Wal-Mart and Kiki the Wonder Dog

How's that for a subject line?

First KiKi the wonder puppy. She is now 11 weeks old and I can confirm that I am completely in love. Like really...like a bond I haven't had with all of our dogs in the past (just Cai, and our weenie dog Ripley). I will sit on the floor rather than our new couch just for the privilege of loving on her!

She's been home for 2 weeks now and has a good understanding of several words and commands. I tried to capture her genius on the above movie but alas, it WAS her first exposure to being videoed and she HAD already been working for a while, so it wasn't her best effort. She knows (or pretty much knows) sit, down, up, wait, outside, Kiki/Kilo, no, come, go to bed, and cookie! She continues to be the easiest puppy ever. She lays under the table or at your feet unless you call her and then is always happy to come and play. She has had a total of 2 pee accidents (no poo accidents), whines to go outside, and barks when she's ready to come inside.

We have to be careful about what is within reach of her kennel, as her genius can get her in a bit of trouble. When she's in there and gets bored she has a weakness for cords (our printer can attest, as the cord was hanging into her kennel), and clothing. This morning I caught her smart self putting her leg out and pulling IN my clothes so that she could "love" on them (with her puppy teeth). Hey--no puppy is perfect, right?!

Wal-Mart: This year I bought most of the boys' fall clothes from Wal-Mart, except that I didn't even go through the bother of going to Wal-Mart. I bought them online. I waited patiently for them to be delivered and eventually got 1 pair of jeans. Where was the rest? My alert was going up. This week I finally checked the online status and found that they were delivered on August 27th, according to UPS. Oh no! It was like $150 worth of stuff--almost ALL of the fall/winter stuff I got for my boys. I called UPS and they said only Wal-Mart could make a claim. I emailed Wal-Mart customer service and they said they'd get back within 24 hours. I felt sick at my stomach all day yesterday because I just knew I had lost the clothes! Why would Wal-Mart believe that they were never delivered when UPS says they were? Our neighborhood is not one where we have to worry about things getting stolen from the porch (seriously), and our neighbors would have let us know if they delivered to their houses.

Then last evening we had a knock on the door and wonder of wonders it was our (college-age) neighbor from across the street, with a big box in his hands! Turns out the box was delivered on the 27th but he assumed it was his brother's, who has a t-shirt company. He just opened it last night and realized they delivered to the wrong address. Thank you Lord!!!! I went to bed really pleased that at least we had our new clothes, and no longer cared what Wal-Mart's response would be.

I got up this morning to 18 emails from Wal-Mart. 18! Guess what? They were individual emails for each of the items that were not delivered--offering a refund. Can you believe that?! There was also an apology email from a rep (with first and last name). I am SO impressed! Of course I wrote them back and told them we no longer needed the refund, but this kind of makes me more of a Wal-Mart fan. I love Target but have a feeling that they wouldn't have extended the same courtesy. So...this is my plug for Wally World. If you decide to give them your online business they're going to take good care of you. ;-)

Hmmm...should this post go down as the most boring ever? These are definitely subjects that matter to me more than anybody else!
Anita