I iz Fierce

I finally killed it. The big duck squeaky toy.

Nom nom nom

Anything good left in there?

The aftermath

-- Posted by Fierce Hunter Prince Zuko. Don't mess wif me!

Visit from Taro!

Hi everyone! Prince Zuko here. My hooman haz been "working" too much lately and just now haz time to type up how PAWESOME it wuz when Taro and his pack visited us!

Shiba Mind Control at work: Give us cheeze

On his blog, Taro has shared lots of pics and stories, so I'm just gonna write about my three favorite things:

1) I luv the beach but it wuz even better with my little bro Taro! Notice the matching gait on us in this photo. Yeah, we are awesome.

Running with Taro on the beach

2) Photoshoot with my half sisfur Suki and her hudad (thanks for the new word, Kaiju!) and humom. We drew a crowd and it wuz hard work but we gotz tons of treats and BACON afterwards! Noms! You can the full post here. Jonathan is a pawesome photographer and clearly picks good things to photograph (like Shibas).

Behind the scenes at Shiba photoshoot

3) Last but not least wuz just hanging out, being chill with my brofur Taro. See us being good Shibas and sharing chewies?

Brofurs

Mom sayz I was a good brofur and host. Taro and I shared treats, water and toys with no problem. Except that one incident with the wonderful tug-of-war toy but hey, boys will be boys, right? 

Nite-nite (passed out Taro in car)

-- Posted by Prince Zuko!

FUN at Ft. Funston!

Last weekend my people took me to Ft. Funston - best dog beach ever! First, you have to get to the beach which is so much fun 'cause the beach is waaaaaaay down there:

Look how tiny the people are down there!

But it is totally worth the wait - look how far the beach goes on (and on) - and this is just one part of it!

Mine. All mine.

So, you know, my people have trust issues and I've been Shiba Mind Controlling them to let me off leash more 'cuz I am a GOOD DOG. It worked! Here's me sniffing cool stuff on the beach and running around playing with dad - he's my favorite dog to play with even if he only runs on two legs.




Mom sayz this video proves I can get sorta wet if I want, but I still don't really like it:



The last word: HAPPY DOG!

-- Posted by Prince Zuko!

Trust Expanded

We took the little monster... er... I mean Zuko to Ft. Funston today. For those of you not in the Bay Area, this is pretty much Dog Heaven. Lots of rolling hills and sand dunes at the top of the cliffs. Down on the beach area it just goes on and on - cliffs on one side, water on the other and lots of room to run! For dog owners with recall concerns, the beach is a great area to practice since two directions are closed off by cliffs and water, leaving only two possible escape routes.

In the past I've had Zuko drag a leash so when it is time to catch him, I can step on the leash and stop him in his tracks. The leash also tangles up on his legs and slows the little guy down. All part of my evil plan to control my Shiba. Today, the leash kept really tangling on his back leg and he'd have to stop and wait for us to untangle it. My husband and I made the decision to just take the leash off. And what did Zuko do?? He was GONE up the beach in flash - it was as if he knew he had full freedom. He was still in visual range so we started trudging up that way. He found some dogs to play with for a bit and then suddenly he was coming back our way! Yeah!

I had the ultimate motivator in my pocket: turkey pepperoni. We had skipped breakfast this morning so little dog was very, very hungry and turkey pepperoni is his favorite. It seems he would occasionally remember I had this amazing treat in my pocket and he'd come back to me - sometimes without me even calling him.

We didn't have our Flip video camera with us, but I wish we did - the sheer joy of watching Zuko run with full abandon was great to see. He'd stop, frantically dig in the sand, stick his nose in there and flip out sand and water and then just take off again. By the end he was covered in sand with his tongue hanging out and a belly full of turkey pepperoni. GOOD DOG!

-- Posted by Zuko's mom

Teeth

Shibas are hunting dogs, so I guess it would figure they have ginormous teeth. We've never really compared Zuko's teeth to other dogs, but folks comment on them often.

Last weekend we went out to Carmel Valley and Zuko met his new BFF Riley. Riley is a 60 pound white lab 7 month old puppy - so she had a bit of a size advantage on him. But his TEETH! Bigger than hers and he flashes them often during playtime. He's also very, very vocal when he plays. We don't call him "demon dog" for nothing!

Want proof? Check 'em out:

Love bite

Monster teeth

I'm Fierce!

To get all the action, here is the full video. I had to put cheesy music over it because we were all yapping about pointless stuff as I recorded this and we sounded like dorks.



And for further demon-dog-in-action video, here is another clip on Zuko and Riley:



-- Posted by Zuko's Teeth-Brusher

Dog-caching in Golden Gate Park

Doodez... mom is back and we had a busy weekend! They did a "sidewalk sale" yesterday and it wuz boring. See picture of me being bored:

They made it up to me today tho! We went "geocaching" in Golden Gate Park! I prefer to call it dog-caching cuz itz all about ME!

Clearly I am good at it too. I found my first two caches right away. Well, dad had to actually get them for me since I don't have hands.





And - I found the biggest, stinkiest dogs I have ever seen! Mom sayz they are really called "buffalo" but I think they are dogs 'cause they are so big and stinky. I wanted to play with them but mom said the National Park Service would not appreciate that and she was pretty sure I'd roll in their poo and then I'd have to have a bath. So I decided I'd skip that for now. 





Now I sleepzzzzzz....

-- Zuko: Dog-cacher extraordinaire

Shiba Toy: the Water Bottle

Zuko loves water bottles. What Shiba wouldn't? They crunch, crackle and roll! They are hours of fun! Okay, maybe minutes....

I put a couple of treats in the bottle and drop it on the ground - keeps him busy. It is noisy as hell, but he has fun. :-)

The stare-down

The attack

There is now a whole listing of water bottle toys for dogs. Very funny - Zuko doesn't need the fancy wrapping, he's happy with just the bottle.

-- Prince Zuko's mom