Oh My Dog!

Gentle giant Harper

The average dog has one request to all mankind; love me.
– Helen Exley

The past couple of weeks flew by with Harper and Bella hanging out with Emmett and Lucas. For our visitors, it wasn’t easy, getting used to new people, new dogs, a new house, and a new routine, but they have really shined this past week. Harper and Emmett are a lot alike: food motivated, sleepy pups with spurts of playfulness. Lucas and Bella are a lot alike: scared of new things and would rather feel comfortable and secure than take a treat. Harper talks a lot, and he has an incredibly deep James Earl Jones voice, which is hilarious.

He follows me everywhere, even if it’s from the sofa to the kitchen and back again. Bella burst out of her shell the past few days, wagging her tail, playing, and being very silly. In fact, this morning, she mimicked Lucas who, every single morning, rests his face next to my face on my pillow to wake me up. This morning I woke up to Lucas and Bella who was craning her neck as high as she could to rest her nose on my pillow, next to Lucas’ nose. Too cute. Overall they’ve been having so much fun, and the dynamic between the four allows those dogs who want to play endless opportunities and those dogs who want to sleep can sneak off and take a snooze. They might be going home tomorrow or they might be going home on Sunday, but either way they will be missed.

Bella next to my desk, like a bearskin rug.

My little dog, a heartbeat at my feet.
– Edith Wharton

Who me?

Over the summer, a woman in our neighborhood organized a pick-up volleyball game in the park. We went in an attempt to meet more neighbors. Within minutes we realized everyone (and I mean everyone) already knew who we were. “Ooooh,” they’d say. “You live in the red house. Say, what kind of dog do you have in there?” Hmmmm. We knew Lucas barked a lot – at the mailman, the UPS guy, the neighborhood maintenance people – and we know he goes berserk whenever someone comes to our door. I worked on it passively, really only addressing the situation when I happened to be in the same room when he started in. However. Finding out that everyone in the neighborhood knew exactly who we were due to his barking… well, that upped the ante. Then today, I saw the perfect motivation on That Mutt: a 30-day challenge.

So I’m laying it out here, so I have the internet to hold me accountable! Here are my two goals: First, by the end of the month, Lucas will go to his “place” after the doorbell rings. Second, I will retrain the “enough” command so that when he does bark at the mailman, UPS guy, neighbor’s dog, other neighbor getting her mail, etc., I will have a tool to get him to stop! So, to achieve those two goals, for the month of October, I will work with Lucas for 20 minutes every day – probably in two 10-minute increments. And I’ll keep you posted on the progress!

A few other updates:

1. Great news! Emmett had his first leg check last Friday. My stomach was in knots the entire drive to the vet’s office. Our amazing vet examined his leg, checked him over for anything else suspicious, and gave him a thumbs up! No new bumps, nothing unusual at the suture site. I struggled to keep from bursting into tears of utter relief. Next step: Leg check on October 16, then  his lung x-rays in November.

2. Last week, when Harper and Bella arrived, Bella eyeballed us pretty suspiciously. Slowly, though, she’s warmed up. It started with a tail wag, then she’d come over to get patted, then she started playing with Lucas, and last night she picked up a toy and played for about 10 seconds. All great strides! I think she’s starting to feel comfortable with the routine, she and Lucas have come to a truce – all in time for her people to pick her up on Thursday! The only setback? She’s terrified of our toaster. The second the piece of toast pops up, she high-tails it upstairs. It’s sort of funny, actually…

3. I have, once again, changed the design of the blog. I’m finally happy with it, though I need to update the left-side including updates to the blogroll with a few more awesome dog blogs I’ve come across. While I get that updated, if you have any suggestions for others to check out, please let me know!

Harper and Bella have been here one week today, and I think they’ve assimilated themselves into our little pack. At first they clearly missed their people – Bella in particular hung out by the front door, waiting for them to come back. Now, though, they’re doing great and have become accustomed to our routines and rules. Harper is a great mix of Emmett and Lucas; he loves to sleep most of the day away in the office with Emmett while I work, but  he can wrestle Lucas to the ground in the evening. Bella and Lucas got off to a rocky start. I think they just weren’t sure about each other because they both have some of the same jumpy/defensive tendencies. One week in and they’ve formed a sort-of truce where they ignore each other if Emmett and Lucas are around and play together when they’re alone.

For their part, Emmett and Lucas have behaved wonderfully since Harper and Bella came. I think they’ll really miss their pals when they leave on Thursday.

Emmett, Harper, and Bella, dozing away.

Harper, Emmett, and Lucas enjoy the beautiful fall weather.

We have a new look over here at Oh My Dog! Though it’s not a specifically dog-oriented theme, I thought the vibrant orange and white captured Emmett’s and Lucas’ personalities quite well.

For the next couple of weeks, we’re dog sitting Harper and Bella while their people run off to get hitched in Hawaii!  Right now my older gentlemen, Emmett and Harper, are dozing away next to my desk.

My old men

Lucas and Bella are downstairs guarding the house, a responsibility that both of them take very seriously! More pictures are definitely forthcoming!

Awesome, awesome video! Love the music, love the lyrics, love the adorable pitties!

Post-opp: Lucas watches over Emmett

I realized today that after weeks of writing about nothing other than the cancer situation with Emmett, I failed to post the results. The surgery to remove the lump on his leg was successful. The oncologist called us an excruciating week after the surgery to let us know that all went well. The margins came back clear, though shallow. Our next step is to have a monthly check of his leg – if they left any malignant cells, they will grow back with a vengeance they say – starting around September 19. In addition to the monthly checks, we will have lung x-rays done every three months for the next year to track those suspicious nodes. The radiologist told us he’d be surprised if those nodes were the cancer, that they looked more like normal mineralization of lung tissue or a fungus, both totally benign diagnoses.

While this is all very positive, we have a giant black cancer-cloud following us around, trailing behind and over Emmett. This next year is going to be fraught with the constant fear of recurrence. But, for now, I am eternally grateful for the most supportive friends and family, for the specialist who was confident enough to save his leg, and mostly for Emmett’s wonderful, charming spirit that just pours out of his little soul every single day.

Oh, and I’ve gotten all crazy about their food, mixing up all sorts of belabored concoctions (think steamed carrots and broccoli, canned pumpkin, canned grain-free beef and liver, green beans, etc.) to strengthen his immune system and stuff him full of antioxidants.  An added bonus? He’s actually dropped those few extra pesky pounds our vet pointed out during our last dozen couple of visits.

Tank, Lucas, Buster and Otto enjoy the weather!

We have a blissful four-day weekend ahead of us. The weather is perfect, not too hot with just a hint of fall in the air. In addition to doing stuff around the house, I am going to undertake two puppy projects! First, I found this awesome video about teaching your dog to turn off the light. Lucas has a difficult time jumping due to a pelvic bone injury, so I’m going to work on this with Emmett. I’ll post our progress! Also, we’re going to make a “bug,” which is a toy we invented that re-purposes ripped or old clothes. I’ll post the step-by-step of bug creation later this weekend!

In the meantime, there are a few buttons on the right side of the blog that I’d like to draw your attention to! At the very top is a quick subscribe link, so if you use a reader or RSS feed, this allows you to grab a subscription to the blog. Also, a little lower down is a button that, when clicked every day, donates kibble. I click it first thing every morning and it takes about 5 seconds!

Happy Friday!

While we awaited the arrival of our nephew, we spent the week with Tank, Buster, and Otto – Emmett and Lucas’ cousins. During that time, we took dozens of pictures of all the pups. For lack of something better to write about today, I give you a photo essay of puppy punams!

Emmett

Lucas always gets his lips stuck

Buster

Tank

Caught mid-yawn

Buster's underbite

Handsome Lucas