Chunky and Ellie's Blog

More of Chunky and Ellie

chunkarelli — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 01:15:31 +0000

For additional pictures and commentary on Chunky and Ellie’s adventures, click here or on Chunky’s picture. There’s also more mundane items about related people.

Exercising Partners

chunkarelli — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 23:03:22 +0000

Chunky and Ellie are interesting exercising partners. Sometimes they help our workouts. For example, when Bill is stretching or doing certain strengthening exercises, having dogs on top of the body can enhance the workout. Other times, they add further complications. These include: licking you while you are trying to concentrate, getting under your body when you are trying to do pushups, lifting their heads/faces up while under you and hitting your nose (Ellie does this to me a lot), and being unwilling to move out of the way of swinging feet or hands.

Bill reports that Chunky is starting to get good at leaving Bill alone during some exercises, such as erging or stationary biking. Chunky just goes to sleep, probably because what the humans are doing looks so boring evening though it is hard for us.

A Scary Story

chunkarelli — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 13:06:53 +0000

One evening I was coming home from work in the dark of winter. I left my car and went through the gate into the backyard. Then I heard some heavy breathing, “hmmmmm”. I stopped to look around at the bushes on the other side of the driveway, thinking that the noise came from there, but I didn’t hear anything further. Then as I turned around to go inside I heard, even louder, “HMMMMM”. Then it got even louder, “HMMMMM“. I was so scared I was shaking. I turned around and saw….my dog! (This was back when I had Isa.) Apparently Bill was working with her in the front yard and she had come around to the backyard to say hello to me.

The Many Ways of Eating

chunkarelli — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 13:02:25 +0000

The dogs have many ways of eating, especially first thing in the morning.

(1) They get morsels of food when they do their business outside. It is so cute how they come up to us after they are finished and wait for their treats.
(2) They go to their places (2 chewed up, formerly really nice doggie sofas) and get 12 morsels of food individually thrown at them.
(3) They get the remaining 9 morsels of food (Chunky gets a little more) plus some meat – which is a new addition as of 2 weeks ago – in their bowls. They eat this in their crates.
(4) They get 3 morsels of food while they are being groomed and an additional morsel of food while I am cleaning their ears (not that this helps much with the wriggling)
(5) They get a morsel of food when I pick up their bowls and another morsel when I put on their remote collars
(6) They get a few morsels of food during the walk when they sit after being commanded to do so
(7) They get a morsel of food when they come back home after they have “gone free” at the end of the walk
(8) They get a few morsels of food to stay in a down while I am getting my food
(9) They get a few morsels of food in their kongs when I put them back in their crates for their early morning nap (between when I leave and when Bill gets up).

Pretty complicated.

All that’s before 7 in the morning before I even wake up. Then they get a few more for going out and piddling. They run into my office and get on their place because they know they’ll get a couple more for that. When training in the front yard they get a reward every time they run across the yard to come or get on their place.

With all this, they are still thin! What can we learn from this??

The Adventures of Ellie and Jan

chunkarelli — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 12:52:05 +0000

Monday was uncharacteristically warm and sunny so Bill and I split up the dogs. I usually have Ellie with me and Bill takes Chunky.

Ellie and I had a lot of adventures on Monday’s walk. We saw a man looking through a telescope at his property line (he owned that this might seem weird). Our favorite house was enveloped in smoke. Was it a grilling party or a fire? We couldn’t tell. Then two little girls ran up to us and asked if they could pet and play with Ellie. She was in heaven and so were the girls. We also saw lots of squirrels, birds, cars, and other dogs. It was pretty exciting.

Ungloved

chunkarelli — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 12:48:44 +0000

When I walk Chunky and Ellie my hands (and pockets) are full. The left hand has both their leashes. The right hand has both controllers for their remote collars. The left pocket has morsels of their food to use for treats. Then there are bags to pick up their “business.” That leaves me little time to put on gloves. The left hand never seems to be covered with a glove. Last summer I was wondering what this would be like. The answer: cold!

I probably need a few more hands just to deal with the dogs. Never mind things that I need when I go on a walk, such as a handkerchief, ability to get pebbles out of my shoes, and ability to deal with the possiblity of tripping and falling.

Quiet

chunkarelli — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 12:45:31 +0000

I try to squeeze in some exercise before I wake up the dogs. Usually the exercise involves stretching, abs, yoga, and/or weights. The exercise room (and bed room) is on the other side of the wall to the family room, where the dogs sleep. So I have to be really quiet. Some of the measures I take to be quiet are (1) laying out everything I could possibly need so I don’t go banging around looking for it, (2) not flushing the toilet unless absolutely necessary (I’m embarrassed to admit this but it is true), (3) not using any music or sound when I exercise, (4) exercising on soft surfaces that aren’t noisy, (5) not wearing clompy, noisy shoes.

Despite these efforts, dogs have supersonic hearing and smell so Chunky seems to sense me moving around. This sensing sets him up to cry. The crying usually escalates as follows: Chunky moves around in circles in his crate, he wimpers, he cries, he howls uncontrollably, then he enlists Ellie (who is in a separate crate 2 feet from his) to join him in howling. This happens most days and was worse when we came home from Christmas holiday travel. Of course when I am out of town, Bill tells me that the dogs are perfect angels in their crates until he gets up several hours after I usually do.

This morning I had to put on some “noisy” pants, because the temperature was in the 20s and I needed to be warm enough to handle their walk. And I flushed the toilet. Chunky was unaccountably quiet this whole time. Go figure.

New Beds

chunkarelli — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 22:11:43 +0000

As you might see from the pics in the blog, Chunky and Ellie have fantastic new beds. When we began this round of training with them, everyone in the training had mesh beds or seats. Bill ordered 1 mesh bed for each of the 2 dogs, which took forever to come (and when the beds finally came, one was too small). The benefit of the mesh beds is that they can’t be chewed up (sorry Ellie – she loves to chew fluffy furniture). Also the beds don’t get too dirty if they are moved outside. Bill also got 2 fantastic furry mats to put over the beds. Now the dogs are in heaven when they are in Bill’s office, laying down on their new beds.

Noisy Owl

chunkarelli — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 20:35:11 +0000

This morning Chunky and Ellie were spooked by a noisy owl somewhere behind our house. It is probably owl mating season because the owl wouldn’t shut up. This made the dogs bark like crazy, which is not good since they are up so early. It was very difficult to shut them up. They barely stood still enough to allow for doing their “business.” Then I had to pick up the aftermath of their business, which gave them more time to bark and run around and wake up the neighborhood. I hope the Owl finds its mate before tomorrow morning.

Tall Tails

chunkarelli — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 14:05:03 +0000

Our previous three cocker spaniels had their tails docked when they were puppies. Wagging what remained of their tales made them look as if their rear ends would fly into the air, especially Isa’s. She was a very fast wagger.

Docking is no longer practiced where we got Ellie and Chunky. Thus, they have incredibly beautiful tales. Ellie’s is very nice but Chunky’s is magnificent. The fur falls over it in the manner of a beautiful waterfall or a long bridal grown train.

Chunky’s tail almost looks longer than he does. Sometimes Chunky’s body has to sway in the opposite direction to counter the weight of his magnificent tail when he is wagging it.