Made in Richmond

I bet you’d forgotten all about her. Shooter is also still here, too. He’s busy sleeping directly on my legs.

It seems he finally loves her now, too. Only took three years!

Doesn’t it almost look like she’s smiling in this picture? It’s as if she’s saying “Oh down comforter, I will hold you and squeeze you and never ever let you go.”

Yes, it’s been a while since we’ve had a Zappturday, hasn’t it? I have no excuses other than it’s kind of a pain to upload pictures off of the camera. Luckily, my new iPhone makes it much easier to bestow the cuteness on you.

Here she is:

This is the face of a very torn young lady. She would love to spend the afternoon snoozing on our bed, but Ross is making homemade chicken soup downstairs. Her hound dog nose keeps waking her up, and she just doesn’t know what to do.

We’re on week two of training the dogs on the invisible fence. I don’t know if you’re familiar with how the training works, but it basically involves taking the dogs up to the fence so they can get a correction (first it’s just a beep, then it’s a beep with a little shock). The correction makes the dog back up, and eventually they learn the new boundaries of the yard.

I sometimes think Shooter is too smart for the fence. It actually occurs to him to push the boundaries a bit, testing every corner of the yard to see if there’s a “weak spot.” Although I don’t know why he would do this – if he were to escape all he would do it trot around barking at anyone who’s having any fun. He’s getting better, but he’s not happy about it.

Zapp, on the other hand, required maybe two shocks before she wouldn’t even go near the boundary. If she senses you leading her to the edge of the yard, she sits down and will not budge. The simpicity of her brain made the training very simple: edge = beep = shock = OMG I DO NOT LIKE THAT I WILL NEVER GO THERE AGAIN.

Yeah. Sometimes dumb is better. Also, she’s pretty cute…

This is Zapp enjoying her favorite pasttime: staring at us all night to see what we’ll do next.

Someone’s got game.

(Yes, that’s a baby bouncy chair you see off to the side. We’re slowly but surely putting various pieces of baby accoutrement together so the dogs can get used to it. And so I can look at it and think “OMG MAH BEH BEH!”)

It’s been a good long while since we’ve had a bona fide Zappturday post. Instead of blaming it all on unpacking and being SO BUSY, let’s just get straight to it…

Pooping. Zapp seems to hate doing it now.

Actually, it’s not really that she hates it (because she’ll do it inside ALL THE TIME). It’s more that she gets incredibly distracted when she’s outside in our new backyard, what with the birds! squirrels! grass! mulch! The kids screaming in the yard behind ours and the big man next door with the booming voice doesn’t help either.

Luckily, I’ve discovered a trick.

Our prompt to the dogs to do their business is to say “Go on.” I don’t know why, but we always have and they respond to it.

The other night, in the midst of my THIRTY MINUTE stint outside with Zapp, praying to the heavens that she would hurry up and shite already, I started saying this:

“Go on Go on Go on Go on Go on Go on Go on Go on Go on Go on Go on Go on”

And so on and so forth. No pauses, just a constant stream of “Go ons” in an effort to keep her focused on why she was outside.

It worked.

So now when we go outside, I say “Go on” over and over again, Zapp is able to poop, and my neighbors think I’m crazy.

And I’m kind of ok with that.

Now that my life has taken on a relatively normal status, hopefully Zappturday posts will actually be happening… maybe even on Saturday!

Without further ado, here’s your weekly dose of Zapp goodness:

Proof that this dog is not at all selective in who/what she cuddles.

What with all the house buying and what not this weekend, the Zappturday post never happened. So to make it up to you, Zapp decided to pose for possibly the best picture she’s ever been in.

May I present Gangsta Zapp, The Master of Gangsta Rapp:

I’m sure this made it all worth the wait.

(This picture taken with Ross’s new iPhone or, as I like to call it, The Widowmaker.)

Zapp loves to stick her nose into or on anything and everything she sees. Consequently, when I try to take a picture of her, I usually get three or four shots like the one above before I’m able to truly capture her beauty.