Cygni and Me

Recently I switched Cygni to a new brand of dog food.  She had originally been eating a mix of Royal Canin and Eukanuba Puppy Food.  But, the stores that stock those two brands were a little out of the way for me so I decided to switch her food.  I always want what is best for my puppy and this time it meant buying the pet food that you can buy from the Veterinarian.  Our Vet stocks Science Diet, so thats what Cygni will be eating.

Switching a puppy’s food is a serious process. You can’t just start feeding the puppy a new food or you could seriously upset the dog’s stomach and digestion.  The best thing to do is start mixing the food together.

Over the course of several days use different ratios of the old food to the new food.

1. Start with about 75% old to 25% new.

2. Move to 50%-50% after a day or two.

3. You can go to 25% old to 75% new.

4. And finally you can then switch to just the new food.

5. If at any time you notice that your puppy’s stool is looser than it should be immediately stop switching the puppy’s food and remember to give more time adjusting the food.

I was going through some pictures of Cygni and figured I should post some of the really cute ones on here. So enjoy!

So my sleeping routine with Cygni goes as follows;

1 – 2 hours of Cygni getting to sleep in my bed while I read

I go to bed, Cygni has to go back to her crate on the floor

Around 7am Cygni wakes up and gets to go back on my bed after she sits calmly for 5seconds.

She stays there until I wake up and start my day.

So with that normal routine you can only expect that I was insanely surprised when this morning I woke up around 8am and Cygni was in my bed asleep.  I don’t remember her waking up me to get on the bed.  I am starting to wonder if Cygni was able to jump onto my bed by herself.  If that is the case then she is getting much more bold and much jumpier.  My bed is still taller than she is and if she was able to make it up there then she might be able to make it up onto or over other things.  Either way it was a surprise this morning.

In other news Cygni has learned how to walk up the stairs to the 2nd story all by herself.  I just have to open the gate at the bottom of the stairs that keeps Leon out and she will bunny hop her way up to the loft.  I am really glad because in the apartment the door opens onto the staircase that goes up to my living room, so Cygni will need to learn how to use those stairs if she wants to be at home in the new apartment.  Unfortunately Cygni has yet to learn how to go down the stairs by herself.  But maybe its a good thing that she is so cautious, I wouldn’t want her to fall down the stairs at the apartment.

It is funny how with puppies and children the best toys are often the least expensive. Cygni has a remarkable collection of toys ranging from little crinkle mouse toys (stolen from the cats) to traditional dog toys like chew bones, tug of war ropes, and Kong toys. She even has her own assembly of mini tennis balls. And even with all of these toys to play with her favorites are the worn and torn scraps of stuffed animals that Leon’s puppyhood sent to shambles. These little bits of furry cloth or amputated limbs are the perfect toy for her to just attack. Look at how cute she is in the middle of two of her favorites.

Sometimes its hard to remember what these scraps were before they met their untimely deaths in the jaws of Leon and Cygni.  With puppies sometimes its best to just give them a box or an old stuffed animal that has gone to ruin.  But remember to remove anything hazardous such as hard plastic eyes or noses.

I have said it once and I will say it again, Cygni has some kind of personal vendetta against my Q-Link! If you don’t believe me just look at these pictures.

I was talking to my friend Ahna the other day and she told me that her puppy Willow has this funny habit of picking up her food and walking across the room to eat it. Well, my Cygni does the exact same thing, so I don’t know if this is just a habit for small dogs or if it is because the kibble is too big for Cygni to sit and eat at her bowl. Either way it makes her look crazy when I feed her and she goes and grabs a bite then running across the room to eat it.

Cygni and Leon are at it again! This time though I got them on film. It seems like Cygni has so much energy that Leon just doesn’t know what to do against her. But after a while he tends to go running for a couch to jump on. Lucky for him she is still too small to follow.

Lately Cygni has picked up some odd habits around her bedtime. When its time to go to sleep I go and get Cygni from where ever she had fallen asleep and move her into my bedroom. But when I go to get into bed myself Cygni will all of a sudden start whining and crying. She won’t let up if I try to ignore her bad behavior either. Instead she just picks up the pace with her whines and turns them entirely into barking and howling. I for one did not know that pomeranians could produce such outrageous noises.

Lucky though after a few nights of this I think that I have found a solution. It seems like Cygni does fine and won’t whine if I just let her fall asleep for like 5-15minutes in my bed while I read before I set her in her crate. She absolutely loves being in my bed and will sleep perfectly in it for as long as I need her to sleep. So when I want her to sleep in during mornings I can do the same thing, and just stick her in the bed. But I do not want her to think that the bed is a place she can go without my permission so I am sure to always require her to sit quietly before I pick her up and set her on the bed and she can only go on the bed when I am there.

Puppies always have little quirks about them. And because puppies are so cute it is easy to forget that while its adorable that they try to attack your pant legs now, it won’t be so cute when they are fully grown and still doing that. A lot of owners of toy dogs seem to have this problem because they treat their dogs more like little children than animals. Even though a teacup chihuahua or Maltese is a companion dog they are still dogs.

So lately I have been wearing this special kind of necklace called a Q-Link.  Its supposed to be good for like improving focus and stuff by redirecting electro-magnetic waves and the like.  But I have to say that Cygni absolutely loves this necklace.  Every time she is in my lap she tries to get at it to lick or chew on.  Its crazy how much she loves the necklace.  The perfect thing is that because the necklace is so smooth she cant really cause any damage to it, so its a perfect little distraction for her when she is sitting in my lap because it stops her from trying to lick my face too much.

As a person who spends a good amount of time on the computer or in front of the TV I have started to really like this Q-Link.  It may be just all in my head which makes this Q-Link like a portable worry stone.  Whenever I am stressed or anxious I find myself just gently rubbing the Q-Link and it tends to keep me much calmer.  With all the technology today and how stressful it can be when that technology breaks or glitches it is so nice to have something whose smallest job is to take my mind off things.

From the little info packet that I got from this Q-Link I found out that this thing might actually be able keep your “Biofield” in balance.  When your biofield is in balance then you are in balance, but things like stress from work, exposure to electronics and cellphones, and irritation from daily life can put this balance out of sync.  The Q-Link is supposed to stop this from happening.  It is pretty awesome to think that a simple little necklace can do all of that, but to be honest, even if this necklace doesn’t have these powers it has given me something to keep me up beat during those stresses.

They even make these Q-Links for pets!

First off I want to say sorry for my disappearance. Its not that easy to continue a blog with my laptop being busted. But I should be back and updating everyone on Cygni now that I have a computer I can use.

Last night Cygni just about gave me a heart attack. It was a bit late, around 10:00pm, a time where I am normally upstairs just relaxing while Cygni plays with toys in her indoor play area. Everything seemed pretty normal until I looked over at Cygni to make sure she was alright and noticed that her mouth looked funny. At first I wasn’t sure what I was looking at. Cygni was just staring back at me with her mouth open a little and her tongue was sticking out of one side of her mouth. It wasn’t until I walked over to the pen that I noticed that she had something stuck in the back of her mouth.

I had no clue what it was all I did know was that my little puppy had something the size of a marble stuck in the back of her jaw. I tried to reach in and push it out but the object’s smooth surface and Cygni’s little fangs prevented its removal. I was stuck sitting with her trying to keep her mouth open so I could figure out what exactly was in her mouth. When I finally managed to get a good look I realized that this little object had a plastic part that was stuck between her teeth or on her teeth. I once again reached it, but this time I pulled up on the plastic and was able to pop it off of her teeth.

The it turned out to be a little plastic and glass toy eye from a stuffed animal! I have no clue how she managed to get the eye, but I have a feeling it has something to do with how much my brother’s beagle tears into stuffed animals around the house. Its amazing that the thing just got stuck on her tooth instead of choking her. And after what happened I do not think I will be letting little Cygni play with anymore toys that have little eyeballs or other parts that she might be able to bite off and choke on.

As a warning to anyone else with a puppy or thinking about getting one. Always make sure that you supervise what your new dog plays with. Puppies are like babies and there is virtually no toy that a puppy should be allowed to play with without supervision.