Fuzzy Photo of the Day

R.I.P. Mr Octopus

When my folks gave Forest his Christmas present, I doubted it would last a week. But Mr Octopus has far exceeded my expectations and survived almost 5 months. That's ancient in puppy years. I'm really going to miss this red dude, he kept Forest occupied for like, minutes (again, that's a long time in puppy years).

Fuzzy Photo of the Day

I may start praying to the fence gods…

Because the new fence that was just erected in our yard will probably save both my sanity and physical wellbeing.

The first month or so we owned Forest, he never strayed more than a few feet from our side. It was adorable to watch him scramble after us with his stubby little puppy legs. Then one day, I was supervising his potty break when suddenly Forest ran towards the trash bags and recycling bin placed at the curb. I had never before seen him move so quickly in the opposite direction of a human being and was momentarily paralyzed with surprise. The next few moments could have easily been stolen from some cheesy Disney movie. The lovable puppy playfully leaps around the trash bags, unwittingly meandering into the street, directly in the path of an oncoming car. The beautiful, young dog owner sees the impending disaster and sprints across the yard with outstretched arms. Shouting a heart-wrenching "NOOOOOOOOOO" she throws herself in front of the car, heroically shielding the puppy with her own frail body. The car squeals to a stop, thus narrowly preventing a tragedy.

Unfortunately this totally happened to me. And it was my next-door neighbor driving the car so she easily identified the crazy lady jumping in front of her car as me. Luckily she's a cop and has great reflexes.

So if you've been paying attention, you'll notice that most of the outdoor photos posted on this blog fall into three categories: very young puppy off leash because we didn't know any better, mid-sized puppy on leash because I was totally paranoid he'd get squished by a car, and older puppy off leash again because, well, Nick made me. If it was totally up to me Forest would still be on a leash whenever he left our house, but Nick has convinced me that the puppy has matured and will most likely behave. And to Nick's credit Forest has done a pretty good job and coming when I call him…except for yesterday.

Monday was my birthday but I've been sick for like a week and didn't feel like doing much celebrating. I took the day off work, slept in, puttered around, got a massage and then settled into lazy-bum mode which consisted of comfy clothes, ice cream and an X-Files marathon.  At one point I let Forest outside to do his business in the front yard and watched in dismay as he started barking like crazy and then dashed across the driveway. I peered out the front door and saw a young man walking a big dog (it was like a tall, white boxer?) down our sidewalk. I started screaming "COME FOREST COME!!!" but my little puppy happily ignored me and ran straight towards the other dog. I was contemplating my options when I saw a SUV driving way too fast down the road towards our house. Forest was all giddy to see another dog and was bouncing around in the grass like he might go flying into street at any moment, so I had no choice but to go running after him. I had no shoes on, my makeup was almost all smeared off from the massage and I had officially reverted to comfy clothes so I was sans bra. I held my arms over my chest as I ran (hopefully this was a totally sly move that nobody noticed), hoarsely yelling at my damn dog to get away from the stranger and back in the house. Forest decided that was a perfect time to forget all his training and refused to listen to my commands or even look at me. I had to pick Forest up and carry the squirming puppy back into the house, all while apologizing to the stranger (who coincidently commented that it was no problem, he just wanted to make sure Forest didn't run into the street, thus confirming my worst fears).  This was perhaps not my finest moment.

In other words, I love this freaking fence. 

Forest got to experience the fenced in yard for the first time this afternoon.

"Uh, what the hell is that?"

"So you're saying this is all mine now?'

"Hell yeah it's mine, I OWN this yard."

"Wheeeeeeeeeeee!"

"I could poop there, or here, or over in that spot...so many choices!"

"This fence is awesome!"

I may start praying to the fence gods…

Fuzzy Photo of the Day - *Updated*

I'm sick and exhausted, but it's my birthday and I haven't posted in awhile, so here's a fuzzy photo.

"Screw chairs and toys, I sleep where I want to sleep."

Update – To clarify, I did not position the chair or toys around him. Those items were already in place when the puppy decided it was time for a nap.

Fuzzy Photo of the Day - *Updated*

Little Leo

I visited my family in Colorado over Easter and got to spend some more time with Forest's little cousin, Leo. I had a wonderful vacation, but I think Leo may have had a rough holiday. His troubles began before I even arrived (so he can't directly blame me for this) when he got an outdoorsy bath. Apparently somebody was a stinky doggy…

Who needs a bathtub when you have a bucket and hose?

Some dogs like being in water...other dogs are like Leo, just pissed.

Photo proof that Leo is related to Forest, just look at that licky puppy!

During my vacation I discovered that Leo is still spunky to the core, but he's learned to hone his hyperness. For example, he used to be run-around-jump-on-furniture crazy, but now he's more like when-you-at-least-suspect-it-I'm-going-to-eat-your-foot type of crazy. Seriously, I have bite marks on my toes from that damn dog. So when we drove out to my folk's new place, Leo had to spend some time in his carrier crate while we took a tour of the house. He was not happy with this...

"Why did you put me in a freaking pink crate?"

"I'm ready to get out now please."

We thought Leo would like the dog-run at my parent's new place, but he only ran around for a few minutes before sulking at the gate.

He's like a prairie dog on guard duty..

"Who goes there?"

We kinda threw Leo off his regular eating schedule with all our comings and goings that weekend. Leo still ate all his meals, but not always at the standard times. 

When Leo's hungry, he drags his dinner bowl around and throws it at you. 

Subtle puppy, subtle.

But I did find one scenario where the little mutt seemed to have an advantage. While Forest only has a designated puppy blanket, Leo has a designated puppy throne:

"MINE, fuck off."

Little Leo

Fuzzy Photo of the Day

People, do your dogs ever just lay around the kitchen airing out their junk? Is this normal?

I see no need for this, but I guess I shouldn't pass judgment too quickly as I don't own the same hardware (but then again, technically  Forest is only showing off half of his original assembly, sorry puppy!). The fact that the groomers shave Forest's under-regions is not helping this situation. Since he's a dog I can't refer to it as "manscaping" …is "dogscaping" the term I should be using here?

Fuzzy Photo of the Day

Fuzzy Photo of the Day

Forest is almost always adorable, but when his ears flip over and get stuck like this, it's just weird. It looks like he has alien antennas growing out of his head. The puppy needs a headband or a few barrettes to keep his ear flaps down.

Fuzzy Photo of the Day

Forest + Squeaky Hippo = Love

We refer to one of Forest's doggy toys as the Squeaky Hippo because Fucking Annoying Dog Toy That Makes Our Ears Bleed is just too long for casual conversation.

It is the epitome of squeaky dog toys, so much so that a few months ago Nick placed Squeaky Hippo above our entertainment center where Forest couldn't see or reach it.

Squeaky Hippo sat there for so long that I was worried people might think it was actually part of our décor, so last night I took it down. I was about to hide the toy somewhere else when I remembered how much Forest used to enjoy playing with it. "He would be so happy to see it again," I thought. "Besides, it's just a cheap toy, we're probably remembering the sound to be much more annoying than it really is."

"YAY! My hippo is back!"

I was so very, very wrong. During the months that Squeaky Hippo sat dormant above our TV, Forest grew to almost full-size and developed a much stronger bite. That damn hippo is just as irritating as we remembered it being, plus Forest can now chomp down on it harder and faster than before.















But I feel guilty about taking it away again; Forest LOVES Squeaky Hippo, and he's just so damn cute with it.

So we're implementing a time limit on their play sessions. Last night Forest got to drool over Squeaky Hippo for approximately 7 minutes before Nick threatened to burn it.

"Yum, tasty hippo."

Forest + Squeaky Hippo = Love

Forest's Hawkeye Bandana

Forest is an Iowa Hawkeye puppy at heart, but as I've mentioned before, Nick and I are not fulfilling all of our responsibilities as Hawkeye parents. Yes, we've spent oodles of money on food, boarding and classes, but Forest is seriously lacking in Hawkeye merchandise. Luckily Nick spotted this Hawkeye bandana for sale at the vet's office. And total bonus, proceeds go to charity! (I don't remember which charity but it had something to do with animals, in a good way, so yay!)

The collar slips thru a hole in the fabric so no matter how much the puppy may struggle, it can't come off. *evil laugh:  Muu haa haaa haaaa haaaa!* 

I was worried Forest would freak out while wearing it, but surprisingly it doesn't seem to bother him. 

"How do I look from this angle? Still adorable?"

"Yep, I'm totally rocking this thing."

Forest's Hawkeye Bandana

What happens when I try to sleep in on a Saturday

Today has not been a good day in puppy-land. Nick and I have a sound machine sitting next to the bed that plays "soothing" noises which are supposed to help us sleep (it has almost 30 different sounds; I think we've only ever used five of them, max). This morning I woke up not to "White Noise" but to the sound of a little doggy peeing on the carpet. So I jumped out of bed and started yelling "NO" and "BAD DAG" in a deep, scary, trying-to-imitate-a-pissed-off-Nick voice. Forest actually made eye contact with me but continued to do his business on the carpet! And it wasn't like a little squirt, he had a jet stream of doggy pee coming out of him, and the whole time I was yelling at him, all I could think was "Damn, that's a lot of pee." I can only assume that I slept in too late and Forest REALLY had to go, so even though the puppy knew he wasn't supposed to potty inside, he had no choice. That thought made me feel sort of bad for yelling at him, but not bad enough to stop me from locking him in his crate while I cleaned up the mess.

I'm not a morning person to begin with, so toss waking up early to clean puppy pee on that and I'm really not pleasant to be around. But as I let Forest outside to finish up (I doubted he had anything left after the mini reservoir he created in our bedroom but he proved me wrong by pooping on the lawn) and then dragged my ass around to make coffee and breakfast, I tried to keep reminding myself that Forest's a good dog and the accident this morning was kind of my fault.

About an hour later I had forgiven the puppy and decided to take him for a walk. We got about a block away from the house when he pooped on a neighbors' lawn. No problem, I used a plastic bag to clean up his mess, walked back to the house to drop off the goody-bag, and we started off again. We got almost two blocks away when Forest took another dump, although this time it was a little, um, liquidy. All right, fine, it was a tad more difficult to clean up but I wasn't going to leave puppy diarrhea on our neighbors' lawn. We walked back to the house again, and then started our walk for the third time. We got about halfway around the neighborhood when Forest stopped to go #2 for the third time in 15 minutes and the fourth time that day. And this last poop, dear God, it was terrible.

Flashback to Thursday night. Forest was playing with his rope toy when he suddenly started making gagging noises. I pried own his open his jaws, felt around his mouth with my finger, and pulled out a piece of string that had come off his toy. A few minutes later, I found him chewing on another piece. He was eating his rope toy! This was very bad.  As silly as it sounds, string is dangerous for dogs. I guess it can get wrapped around their intestine or something, making the dogs sick or even killing them. So I plucked all the loose strings from his toy and kept a close eye on him for the rest of the night. When I took Forest to doggy day-care the next day, I was relieved to know that someone would be around to watch him in case he got sick. I wondered how long it would take a piece of string to hurt a puppy or pass thru his system.

Well today I got an answer to my second query: it takes less than 48 hours for rope string to go from puppy mouth to puppy butt, and the end product is extremely disturbing. When Forest finished taking his fourth dump this morning, I saw a clump of poop just dangling from his butt. After a lot of cussing, I got closer to try to clean it up. That's when I discovered that the poop wasn't stuck to his fur, it was actually stuck to a piece of string that had not been fully dispelled from the puppy anus. After a lot more cussing, I found a stick and was able to scrape the rest of the poop and string out of his butt.

That fun activity officially killed my walking spirit and we quickly went home. Before I let him inside the house, I tried to clean Forest's backside with some paper towels and found another piece of string protruding from his a-hole! Somehow I got the brilliant idea that if I pulled the string out right away, poop wouldn't have a chance to get caught on it and we wouldn't have a dangling poop incident again. So I bent down close, making sure that I breathed thru my mouth, grabbed a hold of the string and pulled. Out popped the rope string with a mid-size turd clinging to the end of it like a grotesque lollipop. I'll admit it, I almost threw up.

So I've spent the majority of this beautiful Saturday letting Forest out every hour or so to fertilize our grass. It's starting to taper off now, so I can only hope that he'll be able to get thru the night without messing up his crate (and himself in the process) and that perhaps tomorrow, I'll wake up to my alarm clock instead of any other surprises.

What happens when I try to sleep in on a Saturday

Fuzzy Photo of the Day

A thirsty puppy gazes hopefully at Nick's beer...

"No really, alcohol is totally safe for dogs. Look, I'll just open real wide and you can pour it right in. Come on, help a puppy out!"

Fuzzy Photo of the Day

When the puppy decides not to cooperate…

 "Um, why did you put Mr. Octopus on my butt?"

"Ha ha, I knocked him off and ruined your photo." *blows doggy raspberry*

"You guys are so immature."

When the puppy decides not to cooperate…

Fuzzy Photo of the Day

Today's fuzzy photo is brought to you by the letter "L".

As in, "I Love this puppy" and "Damn, that's a Licky dog" or " Oh Lordy, don't Look, he's Licking his butt again!"

Fuzzy Photo of the Day

Forest's First Hailstorm

A big thunderstorm is passing thru, randomly dumping rain and hail. Forest is not liking the thunder and lightning, but he's loving the hail. I let our puppy go outside during a pause in the madness.

"Uh, what are these?"

 He was thrilled to find frozen rain all over the ground.

"Yay, just like ice cubes! Nom nom nom"

Holy smokes, Forest is so happy he's smiling!!!

Forest's First Hailstorm

Playing with Beagles

Recently Forest played with Brenda and Bret's two beagles, Maggie and Murphy. It was a short play date because all the humans were tired (it was Friday night but we had worked all day, had just eaten lots of Mexican food and had been drinking for at least 5 hours – I won't use the "we're getting old" as an excuse just yet). The doggies played well together; we only had one snarling, biting, "I'm going to eat your face off" moment where they actually fought for 30 seconds before we broke it up. Plus Brenda and Bret have a fenced in yard so Forest was delighted to run around outside off leash.

I know Maggie is a few years old and I think Murphy is technically still a puppy…but I don't remember who is who in these photos (sorry Brenda!).

Forest bopping one of the beagles on the head. "Tag, you're it mother f*cker!"

Forest's a ninja when it comes to stealing toys from other dogs. Here he's using his kung fu skills to slip away with a beagle bone. Anybody know how to fix weird puppy eyes in a photo like this? He looks trippy.

I think this is Murphy howling the beagle battle-cry before pouncing on Forest.

OMG WHAT'S WRONG WITH MY PUPPY? I think he's having a doggy stroke.

I took a video of the dogs playing together. Let's see if my meager computer skills will allow me to successfully attach the file for your viewing pleasure…

"I love beagles."

Playing with Beagles