11 Weeks...My How Time Flies

Can I Help...can I...Huh...Huh?

Escher is 11 almost 12 weeks and his pure and simple joy! I had forgotten what an uplifting experience raising a puppy could be. I waited quite a while for Escher. And now he's here and he has added so much joy and purpose to my life. We will start puppy kindergarten tonight. We had a bit of a delay because he had to get over a little puppy illness. He's 100% now and we are off to Pup 'N' Iron tonight. Since we are getting a bit of a late start with classes, I made sure to get him out and about to experience life.

We've been working on meeting tons of people, going to the school yard, Petco and Petsmart as well

Escher at the playground working on the sit.

as our local feed store. This weekend we will make another trip to the vet as well as a visit to his eventual groomer. He's watched the fire engines from the school yard and heard the sirens, he's played with children from 2-100 and is meeting the neighborhood dogs. He's nailed sit, is learning his name and mostly has the potty stuff under control. All the other stuff will happen.

Escher is already ahead of the game because his temperament is awesome and he is healthy! He's a

Ready to practice retrieving skills.

pleaser that is not only food motivated, but toy motivated as well. This excites me and makes my job easier with training, because if I run out of treats he'll work for the toy! 

Unit next time! 

Linda

HW420-Unit 10 Reflection

For this final post to my Health and Wellness class I am to review my Unit 3 personal assessment which you may read here. 

I rated myself an 8 for physical and wanted to increase time spent exercising, while I was unable to increase daily time I was able to add an extra day of yoga. I still rate myself a 9 spiritually and probably always will as there is always room for improvement. I’ve added a bit of service in that I applied to volunteer a few hours at our local animal shelter. I am working on adding an additional 10 minutes to my morning and evening meditation routines. I still rate my psychological well-being a 9 because I rarely stress or sweat the small things. I have good relationships with family and I believe that my spiritual success spills over into my psychological part of life. My scores haven’t changed but I am making progress if only in the aspect that I have broadened my knowledge on my holistic health.

I am making progress towards goals. I have successfully added five minutes to my evening meditation but I still am working on the morning goal. I met my goal of adding a day of exercise and it feels good to have accomplished that goal. I will find a way to be of service, it’s will be a matter of finding the passion.

I do think my well-being has improved. I enjoyed learning new things and retrying meditations I had tried in the past. While I don’t feel they are a good fit for me I have adapted some of the practices to further improve my current meditation practices. I definitely believe this class will be important in my professional life because it has shown me that the different ways that I may help people become comfortable with meditation and leading a whole life inside and out.

Linda

HW420-Unit 9 Final Project

Introduction

              It is important for a health and wellness professional to develop themselves psychologically, physically and spiritually so that they better understand what their clients/patients challenges are and to be able to say they’ve walked the walked. As a health and wellness professional we need to be able to make suggestions not only based on what we might have tried personally but through our continuing education.

              Personally, I need to develop more in the psychological and physical areas. The goals that I have are to get stronger physically and mentally. Physically I want to increase my endurance as well as maintain my cholesterol levels and my blood pressure. Psychologically I want to learn how to ask for help. I have a tendency to do whatever needs to be done myself even if it means not getting in time to exercise. If I learned to ask for help I could let go of some of the stress that follows doing everything myself.

Assessment

              I assess my physical health with tests like the sit and reach, the Rockport Walk Test, push up tests and others that will measure my muscle strength. I score my physical wellness an 8 and believe it will get better if I increase the time I spend exercising. Spiritually I assess myself on how I am feeling and whether or not I am living the principles of the Tao. The closer I follow the principle the better I feel. I would score myself a 9 out of 10 for my spiritual wellbeing. Psychologically I assess myself based on how I am feeling spiritually and physically. If I am feeling no stress and healthy then my mental wellbeing is usually fine. Psychologically I would rate myself an 8 to 8.5

Goal Development

              A goal I have for my physical well-being is to increase my endurance and maintain the medical improvements I have made in regard to my cholesterol and regulating my blood pressure. For my mental health I would like to increase my meditation time from 20 minutes to 30 minutes. Learning to forgive mistakes I and others make more easily is what I would like to work on spiritually.

Practices for Personal Health

              The strategies I could implement to realize my goals would be to schedule additional time for exercise each or add a sixth day to my program and I could add new types of exercises that I typically might not try to enhance my physical being. Spiritually I could increase service to others whether through an organization or just by helping someone when they need it. I could also try to find a group to meditate with to increase my awareness of the world around me. Psychologically or mentally I could increase my meditation times to help aid in stress reduction and I could also add more yoga time to my routine to help calm my mind and body for my meditation.

Commitment

              To assess my progress or lack of progress I could keep a daily journal. By doing this I would have a visual of how I am working on developing my new habits. Journaling will be helpful to track my feelings mentally and spiritually. The physical aspect can be tracked by whether my clothing is getting looser and by preforming the tests I mentioned earlier like the Rockport Walk Test. To continue to hold myself accountable to my goals beyond six months I could develop a support system of people who are in the same position as myself and people who are beyond my development. Each of these groups can help keep me motivated to continue while at the same time provide a social outlet that will enhance all the aspects of my whole well-being.

             

Introducing...Escher!

Young M. C. Escher

Finally, he has a name! I decided on Escher despite loving the name Lyric. Lyric was a bit to feminine and he's becoming quite a rough and tumble boy as he relaxes. He's also quite the thinker. So I think Escher fits well and I love that I have not heard of any other dogs with that name.

We've jumped right into training and he's really getting the hang of sit and so far potty training has gone extremely well. Four days in and no accidents. He still misses his litter mates quite a bit and will whine, but it has lessened. He's extremely social so being confined to the X-Pen doesn't help, but with daycare children and daily life I need some piece of mind when I am unable to watch him. He also has a crate which he is transitioning to easily enough.

Friday he will make his first trip to our vet. This should be fun as I will be

Josie chillin' in the winter sun.

taking Josie for her annual check-up. Josie is not very happy right now. Or at least she doesn't appear so. Josie is 10 and probably thought her twilight years would be quieter. I think once we are able to get outside on a regular basis and Escher gets more training under his collar things will be fine. For right now I know she is content viewing from behind the X-Pen bars.

Unitl next time!
Linda

Welcome to the Family!

For the last 8 weeks I have anticipated the arrival of my new puppy like a six-year-old waiting for Santa and Christmas morning. My daughter’s think I have lost it and I probably have but who wouldn’t with a puppy like this. 

Wyatt Earp

My husband drove me 3 ½ hours to pick him up from the breeder. To say I was smitten when I first saw him is an understatement! I fell head over heels in love! I have been waiting for him since my Monster Puppy Wyatt passed over the Rainbow Bridge. As far as I can tell this little big puppy is the exact opposite of Wyatt. No puppy could ever replace him, but this little guy sure fills a void in my heart.

Waiting for his name.

He’s been with me less than 24 hours and I have yet to bestow a name upon him. I’m sure he could care less what he’s named as long as I feed, love and train him. But since I am human and it’s in our nature to name everything I am flip flopping between two names. Naming my daughter’s was easier than this. These are the names I am thinking of bestowing upon him.

Lyric for my love of music and because when I sang in the car on the way home it seemed to soothe him. I also have a love of art, one artist in particular M. C. Escher. I am hoping that I will have a decision soon.

More puppy love soon!

Linda