we like to go to a nearby park, where she runs between my husband and I so that neither of us have to run too much.

Brie bunny hops instead of running and from a distance people think she's a small fluff ball bouncing up and down. Her stamina is overwhelming - she doesn't ever seem to get tired - but we know she is tired really when her tongue starts hanging off to the side, and she starts panting.

Company for Brie

We always like to speculate on getting another dog for Brie to play with. Ever since we met Beau and Phoebe, we are considering this more than ever. They play and sleep with each other all the time and they get on well.

My concern is that I'll have to do twice as much grooming, and if for some dog reason they decide to get muddy and wet together then that's double the mess to clean up. There's also training the new puppy and that whole concern over whether the new puppy will get on with Brie to worry about. And last but not least my husband can't get it into his head that he is officially removed from the naming committee in our family, as he comes up with some terribly 'unconventional' names. So to avoid all the fuss, I think we'll just stick with our one high-maintenance poodle, Brie.

First meeting

I'll elaborate a little on the last post - Brie didn't get over her shyness that easily, in fact, there was a long long journey, well, in dog years at least. It was with the help of Beau and Phoebe's parents, who were kind enough to invite our little shy Brie over to their house that were were able to get Brie used to other doggies.

As I pondered about Brie, frolicking around in a field with other doggies while the Carpenters played in the background, my husband decided to give Brie a pep talk, about being confident and making good first impressions.

Despite all this she did what she always does - crawled up in my husbands' arms, and hid her tail. However when Beau and Phoebe calmed down from the initial surprise of seeing a new doggie in the house, Brie seemed not too bothered about getting sniffed, sure her tail was still in between her legs, but it occasional came up, and she even decide to wag it once or twice. And by the end of night Brie herself showed some curiosity towards Beau and Phoebe. There are still a lot more socialising steps to go, but I was overwhelmed with joy.

Beau and Phoebe

Brie loves going to beaches, and so do we. Auckland's East Coast beaches have lots of doggies after 6:30, and I thought what better way for Brie to get over her shyness of other dogs than meeting more dogs, in small doses, on the beach. With our family friends, and parents of Beau ( Pekingese and Bichon cross) and Phoebe (apricot Toy Poodle) we go for an occasional stroll with our dogs. Even though Brie was timid about meeting these two very friendly dogs at the start, she has now got over her shyness and wags her tails when she sees them, and even greets them in a doggie like manner. Beau is big brother to Phoebe, and he loves other dogs. He shows Brie and Phoebe how dogs do things, like smelling bums and digging holes. Phoebe is a 6 month old puppy who is just growing up so fast, and wants to do everything that Beau does.

Tricksy Brie

After exploring different brands of dog food, the only doggie food Brie prefers, seems to be Purina One, so that's what we have been feeding her. But since she is a little dog and doesn't get excited over food, she needs us to sweeten the deal. When she eats ALL of her kibble she gets a little dog treat.

But what usually happens when she finishes her breakfast or dinner, she sits down next to my husband and starts staring up, until she gets noticed and licks her nose to show she has finished her food. However our little tricksy Brie has learned to pretend she has eaten all her food by leaving a kibble or two to tricks us both. She still claims she has finished her meal, but the next day she'll leave one extra bit of kibble, and the next day it'll be another. I knew Brie was sneaky, but we never thought we'd be tricked by our little poodle.

Hand-me-downs

One of the bonuses of knowing other doggies, is that Brie gets hand me downs when clothes don't fit any more. And since it was Xmas season, Brie got given a Santa's outfit. It's a bit baggy around her chest, but she looks very festive. It's questionable whether she looks like a Santa though. I think she would make a terrible Santa considering she will probably forget the presents and steal the cookies instead. Come on Brie, ten more days to go, can you be a good, well-behaved poodle until Xmas???

Just a thought

More presents arrived in the mail today, and it was Brie's present from my mother. Since the tree is raised and doesn't have much space underneath, the presents have been relocated to a Brie-free-zone to prevent any disastrous events. And Brie's present are piling up, but there are none so far for me!!! What is wrong with my family, that husband of mine is going to be in so much trouble if he doesn't get me a Xmas present. Just a thought now that I think of it - I don't think Brie has been a good enough little poodle this year to deserve a present. Considering what happened last year I don't think Brie will be behaving on Xmas day this year either.

Xmas Stocking

I find Xmas season a bit stressful - first the cards, then presents and then the dinner. Especially as some of our family members are hard to buy presents for, but Brie is just so happy to get anything (as long as she can eat it) so it makes Christmas shopping lot easier. This year I was looking for a Xmas stocking for Brie, but didn't find any that I liked, until I saw this doggie paw shaped sock. It's extremely cute, and ever since we brought it home, Brie has been very fond of it. I think she thinks the sock is a part of the present and she expects to get to play with it. However I am the kind of person who supports recycling, so she has to restrain herself as I'll be using the same Xmas stocking for years to come.

When wild poodles attack

Last year Brie was a little tiny puppy, so we weren't worried about her attacking our christmas tree, but this year, I was concerned that she may get curious and try to take the Christmas ornaments off. I attempted to eliminate that doubt by introducing the baubles to Brie in a carefully observed experiment. Unfortunately this brought the wild side out of Brie as she kept punching the baubles with her paw. She also tried to pounce on them. The answer was simple - just put the tree up higher. So our mini tree is off the ground and out of poodle's reach. I guess it kind of ruins the aesthetic a bit, but it must to be done.

My other concern was about what might happen to those glass ornaments... So we ended up buying only plastic ones, so if for some mysterious reason one of them drops and Brie bites it, it won't shatter in her mouth.

Ahh the worries of having a little curious poodle. My parents have a dog and they have elaborate glass baubles on their christmas tree, but their dog couldn't care less about the Christmas tree and just takes a nap pretending he never even noticed.

Stake out

We have a lot of fruit trees in our neighbourhood, so we have lots of visits by numerous kinds of birds, which I really like. And of course Brie is very curious about birds, she loves to do a little bit of bird watching, but they always fly away as she gets a bit too excited. So I thought I'd give her a hand by picking out a great stake out outfit so she can blend into the environment.

Surprise surprise, when you are ready for the birds they never seem to come out, so I chucked a few bread crusts out to attact some birds. And the result was that instead of the birds getting attracted to the bread, Brie tried to munch on the bread. I think my mission of getting Brie into birdwatching failed miserably, she'll just have to bird watch from our lounge. She looks good trying to stake out though.

Tenacious Brie

We are lucky enough to have my cousin over during the Xmas season, and Brie is super chuffed about this, as she loves it when guests occupy the guest room as she can rummage through their luggage. However, she has, not once, or twice, but three times gone in to the guest room and tipped over the rubbish bin. So now Brie gets escorted out if she goes into the room. But our Brie is tough and tenacious. This one time, the door wasn't properly closed, so she nudged it with her nose and manage to open it in order to raid the bin. Now every time she walks pass the door and sees that the door is closed, she checks to see if she can open it. My poor cousin gets a poodle knocking on the door every so often. Even though it must be annoying for visitors I have to give it up to Brie as she is one tenacious doggie.

Devilish

Brie's new thing at the moment is to jump into the car and peer out. She gains confidence as she feels bigger and taller when she is in the car, although we have smallest town car in the world. However as she isn't tall enough to look out of the window she stands on her hind legs, but this gets tiring for a small dog like Brie, so what the general public sees is an unrecognisable ball of white fluff that's bobbing up and down in the car window. So today when I returned to the car after picking up a magazine, the lady who had parked her car next us said that she wasn't sure if what she saw was cat or dog, but she that it is devilishly cute. Once we got in the car my husband and I had a chuckle about how truthfully she captured Brie's personality, but I'm sure she doesn't really know how devilish Brie can get sometimes.

Doggie Socialising

We had been meaning to meet up with our family friends and their new puppy 'Mina' for a while and we were finally able to do that last weekend. As already mentioned, Brie is pretty shy when it comes to meeting new dogs, so I was apprehensive about whether Brie would be able to socialise. Since Mina is a six month old Griffon/Pomeranian cross she is about half the size of Brie, and she is a very sweet natured friendly dog. Unfortunately my high hopes were shattered when Brie decide to hide her tails between her legs and run far away from Mina as possible.

As I listened to my shattered hopes of future doggie play dates break into bits and getting spat out the end of a shredder, Brie enforced a three meter radius restraining order on Mina and whenever she came too close Brie ran away to maintain distance. So I decide to play match-maker to lure both of them together, and even though Brie's tail was well hidden between her legs, she seemed to show some curiosity towards Mina.

And to my joy she mustered up the courage to go up to Mina by the end of the afternoon, I even managed to get them together in the same frame hurray!!! And Mina's parents want to bring her over for another play-date! Yay, maybe one day Brie will able to conquer her shyness towards other dogs.

The puppy play school dropout

We enrolled Brie into Puppy Play school when she was very young for her to learn to socialise with other dogs. Her first week was just a disaster, she decided to hide under the chairs, and when other puppies came over to investigate she cried like a siren and had an accident. The second week it wasn't as horrific, as she decided to socialise with other owners, but still not dogs. And this just continued. Despite her increasing exposure to puppies, Brie showed little interest in playing or greeting other dogs, instead sitting around with the owners and observing other dogs as if she were a human. This puppy school had a diverse range of dogs, and Brie was even scared of the chihuahua puppies half her size.

At this school, when puppies gain the skill to play and socialise with other dogs they tend to leave and face the real world. So when Brie was still struggling at nine months old, when other puppies who were three or four months old were graduating, my husband and I decided that Brie had probably learned as much as she could from her time at puppy play school. She did learn all the tricks they taught her, plus she learnt to pee on wet newspaper. Since she is a dropout, my concern is that she will get a tattoo, start a rock band and have her own hydroponic garden in her little house.

Namesake

Brie is a very quick learner, after she arrived at our home she figured out that after we open the pantry she sometime gets training, so she associated the sound of the pantry opening with training , so whenever the pantry door is opened she comes into the kitchen to investigate.

We had a little incident in first week where we lost Brie around the house, I looked around everywhere, but she wasn't anywhere to be seen. I was panicking but when I went to open the pantry there she was hiding in the bottom. She sneaked in while it was open and she got stuck in for a little while because no one knew she was there.

Recently my husband and I have been obsessed with this new craze of gourmet potato chips, and we found this new flavour - Prosciutto and Brie. I know its silly but I had to buy it. As always, Brie comes to investigate, and as the food has Brie's name on it, it's cannibalism for her to eat her own kind, so I guess she has to sit this one out.