Me and Tika at home

I know, I know. It has been DAYS since you last heard from me, and you are worried about how I handled the road trip and what we found at home in AZ.

I did mention that I have a "niece" named Tika who is a 5 month old Jack Russell Terrier, didn't I? Well, upon safe arrival in AZ, she was the first face I saw at my new home. Let me tell you, I recognized right away that I was going to have some work to do with this young lady.

I have been so busy keeping her in line that I have not had time to write on my blog. First, I had to establish my dominance. I did this by fierce growling and yipping, and also by pinning her to the floor while chewing on her neck.

My muzzer was sooooo upset with us. Dad and Elizabeth were cool, and they convinced muzzer to go sit in a quiet room and let us work through it.

Wow...after a couple of days we are fast friends. We play together and wrestle all the time. We both sleep on the parental bed until Elizabeth comes home, then Tika switches to sleep with her. We go for walks, though she is not nearly as well behaved as I am. We fight over who gots the best chew stick. We wrestle for my favorite tug toy. We play tug with her stuffed animals. (Score = Terriers 3 Animals 0) We share water dishes. She tries to eat my food. I try to get more treats than she does. I have my muzzer convinced that Tika is eating my food, so muzzer slips me treats from my private stash.

These are pictures we took this morning as we played with the tug. She is not really a devil dog like the last picture in the group shows her. That is muzzer not knowing how to keep flash eye from happening with this camera.

It is very hot here. I drink a lot more water. I am glad there is lots of tile in this house so I can have my belly cool. I am glad the parental units sprang for a king sized bed (we used to have a queen sized bed in VA, but Emily took it away?) since that means much more room for me! I miss my friends in VA and my sister Emily and my friend Garth from Asheville. I will try to be more regular about these blogs now that I have Tika mostly trained.

PS...She is not "quite" toilet trained, so I have a lot of work to do!

Gus