Does My Couch LOOK Like a Fire Hydrant To You???

Life with male dogs can be fun. It can also be very frustrating if your dog is 'marking' the furniture and walls of your home. Today I thought I would address the subject of male dog marking.

Marking in the house is usually done to an upright surface such as a doorway, table leg or piece of furniture. Dogs often mark on objects. Quite often the object is something new or different with unfamiliar smells that has come into the house.

Dog urine marking is not a toilet training issue but rather an issue concerning a whole range of instinctive behaviors. Your dog may be fully house trained and would never think of peeing in the house, but to a dog, lifting his leg to scent mark is not the same as wanting to have a pee.

If you have a female dog in your home that has come into heat, you may find that your male dog, if not neutered, will start marking on  furniture and walls as his testosterone reacts to the girl.

We as humans tend to think of dog urine as something unpleasant but to a dog it is something of great interest. A dog leaves it's scent in urine to tell other dogs a message. This message could be about whose territory it is, about the dog's social order or advertising mating availability. Dogs use urine marking to show their dominance or to claim something as belonging to them. Dogs with feelings of insecurity or who have separation anxiety may also mark, as territory marking builds the dog's confidence.

Interestingly, this is not completely a male dog only trait. Female dogs will urinate on a spot that another dog has peed. I see this some days when I take my girls out to potty. Most days they will roam the yard and find their own spot, but if they have been having 'issues' with each other on a particular day, I watch them run over to the spot where the 'offender' just urinated and they will urinate on top of that spot.

Sort of a "Ha! I'll show you!" type attitude. I have mentioned that they are Divas, right?

Dogs who have never had a problem with marking in the house before can suddenly start doing it if there is a change in their environment such as a new dog, or new person that has come into the home, even a new baby's arrival. If there is a big change in their environment, this will make a dog insecure and can bring on the marking. We have even seen Cooper doing some marking lately, since we brought a male puppy into the house this last month. Kind of unusual as he has been neutered for a very long time now.

But, what can you do? For most dogs, early neutering is the best way to prevent it from ever occurring in the first place. Those macho hormones never get the chance to develop if the dog is neutered at an early age. This is not always a guarantee, but if is the best deterrent. If you have had another dog in your home that previously marked furniture, doorways, etc., it will encourage future dogs to do the same.

Kind of a "Oh! This is what we do here." attitude. We like guests to feel comfortable in our homes, just not THAT comfortable.

Some dogs will mark when you take them to visit in another home. This can be very embarrassing for you and doesn't put you and Fido high on the invitation list.

A popular way to prevent this bad habit from becoming a problem is to have your dog wear a Belly Band. Belly Bands are made of a thick absorbent type of fabric, such as fleece. They are wrapped around the dog and fastened by means of a velcro strip sewn at each end of the wrap. Usually a good fitting belly wrap requires no elastic and will stay in place quite well. The idea behind wearing the belly bands is that when the dog releases urine to mark on something, it instead is retained in the fabric of the band. Dogs usually do not like the feel of the wet fabric against them, so they learn to quiet marking. 

You can also use a self adhesive feminine pad inside the belly band. These will hold more urine than the belly band alone, and you won’t have to launder as often. Belly bands should be machine washable and reused as needed.

Belly Bands are a very popular selling item at Cody and Company Pet Products as more people are learning of their great value. We design them to be a pleasant fashion statement as well as a training aid. Many people have had success in ending the problem completely after their dog has worn them for a while.

Dogs get very used to wearing them and it solves a lot of problems!

Our good friend, Kilo, from The Cheeky Chis (found on both Facebook and Instagram), always looks so dashing in his belly bands. Or wrestling trunks, as he prefers to call them.

Some other good friends, the Stardom Chihuahuas, (also found on both Facebook and Instagram - go check them out!) look great in their belly bands too!

We will never completely eliminate the marking that the boys do. It is a dog's form of communication. However, it is something that can certainly be left for the outdoors!

A Day At the park

We took Tallie to her first official event/outing today. It was a fun doggie event held at a local park. It was put on by Natural Pet Foods Solutions, a local Portland boutique. They were promoting a new monthly subscription box that they have started. Each box comes with toys and treats made exclusively in the USA,many from local vendors right here in the Portland area. They are calling it Dog Is My Religion.

We first went to the table that had sample boxes of their premiere box that launched this month. We thought the Buddha-dog was pretty cute. Tallie proved all morning that she is a natural poser.

While our Tiny Human got her face painted, Tallie and I walked around to see the displays and talk with people. They were having a raffle with some really nice prizes. We purchased some tickets and Tallie posed with some of the prizes while I filled out the tickets. The proceeds of today's events were being donated to our local Clackamas County Dog Shelter!

She was quickly becoming the hit of the event. How could you not love that face???

One of the reasons I was excited to take her to this event was the chance to socialize and meet all kinds of people. We have plans on getting her certified as a Therapy Dog, she has the perfect personality for it! A huge part of her early training is to get used to being handled by all kinds of people, as well as to learn to be comfortable in all kinds of situations. She got the chance to be held and petted by lots of people today!

I really loved the Puppachino bar they had! So cute!!

Another way to win a prize was to guess the number of dog treats in this jar. It was as big as Tallie!! She was willing to briefly pose next to it, but was very interested in all the other dogs that were there. Her little head was swiveling back and forth!

We went to the photo booth, where she sat and posed for pictures without me! That's fine, she is much cuter than I am! We talked to some dog food vendors and got some samples to bring home and try. Tallie watched everyone while I visited.

Next, we tried our hand at the little agility course they had set up. She thought I was a little crazy as I tried to get her to go through the weave poles, but humored me anyway.

Once she got into the tunnel, she became very brave and had to bark ferociously (in her mind if was ferocious anyway) at a large dog that was walking by. That was the only time she barked through the whole thing. I guess she felt pretty protected in there!

It took some coaxing to distract her and get her to come back through the tunnel, but she finally did it. We have a larger tunnel at home and she loves to run through it, so I don't think she really knew what this smaller one was all about.

The people who put this event on were very clever with their play-on-words for everything. The BBQ menu was adorable!

When we sat down to eat our lunch, Tallie made sure to give me the sweet face, making sure I was going to share.

Pretty much impossible to say no to that face, huh?

It was really a great first event for Tallie. I was super proud of her and how well she behaved. She was a wonderful ambassador (or is it ambassadress?) for the Chihuahua breed. Lots of people are not aware that they come in a Long Coat variety.  Others were impressed with how friendly she was, not shaking or growling. While I was proud of her, it makes me sad when people have that impression of Chihuahuas.

In the end, we won a prize in the raffle!! We brought home the bag of food that she posed next to earlier!

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This next Monday is the big Solar Eclipse. We live in Oregon, which is in the path of totality, and has brought nearly 1 million visitors to the state! We are staying home to watch it from our own yard, but I decided to have a little fun and took some pictures of Scarlett wearing the safety glasses. She was such a GREAT sport, considering you can't see anything but blackness when you wear them.

She even got her picture on a local news station's Facebook page! We are trying to not let it go to her head though. Haha!

It's Been A While

As the title says, it has been a while indeed. We are so active on Instagram and Facebook, but I never seem to be able to keep up on the blog. I sometimes wonder if anyone even reads blogs anymore...? Or are they satisfied with the pictures they see on the other social media pages? 

But, when I last wrote a blog post, we had just added Scarlett to the family. She is now over a year old, has grown quite a bit and is such a character!

She is pretty tolerant of my craziness in dressing her up and taking her places with me.

All in all, she is a Mama's girl, very spoiled. She still has the fun playfulness of a puppy, which I get the feeling she will never outgrow! She is bigger than any of my other dogs have been, weighing a hefty seven pounds. Well, that is hefty for a Chihuahua anyway! But, we don't like to make her feel bad about her size, so we don't discuss it much.

We were going well with three dogs (Shimmer, Cooper and Scarlett) for quite a while. Then our favorite breeder, Liz Moore of Diadem Chihuahuas, announced that she would no longer be breeding Chihuahuas (gasp!!). She had a beautiful smooth coat champion girl that needed a nice forever home to retire to. Ummmm, it didn't take me long to say "Me! Me!"

So, meet Charm, our first smooth coat Chihuahua!

Charm is three years old and such a beautiful girl. Isn't that face to just die for?? Those melty eyes just do me in. 

You may have noticed that all the dogs seemed to be in the same color range - tan and white. I have missed my little tri color Stormie so very much and had been looking for another one for quite a while. They are hard to find!! But, I had put the word out among some breeders that I know across the country and about the same time that Charm was joining our family, I got word that this adorable little fluff bundle was available and POW! after I picked myself up off the floor at how hard I had fallen in love, I sent a message to her breeder.

Soon, we were selected to be the ones to adopt her and arrangements were being made to fly her here from Iowa with a puppy nanny. Before she left her home, she got to travel to a dog show with her Mom and Dad. Look at that little crazy girl, chewing on that crate door!!!

I knew then that she was going to be a spitfire of a little thing, and I was right!

She made it safely to Oregon, after a loooong day in a carry on crate. All 1.8 pounds of cuteness was now calling Cody and Company her new home. I was head over heels in love.

So was Scarlett, who could not believe that I had gotten her a playmate. These two wrestle and roll all day long.

Gah!!! Can you believe the cuteness level here?????

Tallie brought us to the never-before-number of FIVE Chihuahuas. My husband, ever the supportive trooper, said that 5 Chihuahuas don't even add up to half a Collie, which is the breed of dog I had when we were first married. 

So, with that, we settled in to enjoy ourselves, even as I knew that Shimmer's health was fading. Diagnosed with Congestive Heart Failure, she was not able to be very active and preferred to hang out in the back of her 'condo' (crate), away from all the antics of the two crazy puppies.

Still such a beauty, with her gleaming white coat, you would never know she was approaching 13 years of age, other than the cloudiness of her eyes.

She still had her adorable lop-sided smile, which I loved.

Sadly, one does not come out a winner for long when battling Congestive Heart Failure, even when on every medication possible. On Friday, July 28, she took her last breath while wrapped in my loving arms. She was less than a week away from her 13th birthday. I am so grateful that I had this cute picture of her from her birthday last year. 

It has been really hard for me to think about my three original girls all being gone now. The girls that helped me launch Cody and Company Pets. I have been reminiscing about all the events we went to, all the modeling they did for me, and the great group pictures we were able to photograph. There will never again be another trio like Stormie, Breezy, and Shimmer.

How I loved those girls. It makes me feel a little better knowing they are all together in Heaven and will be there to greet me someday. I do not understand why our precious pets get so little time with us, but those three girls will forever live on as the logo for Cody and Company.

Tallie has been working on her modeling skills and I think she will do very well as our new spokesmodel.