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/

Snow Dog....

I don't know about other dogs, but I just love the snow. Maybe that's because I was born and raised in Chicago. But if you listen to my Daddy, "This snow ain't snow!" Well, I guess it is. It's white and fluffy and cold and wet and that is what my mama defines as snow. Whatever. It's fun. Do you know how much digging I can do, even in as little as two inches of snow! And I love looking at my paw prints everywhere. That's cool. And you can really see the birds and the squirrels when it snows. I love to stand there and bark at them after I chase them in to a tree.
But my mama made me kind of sad today. She says there are dogs that don't get to go out and play when it snows. She says these doggies are on "death row" and she gets all teary eyed. I don't like things that make my mama sad and I don't like the sound of this "death row". I know everybody likes cute puppies. And there are apparently tons of cute puppies at these shelter thingys. So why don't people just go get the puppies from the shelters? Makes sense to me. But my mama says that not everybody wants to take care of their puppy. Especially when it gets older. I can relate to that. My FurMama didn't like me. She wouldn't give me milk or take care of me when I was a bitty baby. And her flesh family didn't like me or my sister. So they sold my sister because they could. But they were going to give me to the shelter! Thank God they gave me to my Grammy instead, who helped me connect with my mama and Daddy. And I love my mama and my Daddy and my Grammy and my cat sister Furrball. I am so glad that I am adopted. So now I really really want to help my dog friends in shelters find their forever families. I think every dog deserves to play in the snow and laugh when their mama falls down on the ice. And bark at snow birds. And make the snow fly up around them when they run and catch a snow flake in their mouth.
This is my new mission. To make every dog a Snow Dog!