Forest’s First Cabin Bath

The Iowa cabin doesn’t have any bathtubs, which is just fine and dandy with me. I don’t like tubs. I understand that hot water and soap will technically kill any germs, but I can’t help but feeling like in the end, you’re just lying in a pool of your own filth. It’s the same reason I don’t fill a sink with water to wash dishes.

Anyway, after an especially dirty play session in the Iowa sandbox last year, we needed to bathe Forest. First, we attempted to wash him outside using the hose, but the water was way too cold for the puppy. After some discussion, we decided to wash Forest in the bathroom sink (this was back when Forest was just a tiny puppy and could actually fit in a sink).

Unfortunately, I was too busy trying to hold Forest down and scrub off dirt to take photos. By the time we were done, Forest was shaking with cold and fear (the sink was a little too far off the ground for the height-fearing puppy), so we brought him out to warm deck to dry him off. Finally, we had an opportunity to take some adorable photos.

 

Forest was still a tad cold, so we wrapped him in a dry towel to keep him warm.

 Little puppy was exhausted after his ordeal and took a short puppy nap.

Forest’s First Cabin Bath

Fuzzy Photo of the Day

I am not a morning person. On the weekdays, I sadly assume the persona of a working drone and drag my ass out of bed at 6ish am, but on the weekends I happily relapse to my college sleeping schedule and rarely show my face before noon. Nick still wakes up at reasonable hour but tries to sneak out of bed and let me sleep in. However, Forest can’t wait for Mommy to wake up and apparently spends quite some time lurking by the bedroom door, as documented by this recent photo that Nick took.

“Dude, is she up yet?”

Fuzzy Photo of the Day

Fuzzy Photo of the Day

Forest chilling on the beach at the Iowa cabin.

Fuzzy Photo of the Day

Lost Notes

I have a Word document full of random notes and stories about Forest. I find it easier to write when my only goal is to put words on paper, so this method helps me temporary ignore the impending question of “Is this going to end up on the blog?” I was going thru some old entries and found the notes that I made while the fence was being built. I published a post raving about the new fence after it was up, but apparently I wasn’t so excited during the actually build process…

I know the fence will be awesome, but if I line up all the facts, it would appear that building a fence should, in fact, just piss me off:

1) Fences are extremely expensive. I have no clue why they’re so expensive, it's just a bunch of wood and nails, but I guess you throw in all that measuring, hammering and post digging (which may or may not involve cement, I have no clue) and it comes out to a couple thousand dollars. Dollars which would have been much happier spent at a bar, or for a tropical vacation…or most likely at a bar during a tropical vacation.

2) The fence company took our deposit money, but then said they had so much business that it might be a few weeks before they could actually build our fence. Just my luck, I found a company not taking a hit in this economy.

3) Unless the home builder was nice enough to bury something like steel bars in your yard to mark the property line, you need to have a surveyor come out and measure your measly plot of land, which involves more time and money, hence making building a fence cost even more money.

4) I had to fax the home owner's association some form asking permission to build a fence. It's not like I'm asking them to pay for it, or asking to build something on public property. No, I had to beg for their permission to build a fence on my property with my money.

5) The surveyor folks informed us that we have half a dozen power lines snaked under our yard, but they can't really figure out exactly where the power lines are or why they're there. So they called the city's electrical company to come out and put +25 flags in our yard to mark exactly where the lines are buried. A guys from the surveyor company said "I'd hate for us to miss one (power line) and then someone gets electrocuted just putting up a damn fence." Well I can’t remember if he actually say damn, but it was definitely implied, because getting killed while building a fence is just a dumb way to go.

6) Apparently the hand-drawn sketch from the fence people was not official enough for the home owner's association, so later I had to fax the surveyor's Certificate of Survey, which oddly enough looked liked the fence company's sketch copied over with magic marker.

7) They finally started building our fence today..at 8:30 am..while I was trying to sleep in...because I took the day off…because it's my birthday.  Insistent hammering and the sound that machine they have makes when it punches thru our lawn to build a post hole = unpleasant birthday morning.

8) I've been sick all week with some sort of weird allergy-induced cold and sore throat, so I've been dealing with all of this shit thru a Sudafed/allergy med induced daze.

Lost Notes

Forest the Cyber-Dog

A few weeks ago I got my sh!t together and asked the vet to implant an identify microchip in Forest. I don’t think the puppy would ever purposely run away, but I can easily imagine him getting confused and wandering off, so the chip helps prevent paranoid nightmares of a terrified, lost Forest searching for shelter from the freezing rain, or getting hit by numerous cars on the freeway, or prostituting himself to the city dogs to make a few bucks for the bus ride back home. That’s just not the life for a loved puppy. If Forest did end up at a shelter, all the employees have to do is scan his chip and they’ll have all of our contact information.

So, even though I knew a chip implant would bring some peace of mind, I had been delaying this important task for two reasons:

1) I thought this would involve a lot of complicated paper work. Although the vet implants the chip, it’s up to the owner to fill out the necessary forms and mail them in, and I was convinced I would somehow mess up this essential step. Luckily, the vet took pity on me and filled out some of the form. Then I had Nick proof-read the parts I filled out. No problemo.

2) I thought the vet would have to shave off a patch of Forest’s fur to implant the chip. Yes, I realize that that’s an incredibly shallow reason to postpone an important procedure, but, yeah, there you go. Forest had a lot of new people to meet this summer and I didn’t want him to look like an unfortunate lush who passed out early at a party and got shaved by his friends (don’t tell me this doesn’t happen, I’ve seen those photos on Facebook). But it turns out I was completely wrong (either I was misinformed or totally made up the shaving part, not sure which). The microchip is super small and was implanted using a needle, so no shaving or stitching was involved. My bad.

So it’s official, our puppy has been chipped. Finally.

Forest the Cyber-Dog

Fuzzy Photo of the Day

Little, baby Forest playing with Squeaky Hippo.

That toy is almost as big as the puppy’s head! A few months later and Forest could fit Squeaky Hippo in his mouth.

Fuzzy Photo of the Day

Twin Lakes: Windier than the Windy City

Forest, Nick and I spent Memorial Day weekend at the Iowa cabin. It was hot and windy most of the weekend.  Fortunately the wind kept most of the bugs away (we were plagued by bugs at the Iowa cabin over the 4th of July. I wouldn’t have minded so much but they kept going after my beer…not cool.) Unfortunately this wasn’t a pleasant, cooling wind; it basically just moved the hot air around. But it did produce some funny Forest photos…

We don’t have a lot of trees in our neighborhood (there’s only one measly tree in our yard that sheds like 5 leaves in the fall) so Forest was thrilled to find plenty of sticks from the numerous trees planted around the Iowa cabin.

"Yay! I’m going to nom nom this here stick.”

“Why do I keep chewing on hair? Stupid wind, stop blowing my beard into my mouth!”

“WTF? A part of my stick blew away! I want it back!”

“That’s it, I give up.”

Forest spent a lot of his time hiding under our chairs from the brutal sun, but he couldn’t escape the wind.

We tried to limit our use of the air conditioner, so the windows were open most of the weekend. Forest found a wind tunnel and spent a lot of time in this spot, trying to cool off. Finally, we discovered a situation where the wind was actually useful.

Twin Lakes: Windier than the Windy City

How could you not love this face?

The dog breeder is great about posting photos and videos of their new puppies online. Before we decided to get a dog, I spent countless hours staring at Forest photos and watching videos of him playing with his litter-mates. I may have become a little addicted. After finding me glued to my computer again, watching a doggy video for the zillionth time, Nick finally said "Screw it, let's just get the puppy." *Sniff* those were words I was waiting to hear (especially since I was too much of a pansy to make a final decision on the matter).

Here are some of the first photos I ever saw of Forest.

"Come on, you know you want to buy me!"

"I'm the adorable, cuddly puppy you always wanted!"

My checkbook didn’t stand a chance.

How could you not love this face?

This might get smelly

Earlier this summer, I accidentally dropped a doggy treat down the air vent in our living room. I removed the metal covering in a lame rescue attempt, but the artificially-flavored pizza treat had disappeared down the rabbit hole. Whatever, it didn’t seem like a big deal at the time, out of sight=out of mind, so I quickly forgot about the incident…until last week.

With the heat index regularly hitting triple digits, some of my friends and coworkers are already pining for the cool Fall and Winter days ahead. I’m not a fan of the cold, but this summer has been rough for us Missourians. For example, I haven’t really been paying attention to the humidity records this year, but tonight it’s supposed to reach 82% humidity. Yuck. So I’m kinda excited for Fall, and Winter can go f*ck itself. Unfortunately, Missouri seems to skip over the Spring and Fall months and bounce directly between Winter and Summer.

Anyway, while everyone’s talking about how nice it will be to step outside without specific body parts breaking into sweat, and how much they’re looking forward opening the windows for some fresh Fall air, it suddenly occurs to me that I have a decaying doggy treat stuck in my air vent. With Missouri’s recent track record, after I turn off the air conditioning, I’ll only have a couple pleasant weeks before I’ll have to turn on the heat. So what’s going to happen when I have hot air blowing over my logged doggy treat? Will my house be filled with the aromatic scent of burnt pizza? I can imagine Forest becoming obsessed with finding the hidden treat whose scent magically radiates from every room. Or will my home be infested by scavenging bugs that plan on rationing this rotting doggy treat for the coming winter months? Ugh, it’s too hot to think, maybe I can ignore this problem for a few more months…

This might get smelly

Is this even legal?

I was driving home one day when I saw such a spectacle that I had to pull out my iPhone and take some pictures. (Yes, I know taking pictures while driving is incredibly stupid but I was very careful, which is why I only have a couple blurry photos to share with you).

Some dumbass was driving down the highway with his dog in the back up his pickup truck. I know lots of people do this, but it’s still very dangerous for the dog. However, this particularly truck had its tailgate down and was packed full with a four-wheeler, gas can and other crap. I have no clue how the driver thought his dog was going to fit back there, but apparently the doggy figured out his own solution…

That’s right, this dog is sitting in the seat of the four-wheeler, which raises him above the cab, while its asshole owner drives 70+ mph on the freaking freeway.

I have no clue what the hell this driver was thinking. I thought I was being irresponsible about leaving Forest unrestrained in my backseat (especially after his incident) but this guy has found the bottom rung of the reckless pet-owner ladder.

Is this even legal?

The Empty Water Dish Tantrum

Forest has two water dishes: one in the kitchen next to his food, and another in the master bedroom. The kitchen water bowl is ceramic and kinda heavy, but the water in the bedroom is contained in a flimsy, plastic dish. If the bedroom water bowl is empty, Forest will flip it over in protest.

“What, no water? Damn you empty bowl!”

“I don’t care if my kitchen bowl has water, I want to drink out of this one.”

“Yum, water out of this dish sure would taste good right now…get the hint, lady?”

“Look, I ain’t going nowhere until this bowl is filled.”

Sigh, lazy puppy.

The Empty Water Dish Tantrum