Sharing

Charlie hasn't learned how to share yet...or maybe he has.






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Location:Washington Square,Washington,United States

Buddies

Charlie and Jada are now just about the same size, Charlie is actually a little bit taller. Here they are hanging out with their bones.






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Happy halloween

Here's Charlie's outfit for Halloween.


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Not a physical boundary!

As you all know, Charlie is the smartest dog ever. A while back we put up the flags to mark the boundary of our invisible fence and started training Charlie. Several sessions on the leash was really all he needed. Once he got the shock, he quickly learned not to cross the flags. Tonight was basically the final exam. AND HE ACED IT! We started by throwing the frisbee to him inside the yard. He ran like crazy after it and brought it back. Then I threw it outside fence and he didn't budge. Then as we were playing two kids and their two dogs came walking past. Normally this scene would end with Charlie either knocking over the kid in excitement, sniffing a lot of doggy butt, or just crazy bitey horseplay with the other dogs. Not tonight. He ran back and forth along the invisible boundary and didn't cross. Then as the final exam was coming to a close, I decided to have Charlie chase me. I ran from inside the yard down to the sidewalk. He chased me right to the boundary flags and then ran along the sidewalk while staying inside the flagged area the whole time! What a puppy! A+.

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Charlie Go Blue

Charlie put on his blue bandana from Aunt Katie to celebrate game day.



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At the mall

Charlie and family took a trip to a dog friendly mall today, Partridge Creek. It's one of our many ways to wear him out so he's not so crazy.



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Charlie at his training class.


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Where's the camera cord?

I have so many updates that I want to put in there about Charlie, but we haven't unpacked the camera cord yet. I'm hoping to get to that today.

So far Charlie is loving the new house, except for the fact that most of the time we have to keep him on a long leash. We are still unpacking and there is stuff EVERYWHERE. And trust me, he only needs a small window of opportunity to get into A LOT of trouble. He's been pretty barky lately... trying to communicate what he wants. We are doing our best to ignore him when we know he just wants attention, so he doesn't get positive reinforcement for his barking. Then when he stops we go give him some loving.

He started puppy training class last week. Pete took him out to our breeder's house. She runs the training course. Pete said he was an A+ student. Of course we had already taught him sit and stay, and he did pretty good. Though anytime that treats are involved, Charlie gives his full attention. He LOOOOVES cheese and thinks it's the best treat in the world!

We've been taking him for more and more walks. It helps us meet the neighbors too. Who wouldn't want to come meet us with a cute adorable puppy? Little Ronnie across the street told me that he would watch Charlie anytime we needed. He loves him! The neighbors have an older Golden, so he's very used to dogs, which is nice.

We have another training class tonight. There are 6 altogether and Charlie will learn more sitting, staying, heeling, how to walk well on a leash... etc... and hopefully we can curtail his barking a little bit. The best part of class is that we get to see him with some of his litter mates. There are 4 of them altogether in the class from his litter.

I promise, pictures soon!

Quick update

Charlie just got three whole days with Jada here at the house. He loved grabbing her face and holding on. He also met the golden across the street, Annie. He tried grabbing at her face but she had him pinned in about 5 seconds. He learned quickly.

Here's a picture from today. He stole one of Jada's rawhide bones and loves it.







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Updates coming

We have been settling into our new house this last week so updates will be rare until we get the den painted and the computer set up.

Charlie loves his big yard though! He's just not as happy being tied to the door inside as we are painting. Paint plus dog does not equal fun. Unless you're going for the furry wall look.


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Who is in charge?

Charlie turned 12 weeks old yesterday and he is already over 20 pounds. That's almost double in size since we got him. He is now officially a pain in the butt as well. He has decided that he does not want to eat when we put his food down. No, he only eats on his own time. We tried tricking him into eating by putting a treat in his food dish, but he just eats the treat out. Only after 30 minutes of play time will he think about going back to finish his meal. What a stinker! He also likes to go outside to sniff and eat the grass. He has discovered something very tasty right under one of our trees and he will make us take him out just so he can try to eat it. I tried to tell him "NO!" yesterday and he took a giant bite of my hand. I guess he's finally realized that he runs the place around here and he can get away with it because he's so cute.

Here's a picture from his visit to Troy yesterday.


















Charlie with his Nouna Andrea.

Charlie Blog Pictures

I never actually posted the link for Charlie's professional pictures. It's amazing how much he's changed since these pictures were taken. His legs have gotten so much longer and so has his body. He's super stretch dog now!

Anywhoo.... here's the link for the pictures.

http://www.mod4proofs.com/pickpic/gallery/splash.php?gallery_id=336

The password is: puppy

More pictures

Charlie's a bit of a pain today. He is very jumpy and bitey... trust me, those are words when it comes to referring to dogs. I was petting him earlier and he was doing great, and then he just lunged at my face and got my nose. It's not that he ever bites when he lunges, but he keeps his mouth open and inevitably his teeth find out skin... and that hurts. Especially yesterday morning when he nailed me right in the lip that I cut open playing softball on Thursday.

Anyway, here are some cute pictures of him which is why we forget about him being a pain in the butt sometimes and still love him.

This was taken last night. He was sleeping in his favorite spot and he just looked so cute!

I took this of Charlie under our dining room table because I know that he's not going to fit under there for too much longer.

Charlie got this ball in the mail from his Aunt Katie. He keeps hoping that she'll come visit and play fetch with him.

I enjoy Jim's face in this one. He was getting into it! Charlie loves playing tug!

Charlie couldn't understand why Pete kept going outside and not taking him. Or maybe he just wanted the steaks on the grill.

Charlie laying in his favorite spot again... also right near his food.

Trip to Petsmart

Pete and I took Charlie to petsmart today to socialize him and to wear him out. He had fun even though we kept him in the cart since he still doesn't have all of his shots. He met lots of nice people and got yummy treats. He also got his nails cut for free. He hasn't been as happy to let pete and I cut them for him...

Here's a picture in the cart.






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Back to the Future

Today Charlie was eating something and wisely climbed under our kitchen table to hide from me. Of course, we always know when he has something he shouldn't because he looks guiltier than a high school student texting in class. Plus he immediately runs and hides. Way to be slick Charlie!

Today, as I climbed under the table to retrieve what he had found, I was shocked to find a movie ticket. Now yes, we see lots of movies, so it's not that unbelievable for him to find his way to a movie ticket. But what was odd, was that it was to The Saint. This ticket was to the Star Rochester back on May 2nd, 1997. This was my sophomore year in high school. Where in the world did he find this movie ticket? How did this ticket stay with me so long?

My only guess was that recently he was near my HTML 4 book that I have laying around. Yes, that's how cool I am, I have a HUGE book on HTML that I bought in high school. We actually pulled it off the book shelf because we are going to recycle it. I'm guessing that I was using this movie ticket as some sort of bookmark, but I'll never know. Only Charlie will know where that ticket came from and how it came to be in his tight grip of his jaw.

I also just had to venture into the kitchen because Charlie was barking ferociously and came to find me to show me what he had done. He loves to attack his water dish. I'll never know what kind of evil things it must do to him when we aren't looking. He splashed it all over the kitchen and then pulled it into the carpeted hallway. This was when he decided to bark and bark at it, showing that water dish who the boss truly is.

I sometimes think that the only reason he splashes his water everywhere is to play with the towel that inevitably comes to clean it up. His favorite game is to attack the towel as soon as we try to soak up the ocean that has become our kitchen floor. I held him back best I could, while getting my wrist chewed on, and cleaned it up. Our kitchen towels are getting much more use in the last month.

Swimming!

Here's Charlie and Pete, hanging out getting some rays!

Here's Charlie swimming back to the stairs... he knew how to get out right away, and did just that!

Charlie can't understand why Pete is drilling a board in the fence. It had the perfect little hole that he was working on in order to get out of the yard. Boo Pete!
Here's Charlie's pool! It's a little pool, and he's yet to share it with Jack, but it works for him!
This is him asleep on the car ride home. He's doing much better in the car, as long as one of us is with him.
Charlie and Jada both getting belly rubs

Charlie took his second swimming lessons this weekend. We took some video and pictures of him in the pool. He loves his little pool we got for him. OK, doesn't LOVE it, but he goes in it voluntarily, which is pretty good. He likes the little one (think kiddie pool) because he can touch the bottom and because his tennis ball is in there.

Cutie

We've been so busy playing with Charlie that we've been unable to blog. We have some video of him swimming from this weekend...coming soon!

In the meantime here's a shot of him napping with Pete on the way up to Caseville. He's ten weeks old today!!! He's growing so fast!!


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Blog Picture

I want to put some pics up here from his photo shoot, but for now, here's one, before I run out the door.

Charlie the watchdog

So at lunch today I put Charlie in the kitchen while I ate. I can't leave him out because he only wants to play at lunch time and won't let me eat. Normally after he has eaten and gone outside he quietly plays in the fenced off kitchen with his toys and doesn't make too much noise. Today was not the case. He started barking a lot. Furious barking like I've never heard from him before. I got up to see what was going on because he wasn't barking at the gate looking toward me, no he was barking at something in the kitchen. It turns out that a loaf of bread had fallen on the floor and he was standing there four feet away barking his cute little head off at it. I think he thought he was protecting me from the dangerous little whole wheat monster. I picked up the loaf to show him it wasn't going to hurt him and he seemed pleasantly surprised. He immediately tried to bite the bag. At least I know Charlie is already looking out for us. Good dog Charlie!

Charlie's been blogged

Check out this link for some pictures!

http://mod4.com/blog/2009/07/charlie-the-golden-retreiver-puppy/

I'll put them up on here soon!

Training is working....mostly

Charlie is making good progress with his training. He has learned to sit, stay, lay down, and come. He also knows to ring the bell when he needs to go out. Also, today Kendra tried to teach "shake" and "roll over". I think rolling over is fairly impressive, but no so much with the paw shake. I guess I'm just not that impressed that he can raise up his paw. I'm leaving that one to Kendra to teach. My goal is to get him to bring me back a Frisbee, which seems to be going pretty well so far. Check out the videos from today.






More on Facebook:
Charlie Shake
Charlie get the bell

First bath

Well after a weekend of swimming in chlorine and then running into a dirt pile, we decided that Charlie needed a bath. Here are some pictures.

He wasn't crazy about it, but he did ok.

Here's Charlie digging away in the bathtub.

Up North Pictures

We spent the weekend up in Caseville teaching Charlie how to swim. He had a little trouble with the water, but he did pretty good.

Charlie did alright on the raft with me. He just laid down and slept while we floated

Pete carried him around in the water to get him used to it

While attempting to not step into the water, he used Jada as a stair and this cute picture resulted.

They enjoyed wrestling. Jada was great and would roll around on the ground with him since she was much bigger. They are becoming fast friends!
Pete tried to vacuum Charlie so he went and hid behind my mom's feet.

Charlie was tired out most of the weekend.

See how much skinnier he is once he was in the water? And that's him only about half wet!
He wasn't too sure about this whole pool thing.

Charlie at his first concert, the Willie Nash Band!

I LOVE this one of his face. So cute!

Up North

This is Charlie's second weekend in a row up in Caseville. He likes having the big yard to run around it, and so do I. It's nice being able to bring him outside without a leash since it's all fenced in. We just have to watch him with the pool because I don't want him to either get caught in the pool cover, or just not know how to get out.

I'm going to take him swimming later today. We'll see how that goes. He'll either take right too it, or be scared like Jada and immediately get out.

We took him to the Ribstock concert yesterday at the park. At first he was really scared of the drums and all the people but he got better. Eventually he was sleeping under our chairs and enjoying the mass amounts of people that came over to say hello to the super cute puppy. In fact Pete decided he was the cutest one there compared to all those "little ugly dogs."

I'll post pictures when I get home on Sunday.

Charlie learns Tricks

So we started working with Charlie on the Sit command the other day. He did pretty good with it, though as soon as I go to give him his treat he moves out of it... so today I decided to start working with the stay command. We did this a few times and then I decided to videotape it because he's super good at it! I was impressed how quickly he learned it!

Charlie's a Model

So yesterday I took Charlie to get some professional pictures taken. Now before you start judging me.... they were free. There is a couple of photographers nearby that are trying to build up their portfolio, so they are offering a free photo session.

Charlie was pretty good and VERY curious. He loved going around the big studio and seeing what the photographer was doing.

Pictures from that to come soon!

New Pics Post

OK, some quick pictures before I run off to work in this great heat. He fell asleep this way...

Here he definitely had something in his mouth that he was chomping down on.
Charlie loves to climb up in laps to chew his toys. His favorite place is on Pete or my lap. Though it usually leads to chewing of the hand and shirt.

Tired pup

Well Charlie has been one tired pup since we got home from the park. He napped for an hour, got up, napped again, ate dinner and played for awhile and is now back asleep. The key to a well behaved puppy is getting them lots of exercise so they sleep well.

Cute pictures coming later


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At the park

Charlie needed some time to play outside so I brought him over to the local park to play. He's very good at getting himself tangled in the picnic table. A 20 ft leash and he ends up wrapping himself up and only having about 3 ft of room.


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Charlie bit me!

Well, Charlie is a biter, that's for sure. His favorite thing to bite? My wrists! Pretty much every time I go to pet him now he goes for a nibble. I'm definitely hoping he grows out of this phase soon. Of course it reminded me of the famous video, posted here for your enjoyment again.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OBlgSz8sSM&feature=channel

On my way home

Sitting on a plane in Raleigh ready to get back home to our puppy. Sounds like Charlie had a good weekend in Caseville with my mom and Jada.



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Off with grandma

Charlie is spending the weekend in Caseville
with grandma while Pete and I are in Raleigh at his Aunts wedding.
Hopefully it goes well!

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And he slept through the night

Good news, Charlie made it through his first full night.... either that or we were both so exhausted we never heard him, but I'm pretty sure it's the first one. He went to bed around midnight when Pete did, so that was his last time out. Then he didn't start barking until around 6 after I was up. I think he heard the shower and decided it was time to be up and barking! But he went to the bathroom right after we took him out, so that was good. 

It's storming here this morning and looks like it will all day. So far he's been ok with the thunder, so hopefully he continues that way since we'll be at work for a bit. 

Pictures on Demand

So Charlie did better last night. I think it was in large part due to the amount of visitors we had last night and them tuckering him out. Thank you to those of you that came over! Brent, Penny and Jack came first. Jack wasn't too sure about him though, since Charlie was his size and kept jumping at his face. I don't blame him. I also don't like Charlie jumping at my face. 

Then Pete's parents, Barb and Jim came over to visit. Charlie was pretty tuckered out by that point, but he still woke up for a little subdued play time. 

Last night Pete spent some time in the office while Charlie was in his crate. The crate is in the office, so this helped Charlie calm down and not feel so lonely in his crate. 

Pete took him out before bedtime, and then he woke up around 1 and I took him out. He didn't wake up again until 5:30 which was only a little bit before I was due to wake up for school. He went as soon as we took him out and then right back to bed. He did pretty good. 

Here are some much requested photos from the last few days. 

I have a picture, I'll have to scan it, of me holding our old dog Cinnamon when she was a puppy, just like this, except I had an awesome fanny pack on. 

Charlie likes to sleep under the coffee table. 

Jack was protecting his face, he wasn't going to be fooled by this fluff ball again. 

Barb holding a somewhat tired (and looking stunned) Charlie.

Charlie loves this raccoon of his. He enjoys pulling on its limbs and hearing it squeak.

Charlie tuckered out in the kitchen. Lots of visitors!