Tag Archives: doggy

Quiet Day

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We’re kinda hanging in the family room, Crash, Kelly and I. We’re watching Family Feud on TV, the Porter family are playing the final game. Oop, they just lost, getting 159 points (needed 200 to get $20,000).

I’m also talking to a friend who has a DVD of photos of his son, from newborn through the first year that he is trying to recover. It isn’t going well.

Kelly just moved to the other chair beside Crash, and he started trying to chew the blanket she’s wearing to keep warm. She’s not doing too well, has a sore throat. She really enjoys the look on his face when she pats him on the nose with a rope toy and hums a tune. We’re working especially to train him out of mouthing/biting people, and we’ll also be working in the next few days training him to not jump up on people when he’s excited (or at all, really).

Just took him out to ‘potty’ and he peed, but hasn’t pooped for a while. Now he’s kinda ignoring lunch in favour of laying beside the chair and licking himself. So far he has acquired at least 6 names or variations on names, all of them in the first 3 days. Crash, Chase, Crush, Crash Taylor, Chuck, Trash.. as well as the obvious ones like Pup and Puppy.

I’ve given myself a coding project for the afternoon, after I retrieve the power pack for the macbook. It’ll be a whois and status facility for UCCN, which will begin our web-integration with IRC. The first will be a web form that queries whether a nickname is online, and if so returns normal public information about them (their hidden host name, public channels, etc). The second will be a status image that returns ‘online’ or ‘offline’ depending on whether the user is online or not (duh..). Both will be dependent on the SQL database from Denora, and will probably also utilize the SQL database from Anope for Nickserv aliases/groups. It will detect if someone is online but not using their primary nickname.

I also need to work on the web interface for Supportive, and will be developing an improved version of the java.php @ www.unitedchristianchat.net/java/java.php, both in look and in function.

So, I shall stop blogging nothingness and go get my power pack!

Day 4

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We got him Friday, today is Monday, and what a weekend we have had! The first night he didn’t have a crate so was wandering free in our room, and we were awake every two hours whenever he whined or made noise. He also peed on newspaper, which was OK.

Saturday we got a crate, (thanks Dawndrea!) and he was in and out of it most of the day being locked in and such. He still whined all night and we got little sleep again.

Sunday went well, we got up early anyway as there was a sunrise service at church followed by breakfast (thanks Debi and John!), and so we fed him before church, and then came back and pooped him after feeding Azule and checking on Peanut Butter (a dog and a sheep we have been petsitting for this weekend, along with a cat whose name I do not know).

He got to run around with his cousin Bella, as well as eating a big bowl of sloppy joe that we hadn’t finished at lunch. Dawndrea also called to tell us that she’d looked at Crash’s paperwork and thinks he’s more than likely purebred retriever, as his mother is a retriever and she and her three puppies that went to the SPCA were all from a breeder.

Today he’s been out and about a bit more, I let him loose in the back yard for a bit and had him chasing a tennis ball around, and we also let him off leash while we did dishes in the kitchen (after closing doors and blocking the door-less doorway to the living room). Now he’s asleep in his crate again, and we’re planning to give him dinner and then put him in the car and drive to the park (he’d never walk that far, aside from getting tired we have to pick him up by the harness and ‘make him’ walk because he just flops down and won’t move inside or outside or anywhere he needs to be.

We did have a call from the SPCA today warning us about a potential illness he could have, called entropion. Quoting Wikipedia, “Entropion is a medical condition in which the eyelids fold inward. It is very uncomfortable, as the eyelashes rub against the cornea constantly.”

Basically it will be confirmed at his checkup (which will be free aside from shots) this week, and if he does have it it can be fixed when he’s neutered in June. Kelly suspects he may be OK, as she noticed the eyes of Crash’s brothers were watering and not as healthy looking as his were, I suppose we’ll find out for sure in a few days.

Crash

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It’s been 24 hours now since we gained the latest addition to our family.

His name: Crash

His age: 10 weeks

His weight: 20 lbs.

He’s a Golden Retriever mixed with something unknown, we picked him out at the SPCA yesterday. He keeps becoming true to his name: particularly when steps or running are involved. He seems to be really good at falling down steps, and likes trying to run between peoples legs when running in the yard. We worked on teaching him “sit” today, as well as beginning work on not biting which he has been doing a lot. Right now he is out in the yard on the leash with Kelly, running around with his “cousin” Bella, Katie’s dog. They played a little at Katie’s house yesterday, and Bella was running circles around Crash, and he’d kinda wobble after her.

So far the cats are keeping their distances, Peel is definately getting the closest out of the three. Kreamer and Emma are just kinda there, and get very hissy when he runs after them.

I’m gonna go out and hang out with them for a while before we come back in for dinner!

For those interested, photos and videos: Here

Preparations

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There are a few words I’ve been struggling to spell recently… Preparation (I keep wanting to type Preperation) and Definitely (I keep wanting to type Definately). Anyway..

We bought dog stuff today. A green food/water bowl, a 5ft blue leash, a rope toy, 3 green tennis balls in a can, 2 rawhide things, a bag of treats and a bag of “Purina Puppy Chow.”

We decided to wait to get a collar because we need to match it to the dog for size (and personality, apparently). We still need to get an outdoor stake and lead, we’ll need a crate, and we’ll also probably need a bed too.

In fact, the only thing we’re really missing at this point is a puppy to use it all.

All the stuff we got for it today cost us less than $20, and I’m particularly pleased. I was expecting supplies and such to cost at least $70-80, and that dog food would be more expensive than it is. Essentially it’ll probably cost us about $20 every 2-4 weeks, which isn’t really that bad at all.

That being the case, we’ll probably have one within the next week!

What’s In a Name?

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For the longest time I’ve wanted a puppy. I dreamed of having a yellow or black lab, both a little puppy being cute around the house and a full-grown beast running around a yard playing fetch. Kelly and I would ponder pets names, and we’d think what names would be good, bad, funny, cute, whatever.

Fearless Dave (aka her dad) gave the approval for us to get a dog today, so I’ve been looking around online at the SPCA shelters and other adoption places for yellow lab puppies, and also a little for black lab puppies (I’ll take a black lab if it’s “the one”, but would prefer a yellow lab).

The weird part is that after all this, I can’t imagine what I would name a puppy. I guess it doesn’t matter a lot, most puppies are named by their breeders/rescuers, and if it’s a good name I can keep it and run with it. But if not, none of the names we thought of seem as good anymore. Optimus Prime still stands out, but it needs to be the right dog..

I Can Has Puppy?

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I guess as selfish beings, whenever we see something we like we in turn want one of our own.

Meet Bella. Bella is a 4 month old purebred beagle, which my sister-in-law and her husband rescued from a trip to the pound on Saturday.

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She’s pretty awesome, and is learning basic commands like ‘sit’, ‘come’, ‘lay down’, etc. We had her running around in the big yard yesterday on a 30 foot lead (and I took her on a run around the house with her leash). Fun to chase (and be chased by), as well as wrestling with her weird purple Giraffe/Lion soft toy thing.

All in all, Bella is pretty awesome. What I really want, though, is a Yellow Lab.

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I don’t know this puppies name, I found the picture on a breeders site, but that is what I want ;-).

In other news, I feel a can of fly spray would be an excellent investment. There are 3 or 4 that won’t leave us alone (despite not working hard and regular showers :-P).

I also lost almost all my hair yesterday, in celebration of a year in the US (it wasn’t supposed to be for a couple of weeks, but for some reason we did it early…).

Photos, before:

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And after:

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Puppy Makes Me Sad

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I posted the other day about the chickens two houses down, that we are taking care of while the owners are on holiday. They were OK yesterday, except for ONE that wouldn’t go in the chickenhouse, and we were about 30 seconds away from just leaving it outside for a few hours in the dark (or overnight) when it ran in. The white one with the brown feather is out, yet again, today, this time in a really hard-to-get-to spot, that somewhat proves she is flying out.

Anyway, the chickens are not the reason for this posting, nor are the fish we feed, or the plants. The reason for this posting is a poor Beagle that is on about a 20 foot leash tied to a tree, with a kennel and lots of grass to run on (and food, I’m assuming). The saddest part is that his lead restricts him to a specific distance from the tree, and he’s drawn part of a circle in the grass where he keeps running back and forth at the end of the leash. He also gives the saddest looks and cries when we leave, even though we barely interact with him.

Yes, I know it’s a he, as he is clearly un-neutered 😉

Now, in general I’m not a huge fan of beagles, I usually have little respect for anything smaller than a smallish lab, though the beagle is definitely too large to punt over a fence, therefore it still fits in my categorization of “dog.”

For the last couple of days I’ve been afraid to get too close in case he wasn’t as friendly as he seems, but today I got close enough to pet him and rub around his ears and he loved every second of it. It’s just a further reminder that when we do get animals, dogs especially, that I need to pay it as much positive attention as possible so that it doesn’t need some random neighborhood kids loving it for me because I couldn’t be bothered.

He’s so cute though, it makes me sad seeing him looking so sad, and hearing him cry like he does. I might take the camera over tonight when we put the chickens away and take photos of him, just to prove he exists and how sad he looks!