Today Paddington is 3 – I can’t believe it! It seems like yesterday we brought her home. She has been such an amazing part of our lives and has been through so much with us, buying and moving into our first home, her major surgery, a new little puppy sister (Corduroy), our wedding and much much more. We love our little girls and are so happy to have both of them in our lives.

To celebrate her big day, we went to Bruce Pit Park and I had our own little photo shoot with both dogs. I took advantage of the beautiful weather and the sun setting and got some fabulous shots.

After we got home though, due to our skunk incident last night, it was off for yet another bath!

Happy Birthday Paddy – I hope you had a great day!!

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(Ottawa Dog of the Week for Aug 25/08)

“Corduroy is a Malshi (Maltese/Shih Tzu mix) who is the fluffiest ball of cuteness that you will ever meet. She is so relaxed (especially compared to Paddington!) and loving and would lick you constantly without stopping if you let her. She is bold and determined and has managed to escape from the yard, through baby gates and out of her crate. She is wonderfully sweet and idolizes Paddington.

We got her in March at 8 weeks old from a breeder just outside of Ottawa. She was relaxed and loved us from the moment we picked her up to bring her home. Nothing but loving kisses and playfulness. she never went through the separation period we saw with Paddington. She was well adjusted and is not afraid of loud noises – she even watches me vacuum.

One of her favourite activities is to sit and watch you and she loves watching TV – especially if a dog is on (her favourite show is the Dog Whisperer). She will sleep anywhere but usually chooses to rest her head on a toy.

She loves dirt and loves to be dirty (hence the first photo!). She doesn’t love baths, but tolerates them and is getting better at grooming. She throws temper tantrums when I try to brush her belly, face and under her arms, but we are working on that every day to get her used to it. She squeals like you are killing her sometimes when you clip her nails, but that just means we need to do it more to get her used to it (she’s still a puppy after all!).

She LOVES belly rubs and loves to cuddle all the time. She just loves attention and I hope to register her as a therapy dog when she is a bit older because I think she has the perfect disposition for it.

She has been a joy and the perfect addition to our family.” – Corduroy’s mom, Liz

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A while back I posted about Etsy and mentioned that I may purchase some items. Well I did and I must say that I am super thrilled with everything I bought! Every seller I talked to was very nice and extremely accommodating. Each item I ordered for the dogs, I had some bit of custom work put into. It was really nice to know I was getting something that was truly unique and the first of its design.

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I wanted to write a post about how the first week with our new puppy went. In a nutshell, it went better than expected.

We dropped off Paddington at Thomas’ parents on the way to the breeder’s place last week. After picking up Corduroy, we brought her to his parent’s house and introduced the two in the driveway. The original plan was to do it in the park, but since there was a snow storm that morning, it was sort of out of the question. The initial meeting went very well and Corduroy proceeded to sleep the rest of the day.

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more cute face, originally uploaded by liz kerrison.

The other day our new 8 week old Malshi, Corduroy, began to choke on a treat. I panicked, picked her up and said “what do I do??” out load. Fortunately she stopped and was fine, but I thought to myself, what if she hadn’t cleared it herself?

If a human starts choking, I know what to do – but I have no clue when it comes to dogs. I thought that it is something useful that I need to learn and post about.

First we should begin with what your dog may look like if they are choking. Some signs would be trying to vomit, pawing at the neck and throat area, running around with the head stretched out and eyes bulging or coughing excessively.

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In the same way that you would prepare for the arrival of a baby, you must prepare for the arrival of a new dog or puppy into your home. Puppies, like babies, are small and can get into everything, so one of the first things you must be sure of is that there is nothing around the height of your new companion that they may chew on and harm (either themselves, the item or both). This means tying up computer cables and possibly even moving books off the bottom shelves of book cases. We learned our lesson with this when Paddington was about four months old and chewed her way out of a baby gate and chewed up a bunch of my recipes!

You will also need to make sure you have plenty of puppy friendly chew toys such as Kongs or Nylabones. Paddington loved both her Kong and her bone…although the bone didn’t survive past her teething stage! It’s important to have these chewable toys so that the puppy learns that it’s fun to chew on them, and not your belongings.

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