happy halloween!

Happy Halloween from the castaways! (This is from our first Halloween with Ginger, two years ago.  I was so excited to costume her that I actually sewed her dress myself.  Though, she was a bit chestier than I accounted for, hehe.)

P.S. Aside from this moment of weakness, I don't embarrass my dog by dressing her up. ;)

Ginger the Movie Star

I'm ready for my close-up

3 goofy castaways - Mary Ann, The Professor & Ginger

weeble wobble follow-up

Playtime has gotten much more exciting since the introduction of the Kong Wobbler.  Though I have come to discover a few minor issues with it.  WIth Ginger's tricky treat ball, she knows when to stop playing with it because no more rattling = no more treats.  The wobbler, however, is weighted on one end with sand so it makes noise when the toy's batted around, whether or not there are treats inside.  Ginger can't tell when the treats are spent so she just continues to play with it.  And then she gets upset that she can't get any more treats out so she starts making frustrated puppy grunts and growls.  I guess this will have to be an adult-supervised toy so we can put it away before she has a conniption fit.

The other issue?  The massive amount of slobber deposited on the toy when Ginger is having said conniption fit.  At least the wobbler is washable!

weebles wobble but they don't fall down

This was supposed to be Ginger's Christmas gift, but I couldn't resist busting out a shiny new toy last night.  Since she's long since mastered the Tricky Treat Ball (the large one), I thought our food-motivated pup could use a new challenge.  The Kong Wobbler!  I didn't realize it was so large - it's as big as her head!  I thought maybe Ginger wouldn't like it because large objects tend to scare her.  She'll skulk away timidly from even a balloon rolling around on the floor.  But once she realized that treats magically appeared from the toy, she was definitely interested.  She didn't quite figure it out the first time though:

"Can you hit it again please?  I need another treat."

 

Pouting will get you nowhere. Gotta figure it out for yourself!

And then today she had a breakthrough.  I hit it a few times to dispense a treat for her and then went to the kitchen to make my lunch.  Soon enough, I heard the clacking of her nails batting it around, so I peeked in the bedroom to catch her in action.  Got her on video a little later too.

Since Ginger doesn't play fetch (i.e. we still haven't taught her), these puzzle toys are gold for doggie boredom.  Maybe we'll teach her to fetch as her Christmas gift, since I'm no good at hanging onto toys!

corgi speak

Well, I managed to capture a few bits of Ginger doing her corgi-talk.  Most of the time she just looks at me and the camera suspiciously, but I caught her off-guard a few times, when she just couldn't contain her excitement.  (Yes, she does act more excited than this sometimes, but overall she's a pretty laid-back pup.) Do all corgis talk like this?

Anticipating her breakfast:

And anticipating her walk while I put my shoes on:

bark master

I wish I could record all of Ginger's cute noises on video, but it's difficult to catch her in the act.  Sometimes it sounds like she's going to start talking like a human.  It's kind of freaky.  Here's a plain ol' barking video - you can see she uses her whole body to power those loud barks!