A chip off the old block

In the previous post I forgot to write about the morning that Adam and Daisy spend alone together on Saturday. I left early Saturday morning to play tennis with some new friends (yeah, I made friends!) so it was just Adam and Daisy. Adam was watching College Game Day on ESPN that morning and said that Daisy was watching with him and every time he changed the channel she would bark, then when he changed it back to ESPN she would stop. He is so proud that his puppy is a football fan.

I actually think it's because she loves balls (get your minds out of the gutter) especially her rubber football squeaker toy.

Things you don't see up north

Well, Adam's team had a heartbreaking loss yesterday against Southern University. They led the entire game except the last minute and a half (the most important time to lead). It was a close game, but in the end the Braves couldn't hold on. I did hear many Southern fans say that Alcorn is much improved over last year and put up a great fight (I'm not sure what the final score was last year). The boys are now focusing on getting ready for next week's game against New Mexico State. I will be flying to New Mexico for the game and I'm sure I will have lots to report.

As for Daisy, she is getting much better with her food aggression, we have both been working with her and she hasn't growled or snapped when we got near her food or took a treat away in over a week. We'll keep working with her, but she seems to be learning quickly. Daisy's "friends" have now started knocking on my door to see if Daisy can play....nobody has asked if I would like to come out and play.

Now it is time to report "Things you see in Mississippi that you don't see up north", I know everyone is excited (Janice, be ready you may encounter some of the following soon).

First up is an armadillo. I've heard of them, I've seen pictures, but I have never seen one in person....until now. I was walking down the street from the stadium to the Head Football Coach's house on campus when I see an armadillo. Never in the first 29 years of my life have I ever walked down the street and saw an armadillo. I actually think this one might be dead, but still I have never seen an armadillo even a dead one.

Next, everyone has been to a football game at some level and they all have marching band performances at half-time. In the south, they have marching band routines as well, but down here the routines are FAR different than they are up north. As this video demonstrates, it is necessary that the band stretch before their routine to prevent injury. Not really the case up north.

Now, you may be wondering what their routine entails that requires stretching. Well, the video below is just a sample of what goes on. The people up front with the hats are the Drum Majors, which (at least at Indiana and Cincinnati) stand on the ladders and direct the band....and that's it. The Drum Majors down here have a lot more responsibility as you can see.

Random updates

Well there is not much new to report here down south. I do have a funny quote courtesy of Adam last Saturday. He had Saturday off since their game was Thursday:

Adam: "Today is Saturday, right?"
Michelle: "Yes"
Adam: "Then why the *bleep* am I watching Bridget Jones' Diary when football is on?!"

He had the remote so it's not like it was my fault. I think he just wasn't used to having a day off when football is on tv.....so that is what I did the rest of the day.

I am going to New Mexico next week. Adam's team plays New Mexico State and that trip is the wives trip. If he had stayed at Cincinnati, the Hawaii trip is the wives trip, but I get to go to New Mexico so that's a sweet deal. Daisy will be boarded at the Vet and will not be happy about that especially since she'll be getting her 12 week shots while she's there. Daisy is growing up so fast! She was only 3lbs when we got her and now she's over 8lbs! My little girl is growing up

Here is a picture of her with her favorite person...Adam.

Here is the video I promised in a previous post. It's Daisy taking on the door stop....they are enemies. I had to remove all the door stops, but this one is in the study where she isn't allowed normally. I'm lucky she's here as my guard dog.

MEN!?!

Do you ever wonder what men are thinking sometimes? Adam came home early today (since they played yesterday they have extra time to prepare for the next game) and was there when I was feeding Daisy. Based on her age and her projected size when she's full grown, she gets 1 cup of puppy chow a day. I feed her twice a day, therefore, she gets 1/2 cup each feeding. I usually feed her, but sometimes Adam does and he was watching me feed her today and he says "are you giving her too much?" I told him "no", she gets 1/2 cup at each feeding and the measuring cup (which is in her food bin) is a 1/2 measuring cup. It turns out, he thought she was suppose to get 1/2 of the cup that was in her food bin....thus, he was only been feeding her 1/4 cup of chow each time he feeds her.

Apparently when we have children I will need to leave very detailed directions....complete with picture diagrams.

A Victory!!

Last night Adam's football team had their first victory of the season against Arkansas Pine Bluff. The final score was 13-3. Adam thought his team should have been able to run the ball better than they did, but was happy for the victory. I was in Jackson and didn't arrive at the game until the 3rd quarter. I did see the kicker kick a field goal to put them up by two scores (fyi: their kicker is from Kokomo Indiana, so Adam is not the only Hoosier on the team).

Their next game is against Southern University on Sept. 27th which will be another tough game but hopefully they will be able to pull through. Daisy has declared war on the door stops in our apartment and we have removed all of them except the one in the study since she's not allowed in there but I let her in since I'm in here on the computer and she is going nuts! I'll post a video on my next post. It's amazing what will keep a puppy entertained! Anyone have any idea why dogs are so picky about where the use the bathroom. I spend several minutes with Daisy walking around so she can find just the right spot. No matter where she choose to go, I have to pick it up so why is one patch of grass better? Also, why does she always want to go out when the Colts are in the red zone??

Daisy's Mom

My good friend Jennifer wrote on her blog that since having her beautiful baby girl Annabel, that she has a new identity: Annabel's mom. I have come to find that to be true of me, I am Daisy's mom. It should be no shock that kids like puppies and there are a lot of kids in our neighborhood. Daisy plays with them everyday, she chases them around, they play ball with her, etc. This is great for me because Daisy gets exercise, I don't have to do the running, and she socializes.

When we go out walking it's always "there's Daisy", "can Daisy play ball with us", "can Daisy play". You could offer them a million dollars and they probably couldn't tell you my name. Even Adam clarifies himself to our neighbors as "Daisy's daddy". The pro is that she has made it easier to meet new people, too bad they are all children and the elderly (one elderly lady has a Pomeranian that Daisy plays with).

Daisy has done well with her house breaking and doesn't chew a lot, but she's really bad with biting and has recently shown food agression. I'm hoping she will grow out of the biting (puppies like to bite because they are cutting teeth) once her adult teeth come in, but we are still working on teaching her that play time and petting will stop when she does that. I'm handing the food agression by hand feeding her and putting my hand in her food dish as I do so to teach her that it is a good thing to have people around while she eats. This has seemed to help. The Vet says she is too little for obedience school so it's still all me. My last dog, Madison, was never food agressive (my dog before her, Ginger was) but she chewed A LOT as a puppy.

It's finally cool in Mississippi!!

I don't know if it's cool because of Ike, but it's finally cool in Mississippi!! I have my windows open and took Daisy for a really long walk. I used to love walking my dog, but it is so hot and humid here that it isn't really enjoyable. It is about 75 today and no humidity. I never thought I would be this excited about the weather but I am! I'm sure Adam is as well since he has to practice outside.

I was driving around town today and passed by a house with live chickens in their front yard. I was thinking "I need to start bringing my camera with me where ever I go because people aren't going to believe me". Really, where am I living that people keep chickens in their yard. It wasn't even a farm, it was a regular house...with chickens.

Tough week for my favorite football teams

It was a tough week for my favorite football teams. Adam's team lost a tough game against Grambling State. He was disappointed but hope to bounce back next week. They have a tough game against a D-1 team, Troy State. Cincinnati also lost to Oklahoma. I was hoping to watch the game on ABC, but instead I had to watch the 'Ol Miss game. Finally, the Colts lost their first game of the season against the Bears:( Luckily the Hoosiers won so all was not lost!

Daisy has been getting into football season as well! She can out run any defensive back, unless they have treats in their pockets!

We have thought about changing Daisy's name to "Money Pit" because there seems to be a different issue every week (thankfully they're minor problems) that she needs treatment for. We adopted her from the local humane society and when we adopted Daisy, she had some fleas which was taken care of with some drops. Well, the fleas she had carried tapeworm larvae, so she then got tapeworm which only required 1 pill to take care off. After that Adam and I noticed that she was loosing fur in patches around her paws and had some crust developing on 1 ear. I again took her back to the vet where he said the crust was mange and that the treatment is a dip once a week for 4 weeks, and that the hair loss on her paws is a fungus. Both of which she likely caught at the shelter since it can take a couple of weeks for symptoms to develop. The treatment for the fungus is these drops I put on her everyday for a week. The hard part is that it takes 10 minutes to dry, it's not easy to keep a dog from licking its paws for 10 minutes after you've put medicine all over it! Tomorrow she goes back for another dip and a second round of shots! We are lucky though, that these are all minor and very treatable conditions and nothing more serious.

I forgot to post these videos from Adam's first game of the season. These are two videos of the marching band...yes, the marching band. The marching bands here at the Historically Black colleges, like Alcorn, are nothing like any of the marching bands I've seen before. I didn't video their opening number, but it was even more crazy than the ones I did get. Here they are below, keep in mind that the people in the yellow uniforms are the Drum Majors, which up north, stand on podiums and direct the band.

There is another video that isn't loading right so I'll add it on a later post.

A couple of the coaches Adam works with came over for dinner last night and to watch the Colts game. It was fun having people over and Daisy was very excited to have new people around. When we first got her, she was scared of people. If people were walking towards us, she would try to run the other direction. We took a week to focus on socializing her with people and other dog and it was worth the effort because now she LOVES people. We have never had people over to the apartment so I wasn't sure how she would react to that, but she was loved having extra people around to pet her. Both Dino and Zach, the coaches, have dogs of their own so they were good first guests for Daisy.

Football and Hurricanes

Adam had his first game of the season last Saturday and his father flew down for the game. I think his dad was a little surprised on the heat and humidity down here! It's hot! Adam's dad, Fred, proved very handy at the pre-game cookout by manning the grill and helping fix the air conditioning (very essential down here). Daisy came to the cookout and was a big hit among the kids (who knew...kids like puppies!)

Adam's team played Southeast Louisiana and the had a couple of chances to win the game, the final score was 34-28 but Adam's team committed a couple of turnover and the other team was able to score 2 touchdowns off those turnovers. They are suppose to play at Grambling State next week. We were waiting to see if the game goes as plan since Grambling was part of the evacuation area of Louisiana.

That brings me to Gustav. We live over 3 hours from the coast, but everyone around here said they got a lot of wind and rain from Katrina and lost power for a nearly a week in some areas. I went to both the grocery stores in town to purchase items for the cookout and it was the most insane scene. I have never gone to a store and seen shelves cleared off, especially in the bottled water area. The checkout lines wove around the store, Managers were up there checking people out.

Then I was wondering if I should be more concerned than I was. The city we live on is on the Mississippi River, but the city sits on cliffs above the river so flooding isn't a major concern (this is why it was such an important city to control during the civil war because you controlled passage on the Mississippi River and you were high up to shoot down enemy boats). I figured maybe they know more than me so I stocked up on items that we would eat anyways such as granola bars, just in case. Now that it looks like Gustav went more towards Texas, we haven't gotten hardly any rain or wind I guess I was prepared for nothing. I guess it's always best to be prepared since you don't really know where the hurricanes are going to go.