Extra, Extra, Read All About Me!

I was tagged by Team Tabby! They are two of my new Not of My Species Special Friends. I like them because they are very beautiful and puffy-looking and they have fun indoor adventures. This tag is about sharing some interesting information about yourself. I hope you find me as interesting as I do! But first, the rules:

* Link to your tagger and post these rules.
* Write some facts about yourself: some random, some weird, some just plain fun.
* Tag 7 animals at the end of your post and list their names (linking to them).
* Let those 7 animals know they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment at their blogs.
* The challenge is to keep it interesting without making the reader think “Um, too much information…”

1) One of my favorite and most useful hobbies is shredding paper. Mommy and Daddy love it when I do this:

2) I am a very very fast runner. I am always the fastest dog at the little dog park. Even though I had a broken pelvis when I was young. Impressed?

3) I like produce. No, wait. I LOVE produce. Including, but not limited to, asparagus, apples, carrots, pumpkin, tomatoes, and blackberries. Here's me with some pumpkin:

4) I like to sleep under the covers. I only weigh 9 ¼ pounds, but my parents probably need to consider getting a king size bed in the near future because I like to take up a lot of room.

5) I mostly like to play with other chihuahuas at the dog park. I don’t know why. Something is nice about being with my fellow kin.

6) Sometimes people look at me and say “Yo quiero Taco Bell.” I do not think this is funny. If people are going to say this to me, I should at least get to eat there for free. But I don’t. What is up with that? Any insights, Dobby?

7) When I’m in the car I ride in a carseat. Always. I think it is the safe thing to do.

8) I love my sister Clover (even if I am a little scared to walk past her sometimes).

For my last few facts, I will share some information about my sissy Clover. I love her!

9) Clover turns five years old tomorrow! (At least that’s when my parents decided her birthday should be. We’re not really sure.)

10) Clover has a special sleepy meow that she does when she is sleeping or has just woken up. It is very different from her awake meow.

11) Clover grew up in Santa Cruz with a hoarder. That means she lived with a lady who had almost 30 cats. That’s a lot of cats! Then the lady died, and Clover and all of her siblings and cousins had to find new homes. Because of this early traumatic experience, Clover does not really like other people. Only our parents, and Grandma, and Uncle DJ. That’s it. That’s why she doesn’t blog. So sometimes I will say things about her in my blog because she is too shy to speak for herself.

Hmm, I don't know who to tag. Seven is a lot. But I think I would like to know some random facts about ChaChi Lu and Jet, my fellow chihuahua mixes!

Bye for now!
Poppy the Little Blonde Chihuahua

Long Awaited Video & Fun Name Game

Hi! Now that we know how to post video, I promise to post more movies of me doing cute stuff. Here is the one that I promised you long ago of me barking at my very first Frosty Heart:

Don't laugh! It was very frustrating, and I had to tell that heart what was what. And you can ignore Mommy's commentary at the end--I totally knew what to do with it! I just had to have a little chat with it first!

And now here is a fun thing my Mommy found on somebody else's blog. She clicked on "next blog" the other day just to see what would happen, and we saw some poor dog-less person's blog. Not nearly as on-the-edge-0f-your-seat-exciting as my blog, of course, but there was this fun name game. I guess you would call it a Meme?? So I decided to do it, because it made me and Mommy laugh. Here it is:

1. YOUR ROCK STAR NAME: (first pet & current car)
Clover Carseat (Do sisters count as pets? Do carseats count as cars?)
2. YOUR GANGSTER NAME: (favorite ice cream flavor, favorite cookie)
Soygurt Peanutbutter
3. YOUR DETECTIVE NAME: (favorite color, favorite animal)
Orange Peoples
4. YOUR SOAP OPERA NAME: (middle name, city where you were born)
Poopers San Jose (don’t have middle name; using nickname instead)
5. YOUR STAR WARS NAME: (the first 3 letters of your last name, first 2 letters of your first name)
Dwi-Po
6. SUPERHERO NAME: (”The” + 2nd favorite color, favorite drink)
The Yellow Water (that sounds gross somehow)
7. NASCAR NAME: (the first names of your grandfathers)
Ken Dennis
8. STRIPPER NAME: (the name of your favorite perfume/cologne/scent, favorite candy)
Cat Poop Chicken Strips (Do chicken strips count as candy?)
9. WITNESS PROTECTION NAME: (mother’s & father’s middle names )
Garner Lee
10.TV WEATHER ANCHOR NAME: (Your 5th grade teacher’s last name, a major city that starts with the same letter)
What’s 5^th grade?
11. SPY NAME: (your favorite season/holiday, flower)
Summer Poppy
12. CARTOON NAME: (favorite fruit, article of clothing you’re wearing right now + “ie” or “y”)
Blackberry Collary
13. HIPPY NAME: (What you ate for breakfast, your favorite tree)
Crunchy Brown Foods Grass (I like grass better than trees)
14. YOUR ROCKSTAR TOUR NAME: (”The” + Your favorite hobby/craft, favorite weather element + “Tour”)
The Paper-Shredding Sunshine Tour

See, wasn't that fun? Shall I tag someone to play? How about if I tag everyone whose name ends in "y." That should cover a lot of us!

Bye for now!
Poppy Dog

Little Dog, Little Cliff

Look! I went to the beach on Sunday and jumped off a cliff with my Daddy!


And see how I'm off-leash? We got these new treats that I looooooove, and I heard Mommy and Daddy say that all of a sudden I am 10 times smarter than before. I'm smart!

And then I jumped again with my Mommy! We are totally airborne here. She jumped so high her head jumped right out of the top of the picture. Or maybe Daddy just doesn't have the proper camera skills for this activity.

Weeeeee! When can we do it again???!!!

Bye for now,
Poppy the High Flying Cliff Jumper

video test

oh my gosh, Mommy finally figured out how to do video hooray hooray!!!!!!!!! This is me doing the agility course at Bark in the Park.

I Barked in the Park

Hi everyone!

On Saturday I went to Bark in the Park. Although the title of my post is misleading...I didn't bark once! I'm a quiet dog, most of the time. But anyway, back to Bark in the Park. There were soooooo many dogs there that it was a little overwhelming, especially for a small Poo like me. So I convinced Mommy to carry me quite a bit. There were lots of dogs there in strollers, which made me think of Daisy. Maybe I will have to bring a stroller next time too. There were also weird dogs who looked like this, who made me think of Bob Marley:

We walked all around the edge of the park and checked out all the people selling things. This is where we got my Howloween costume last year. We didn't buy anything this year, unfortunately. Mommy was very tempted by this couch though:

Mom and Dad said that one was just my size...

but I thought THIS one provided much more room to stretch out:

After we perused all the vendors, we went to the agility ring! Yippie, my favorite!!! It's not real Major League agility--everybody gets to try it! First, I led Mommy around the flags:

Next, I showed her how to jump over the high-bar. Wee, look how I can jump!

And then I went over the tubes! (Mommy was lazy and went around the edge.) There were lots of them all in a row, each one bigger than the last, and I conquered them all! And I did it so fast I’m a blur:

After we finished, we did it again! This time it was my turn to lead Daddy through. Here I am mid-spin:

Then it was back to the jump. This jump has a high degree of difficulty, so I had to go first to show Daddy how to do it. Look at me fly!!! (That little girl was the official bar lifter/lowerer.)

Okay, Daddy, now it’s your turn. C’mon, you can do it!

One of the scariest events in agility is the teeter totter. Yes, it has a childish name, but this is not child’s play. When you only weigh 9 ¼ pounds, you have to walk all the way out to the END of the ramp before it bangs down to the ground! Ooh, it’s scary! But I did it better than last year. Look:

After we did the agility course, Mommy and Daddy were tempted to go back to a booth we had seen earlier where they were selling agility equipment sets for little dogs like me. But we didn’t. Maybe next year!

Bye for now,
Poppy the Agility Champion

An Outing Without Poppy???

I have had a slow week. My Tahoe adventure tired me out lots, and then last weekend we went to a big pet fair in Marin. No pictures though. I have spent this week resting in preparation for Bark in the Park on Saturday. Woopee!!! Last year I did the agility course and it was so fun! I hope they have it again this year.

So, to prove how slow of a week I have had, here is a picture of something my parents did without me. Not only did they do something without me, they did something with ANOTHER DOG!!! Yes, they cheated on me!!! They went kite-flying with my cousin Sivan. I don't go over to their house anymore because Sivan likes to eat me. So they left me at home! Here are the pictures to prove it:
Uncle Ben flew the kite so high it went higher than the moon! And Sivan was a Very Bad Dog and tried to eat the kite every time it came down low enough. Daddy had to stand under the kite and be its bodyguard to protect it from Sivan's ravaging jaws.

Here she is giving us the evil eye. Maybe she caught this disease from Wally.

She was so worked up that after less than an hour of kite flying she was all foamy around the mouth. She sprayed it everywhere, including on her own face.

Come to think of it, it's probably better that I wasn't there!

Bye for now!
Poppy the Little Blonde Chihuahua (huahuahua)

Three Very Important Topics

Oh, I have so much to talk about today! First, I have to tell you all about my weekend. We went to Lake Tahoe! We drove a super-long way, and I was very good in my carseat the whole time.

We took lots of pee break stops and I got to leave pee mail everywhere along the way. When we got there we took a short walk in the forest and I had to pee some more to claim the area as my own.

The next day we went on a never-ending-hike to Lake Margaret. I walked almost the whole way there all by myself! I only had to be carried over the really rocky parts. Everyone who saw me commented on how cute I was and how I was the littlest dog they had ever seen on the trail. Here I am jumping over a big log and showing how athletic I am:

When we got to the lake I was very tired, so I took a little nap in Daddy’s lap. On the hike back to the car I was pretty beat, so Mommy carried me part of the way in my special backpack. When we crossed this fallen tree bridge I took the opportunity to look closely at the water for any fish that might be hiding in there (you should embiggen this one for full cuteness effect) :

On the way back we stopped at a little stream and we all dipped our feet in to cool off—even me, and I hate water! This is a shadow picture of all of us at the little stream:

All in all, the hike was five miles, round-trip. And I walked most of the way all by myself! I told you I was a trail dog!

When we got home from our long weekend, I was catching up with my doggy friends’ blogs, and I saw that Dobby gave me an award! Because he loves my blog! Gee, that is super cool! Here is my special award from my special chihuahua pal:

I believe I am meant to pass this award along to other worthy bloggy doggies. Eek, however will I choose?! I think I will pick Tadpole, because he is super cute, has very well-placed freckles, and he always makes me smile. Hooray Tad!

And then on Lorenza’s blog, I saw that she tagged me to tell about my first day with my parents. It was about two years ago, in June of 2005, but I still remember it because it was such a relief to get there. Listen, I’ll tell you all about it:

I started my life somewhere in northern California. I was found as a poor little stray puppy and turned in to a shelter in San Jose. It turned out that not only was I lost, but I had a broken pelvis too! They called me “Bella” (but I knew that wasn't my real name) and took some x-ray pictures of my pelvis. You could see all the little bones in my tail—neat! But what wasn’t so neat was that my pelvis was pretty much shattered. Nobody came to adopt me or claim me, and soon I was transferred to another shelter in Santa Clara. Again, nobody adopted me, so I was transferred again to the Santa Cruz SPCA. That’s where my Mommy found me! She was the shelter’s education director at the time, and she fell in love with me right away! She called Daddy and said, “Um, how would you feel about fostering a puppy with a broken pelvis for just one night?” Daddy responded, “Are you crazy?! You want to bring home a puppy and then take her back the next day?!” But no, Mommy was just trying to be sly. She always knew she wanted to keep me—she was just trying to easy Daddy into the idea. It turned out he didn’t need any convincing.

That night when we got home I was curled up into a ball on the floor in between Mommy and Daddy, and Daddy said, “I never knew I could love a chihuahua so much.” They knew they wanted to keep me. And that, pretty much, was that. I was so happy to be out of a cage and into a lap. They were going camping that weekend (plans made before me, and not an appropriate outing for a pre-shots puppy with a broken pelvis), so I had to spend the next night with one of Mommy’s very nice co-workers. But Mommy and Daddy missed me so much that they cut their camping trip short and came to pick me up early! While they were hiking on their short-lived camping trip, they came up with the name Poppy. It’s the state flower of California, you know! And one of my Mommy’s favorites!

This is one of their favorite early pictures of me. They said I looked just like a baby deer:

I spent the next couple of months being carried around while my pelvis was healing. Crate rest shmate rest, I say. Being held all the time is the way to go! Here I am, so happy to be in my forever home with my forever family:

And here is a picture of me with my sissy Clover from that first summer. I am waiting patiently for her to finish her wet treats so that I can clean off her plate. I have always been very helpful:

Here is one last picture of me from two summers later (ie, this summer!) so you can see how big I have gotten:

What? You don’t think I have gotten any bigger? Well...I have! I was only four pounds and one ounce when I came to the shelter. Now I am nine and a quarter whole pounds!

I hope everydog had a very nice howliday weekend. I sure did!

Bye for now,
Poppy