Wow, it's been a long time since I've written! Lots of good and annoying things have happened...
We cannot seem to keep Charlie contained. We stopped trying to keep him in the cage while we're gone because it doesn't do any good. He's an escape artist, and a good one at that. Even when we have the webcam on him it seems to skip out on the escape part. I seriously think he figured out how to apparate (Harry Potter reference) out of it.
I came home one day to find that he had actually broken one of the locks off of the cage. He's got some sort of super power strength or something hidden in that tiny body of his. I don't know where his muscles are hiding. Or maybe there is a ghost in the apartment who unlocks the cage for him, lets him out, then locks the cage back up again. Nah.
One of the last times he was in the cage was when he made a huuuge poop mess in it. Poor puppy. That was the night he got a serious bath, and I took the whole cage apart and had to scrub it from top to bottom...
He's been sleeping in bed with us but only sometimes. I'd say he sleeps with us about 4 nights a week. He knows how to jump on the bed, but he can't figure out that he needs to get a running start first. If he jumps on the bed with his front two paws, he doesn't have enough leverage to get his whole body up. Sometimes we don't let him up if he can't figure it out himself. It's like a baby bird learning how to fly...he's got to learn on his own.
He's still completely fixated on me. When I'm getting ready for work, he'll lay in the hallway and stare me down whether I'm in the bedroom or the bathroom. And I noticed that he's caught on to the sound of my keys signifying leaving. I read that I should pick up my keys and carry them with me around the house, or pick them up then sit down and read for a little bit, just so he gets used to the sound and doesn't associate it with me leaving. He's been really good at the "go" or "go lay down" command. I use it when I want him to get out of the way or if he's laying in the hallway staring at me. I say "go" and point in the direction I want him to go in and he goes!
He has been playing with ALL of his toys except the braided rope we made him. He loves his orange toy and will pick it up without encouragement from us. We are constantly refilling it with bits of his food because he knows how to get them out now. :) We are proud parents!
OH! I have huge news!! We think we know what type of dog he is, or at least we think we know a huge part of his ancestry... Mark was watching dog videos on youtube.com the other day (yes, we are obsessed with doggies, no we aren't ashamed to admit it) and he came across a doggie called an Anatolian Shepherd aaaaand we are positive that he's got SOME Anatolian in him somewhere because of the coloring and demeanor. They are Turkish dogs that were used for hunting!! Some can grow as big as a Saint Bernard! I mean, LOOK at this little puppy face and try to tell me this isn't what Charlie is! We also think he's part basset hound because of the size and howl/bark (even though he isn't all droopy like they are... I don't know how DNA works!!). So, although we are sad that we didn't get to see our guy as a puppy, we pretty much know what he looked like. Oh, it just breaks my heart that he's so sweet and loving and calm, but there's a chance that someone was mean to him!! It makes me sick to my stomach.
In other news, back to the confinement strategy: we bought a gate to go across the hallway. We figured that he didn't like having such a small amount of space to hang out in all day. Also, we stopped using the iCam every day, since he was getting out of his cage and we were at work, it was less stressful for us to just not know what was going on at home. BUT we had to use it again the other day. After having the gate up for two days, he managed to escape from it on the second day... so we watched him on the third day. Mark went to work in the afternoon so Charles only ended up being home alone for 3.5 hours until I got home and was on the other side of the gate. We didn't use iCam, we used Photobooth so that it caught every second of it. You can watch his great escape here.
Mark took him to the baseball fields a few weeks ago so that he could run around off the leash, and boy did he take advantage of it! You can watch a silly video of Charlie running here. He looks so silly and wobbly!! lol. And here is a video of him running around in the doggie park.
I'll post all photos in the next entry. This post is too long as it is!
Thank you for reading :)
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