things he is good at

The best foot-warmer, in winter. Two services he provides: 1 ticking your cold feet, some guests of ours do not like it, because that made them giggle more than anything else. 2  under his warm stomach is a good place for your cold feet to stay, if he doesn't object. Sometimes if my feet was too cold, he would go away after I attempted to do that a few times to him. :) Option 1 seems to be the service he is more willing to provide.

A good nap companion, a warm pillow, sometimes bites.

A funny Yoga companion. He tries to climb on to your body whenever the chance strikes. It's especially funny if you are in the "Cobra" pose ...

dont blame me, it's the dog

it's not because I forgot to close the door, he knows how to open a closed door now.
it's not because I forgot to fill his empty container with food and water first thing in the morning, he chose to drag the puppy chow bag out from the cabinet, tear the bag into piece, leaving the chow all over the floor, from kitchen to living room. It's not because he was hungry so to seek out food, he did have food this time, he just wanted to mess things up.

egh!!!

A golden-fish

Neighbor's lawn is always greener.
Food from Mum's bowl is always sweeter, even it's carrot.
He ate with me a full bowl of baby carrots.
5 minutes later, some funny sound came from his body, his stomach, his neck, his mouth.
3 seconds later, the bowl of carrots came out from his mouth, on to the sofa.
Here goes the healthy food. His stomach betrays his seemingly good choice on food.

ups and downs

Hikes done: three times

Pulgas Ridge Open space preserve (http://www.bahiker.com/southbayhikes/pulgas.html):
TWICE. 2.2 miles. He didn't sweat a bit, "too short, too easy". How did I know? He still had energy to hassle the driver on our way home.

Santa Teresa Park: last weekend. Humans had a lot of sweat, especially an old lady like me. Cartman: no sweat, but was over the top any way, he got chance to run off the leash between trees and a small grass field full of mushrooms. Don't worry, he can tell, he didn't bite any mushroom and acting as if he knew it would be poisonous. Grasses, rotten woods, sometimes cattle's residues were more his interests.

Garden wrecked: three times

The first time: Ate the plants with sweet leaves. Digged two big holes on the ground. Broke or attempted to eat a few flower pots. Ate dirt, a lot of them, which happened to be newly mixed with chicken manure.  (note: I just invested a few weekends on the garden since the rain season is coming, efforts include layering all garden ground with wood muss and the organic fertilizer, ie. the chicken manure.) What a miracle he didn't get sick, only vomited his food a few times afterwards.
The second time: digged open the same hole which I tried to cover up, again.
The third time: an old story, went straight to the same hole again, made it further, since I didn't try to cover it up last time.

Now: I gave up my garden to Cartman: GO AHEAD, NO WORRIES, THE HOLES WOULD ALWAYS BE THERE.
"No more fertilizers in the future, especially forbid using chemicals", nan suggested, so to make it safer to chew. ...That's how a man weights between an animal and plants who do not have legs...  My plants object, or not? They rarely got "feeding" treatment any way, and usually the "feeding"s were off the mark, like this year, the rose bush keeps growing branches and stopped blossoming after 3 pink flowers, one of them went straight to the tiny vase on our table and lasted 3 days, the reason: I was not suppose to feed them during winter time, if did, they will focus on growing leaves and branches instead of flowers...

Overall health and well being: great
He is one of very hopefuls of becoming a obese Bichon, like reaching 27 pounds. He is 22 pound now, and he is only 10 months. An normal size adult Bichion suppose to weight around 22 pounds. As this told by an old lady who had a 27 pound Bichon before.