New Year, New... No. Nothing's new....

***Caution! This blog post may contain affiliate leaks! (But no spoilers from "The Last Jedi". I swear!)***

Hey everyone! Teddy's back! Can you believe it's 2018 already? Sheesh! My mom certainly has been slacking on updating my blog, but no fears! I'm on top of her this New Year! (Literally. I was all up in her face, trying to lick her nose.) Every year, without fail, my Mama has all those hopes and dreams and goals in her head that she projects on to us. "I'm going to clean more!", "I'm going to blog more!", or my least favorite when it is negative balls outside, "No more peeing on the floor this year!" (Come on Mom! If I pee outside, my wiener is going to freeze to the ground!) My favorite, though, is when Mama promises to exercise more.

As a dog of a certain size, I am probably the least chill of all the dogs in my house. Coco is super lazy. She does nothing but lay around all day, always wanting someone to pet her and tell her how "pretty" she is. Yuck. I try to get her to play with me, but that usually only lasts about thirty seconds until she's done. Bella, the other icky girl dog, is NO fun to play with. She's always trying to murder me and much prefers to be alone, usually hogging Daddy. Girls are just boring. Except my Mama.

Mama does these funny stretches. She calls it yoga, I call it stretching, but tomayto tomahto right? She says this is exercising. I think she's nuts. Where's the fun in that? That's what you do to wake up after a nap. I want to run, to jump, and, most importantly to me, to bark and growl! So I go and find an empty soda or water bottle. I give the bottle to her, she throws it, I bring it back. This is a fun game to play and it's great exercise for both my body and my brain because she loves to throw the bottle in to places where I have to think about how I'm going to get it.

Bottle is a great game and my Mama loves it because it's free (mostly). We use the empty soda and water bottles that Daddy and Grammy leave around. To be really safe and to make sure that I don't cut my mouth, Mama uses old socks to cover the bottles and viola! Instant toy!

My sister and me playing with a sock toy!

Winter time has hit the Chicago-land area full force this new year and it's more important than any of the other five years of my life that my Mama find creative games and exercises for us dogs to do. I mean, Coco don't care so much, but Bella gets the Zoomies (for a great video showing you what the Pittie Zoomies are, check this clip from The Dodo out below my blog!) and I get really barky and annoying (even to myself!). We all have tendency to want to eat more and to want to fight more because we need more exercise. But when the temperature is -11 outside, you can't really stay outside to play or even go for a walk. You run out, do your business, and run back in before your wiener sticks to the ground because your mom won't let you pee on her hardwood floor. 

So how can you help keep your dogs well-exercised this winter? Here are a few ideas to keep your four-legged babies healthy and happy this year!

1. Treadmill- Now, if you are lucky enough to own one of these bad boys (and more so have a place to use it!), then you should definitely let Fido take his own walks this winter. Walking is by far the best exercise a dog can get and you might as well use that clunker for something besides holding your clothes!

2. Stairs- Some homes are blessed (or cursed in my Grammy's opinion) to have stairs in them. A great game to play: throw a ball up the stairs and have Fido fetch it back down! Great exercise for your doggo, not such exercise for you.

3. Hide and Seek- This works great if you have a big house and/or more than one person playing. Just tell your dog to stay while you hide, then call him to come find you! More people = more hiding spots = more exercise!

4. Tug of War- Another favorite use of old socks. My mom ties a knot in the end and I go to town trying to rip it away from her. I'm so strong you can even pick me up with my teeth when I grab on to a sock. (Not to brag or anything. Haha.)

5. Laser Pointer- This was an old favorite of my sister cat, Furrball's. This little red dot can have me running in circles for a long time, but because lasers can be addictive and a bit dangerous, Mama only allows us to play with them for a few minutes at a time.

6. Puzzles- Now, something my big sister is good at and does love is a good food puzzle! Anything involving food or treats automatically has Coco's attention. You can use a Kong (freezing it helps make the food harder to get out and thus more tiring for your pup) or you can get one of these nifty puzzle bowls like this.

Get your puzzle bowls here!

7. Chew toys/bones- This brings us back around to Bottle. One of my sisters' and my favorite things to do is take the top off of a bottle. So when Mama throws us our sock covered bottles, she makes sure those lids are on good and tight. We spend hours entertained by bottles. Also bones. We're a chatty bunch, naturally, so anything that keeps our mouths busy makes our Mama, daddy, and Grammy all very happy!

I hope this has helped you learn a little something about how us dogs look at exercise today. Bottom line is, we not only love to exercise, we need it. It's just the healthy thing. But when it's so cold outside that politicians put their hands in their own pockets (learned that one from Facebook), you might want to take your exercise indoors. Hopefully these suggestions help you and your best friend on your way to a healthy start to the New Year. Get creative! Let us know how you and your pets exercise during bad weather or when you just can't make it out to play!

Barks and kisses,

Teddy

P.S. Here's that link to The dodo's video on Pittie zoomies I told you about earlier!

 https://www.facebook.com/thedodosite/videos/1283692781765394/

Rainy day blues....

   It's raining today.
   I have a love/ hate relationship with the rain. I hate to get wet. (Just ask my groomer!) But I LOVE to be muddy. Playing in the mud is so much fun. I love the way it squishes between my paws and fills up my nose when I root around in it. I roll around in mud. It is just the most fun stuff in the world.
   My sister ruins this for me because she HATES the mud. But she loves the rain. She loves to get wet. Grammy got us a pool for next summer and my crazy sister knocked it down last night, just it would fill up with rain that she could jump in and play around in. She splashes like a duck and makes a ton of noise. That means our Mama then gets on to us and makes us come back in to the house.
   Ruin-er.
   With it raining out, that means we get stuck inside for more time than usual. Most days we go outside every  two to three hours, just depending on what's going on that day. I love to be outside. Sometimes i don't want to come in but my Mama gets mad and makes me. She used to let me run around outside for hours, but then I started running away and now someone has to stay outside with me at all times because Mama says I'm "untrustworthy". Whatever that means.
   So we get stuck inside and I get incredibly bored. I love to play. Coco, my sister, does not. She would rather just lay down beside Mama as she works and watch TV. She's been watching this show called "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" on Netflix and I have to say, that show just makes me want to play more. I mean, c'mon! They're fighting! I like fighting. I loved to jump and roll around and bite and kick. That's all good stuff. So I bite Coco and hope she gets mad enough to play with me. Sometimes this works.
   Other times, I try to bring her a peace offering. Like the leg of my old toy, Griselda. I try to get her to play tug of war with me. Sometimes she does. I think she thinks that since she has about seventy pounds on me that she is much stronger than I am. I think not. I can lock my jaws tight and hold right on to my toy. Eventually though she gets bored and let's me win so she can go back to watching TV.
   I don't think her first family played very much.
   The best way to get her to play is to get Mama to play. This is not hard. I just bring a toy to her and she'll throw it. Or play tug of war. Or lift me waaaaay up in the air as I hold on to my toy and spin me in circles. Coco immediately begins to play with me then and that's exactly what I wanted. She can't stand it when people pay attention to me. She's kind of a drama queen.
   Another thing that I like to do on rainy days is aggravate my Grammy. She usually feels down when it is rainy out. Opression, I think it's called. So I try to impress her by getting her to play with me. I whine at her door until she opens it to yell at me and then I sneak in. Usually she has a toy for me in her room, but if there is no toy, I just pick up the nearest Kleenex. Grammy yells at me and then tries to take the Kleenex and has to chase me all over the room to get it. She pretends to be mad, but then she calls me a "silly little tramp" and scratches behind my ears. Then we take a nap together. That makes us both happy.
   Rainy days are stinky, but they can be fun too. Remember that your furry friend probably doesn't mean to be more mischievous, they're probably just bored, like me. Playing with them will help. I'm hoping that I can find my mini tennis balls today. Wish me luck! Hopefully tomorrow will be sunny!

Rooting around in the mud is fun! Mud is a great place to hide treasures!

I have fun aggravating my Grammy!