Happy Birthday Forest!

That’s right, our sweet, adorable, cuddly puppy turns 2 years old today! Unlike last year’s birthday mishap, Forest got a birthday present this year.

 

Thank you Grandma Dee for this kick-ass peanut butter treat!

 “What......the…?”

“Total awesomeness!”

The treat was so big, I broke it in half so Forest wouldn’t eat the whole thing in one sitting (there’s always a chance that new treats won’t agree with his delicate puppy stomach and I really didn’t want to have to deal with birthday diarrhea on the lawn later).

  "Nom nom nom"

"Best (chew chew chew) birthday (burp) ever!"

Happy Birthday Forest!

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

Forest chilling on the beach at the Iowa cabin.

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

Memorial Day Puppy Jail

We spent the Memorial Day holiday relaxing at the Iowa cabin. As usual, Forest followed Nick or me around most of the weekend. But unfortunately there were a few times when we had to isolate Forest in the screened porch for a half hour or so. For example, when Nick's cousin let her baby play on the living room floor, we were worried Forest would trample the little girl or slobber all over her face (by the way, this baby totally gave Forest some competition in the Most Adorable Center of Attention at the Iowa Cabin contest). We also had to lock the puppy up a few times when he got wet and needed to dry off before jumping all over the furniture. I'll post some pictures later that will explain how he got wet. For now let's just say it involved a lake and a very scared puppy.

Of course, Forest was not happy with his segregation…

"This is so not cool."

 "Maybe I can stick my head thru here…"

"Fine then, I'll just lie here looking pitiful until you decide to let me in." 

Memorial Day Puppy Jail

Fuzzy Photo of the Day

Forest is such a cuddlier. Here he is keeping Nick's lap warm over Memorial Day weekend.

Fuzzy Photo of the Day

Forest's First Birthday! Kind of…

Let me be clear from the start: I did not technically forget Forest's birthday. I knew our doggy's birthday was on Sunday, May 30th. The three-day holiday simply confounded my already lame sense of time. Yesterday I thought it was Saturday; and for a few hours this morning, I thought it was Sunday. So I kind of, sort of skipped right over his birthday without officially celebrating it. Whoops :(

If Forest was a child, this would probably be pretty traumatizing for him.  But luckily, Forest is an adorable dog with no sense of time.

I took this photo on Saturday, completely oblivious that it would be one of the last pictures ever taken of Forest as a puppy. (But just a FYI for you readers out there:  Forest will always be my little puppy, no matter how old he gets, so I will continue to refer to him as such).

So, yeah, happy birthday Forest!

Forest's First Birthday! Kind of…

Guard Dog in Training

As hard as it is to imagine now, I’m hoping that Forest will one day become a guard dog. He’s already mastered the barking part of the job, probably more so than needed. When Forest is inside the house, he’ll bark when he hears a car passing by, when he looks out the window and sees any movement whatsoever, when anyone enters the house (even if he knows that it’s just me or Nick) and when he sees his own reflection in a mirror or window. When he’s outside, Forest will bark when anyone walks or rides pass the house, when cars drive by, and when he sees any of our neighbors (even if said people are standing in their own yard a block away). He also barks at the garbage bags people put on the curb for garbage day, they freak him out for some reason. All this makes me very confident that I’ll be notified if someone comes to the house or steps on our property, especially if that someone is wearing a poncho constructed out of a garbage bag.

However, we’ve found one little quirk that needs some more training (or dog therapy, I don’t know).

We had only owned Forest for about week when we brought him to the Iowa cabin for the first time. We slept in a first floor bedroom that had windows facing the front door and yard. Forest made a small ruckus when we put him in his crate the first night, but he was exhausted from the long car ride and the excitement of meeting Nick’s extended family so the puppy soon fell asleep.

When we put Forest in his crate the second night, he made his usual ruckus...and didn’t shut up. He was whining, pawing at the crate door, even a few barks (which he rarely did the first few weeks we had him). At first, we couldn’t fathom why he was freaking out so much, he had been fine the night before, no problems, so what the hell was wrong with this puppy?

Then I had a random thought. We had turned off the front porch light so our bedroom was basically pitch-black, but the night before we had left the front porch light turned on. And I thought no way, there was barely any light coming thru our bedroom window the night before, really? We were getting desperate (most of Nick’s family was trying to sleep in the same house) so I snuck into the hallway, snagged a night-light, and plugged it in the wall in our room. Tada, the puppy was quiet.

My future guard dog is afraid of the dark.

Guard Dog in Training

Pirate Puppy

In a previous post, I promised to share more stories about Forest’s first weekend at the cabin. So here’s a story about the puppy digging for what he considered to be buried treasure.

To recap, Nick’s family owns a house in Iowa by Twin Lakes. We usually just refer to it as the “cabin.” The cabin has a sandlot that separates the driveway from the lake. Nick, his brother and cousins used to play in the sand when they were kids, but now it’s used mainly as a litter box for the neighborhood dogs (it’s also used twice a year as a ramp for putting in and taking out the dock, but that barely counts).

During Forest’s first cabin weekend, we tried to play in the yard a lot to minimize his chances of an accident inside the cabin. Forest ran across the sandlot a couple of times before he finally paused, examined the sand, and then looked up at me like “Huh, this isn’t grass.” Then Forest developed a brief case of OCD and became fixated on one little corner of the sandlot. I don’t know what was buried there, but it must have smelled like bacon wrapped around dog doodie because Forest was determined to dig his first hole.

Of course, I was a tad paranoid about what he might find in his hole. I had cleaned the yard the day before and bagged a decapitated bird and a decomposing fish whose skeletal remains had somehow fused with the lawn. And before you freak out, no, I’m not weekending at a pet cemetery. Neighborhood dogs sometimes find dead fish and animals and drag them into the yard to play with (or to leave as gifts, I don’t know, dogs probably think dead animals are a pretty nifty way to say I love you). So I had a valid reason to be concerned that Forest might find a fish head in the sand. And did I mention that the sandlot had a dozen ant hills and lots of bugs? If Forest had been infested with creepy, crawly things two weekends in a row, I probably would have made him a doggy suit out of plastic wrap to wear outdoors.

Luckily, Forest dug a big, empty hole with no surprises.

Forest’s first hole

Uh, remember to breath.

Sleep puppy takes a break.

Forest: What? I’m digging, leave me alone.

Later, as I was telling this story to a coworker, I commented on how lucky we are that Forest has yet to dig up our lawn at home, probably because there are no rotting animals buried anywhere to entice him. Then it occurred to me, oh gross, maybe there are. Do people still bury dead pets in their backyard? I remember digging a very small grave in our yard for Goldie the goldfish when I was in grade school, but I think all of our fury pets were cremated when they passed. Some older neighborhoods must have a few Fluffys and Fidos buried out back, but maybe we’ll luck out since we live in a semi-new neighborhood. Still, I’ll be keeping an eye on Forest’s digging habits, make sure he doesn’t find a new friend in our backyard.

Pirate Puppy

1st Cabin Weekend Photos

Forest the Lake Dog

Chilling with his chew toy inside.

Sorry buddy, you’re underage.

Forest quickly adapted to his new surroundings.

Forest spent a lot of time hanging out on the front steps of the cabin. I think he was trying to eat the dirt and bugs nestled in the small cracks of the cement.

The first time Forest saw a body of water.

1st Cabin Weekend Photos

Surprise!

We decided to adopt Forest a few weeks before he was old enough to come home with us. As soon as the breeder confirmed that Forest was ours, we told my family and all of our friends about him. We didn’t mention anything to Nick’s family. Shhh, we were being sneaky. Our plan was to get Forest on July 25th and then visit Nick’s family in Iowa the following weekend. We thought, “Wouldn’t it be cool to just show up with an adorable puppy that no one knew about?”

Yeah, that idea sucked. As soon as I got Forest, I couldn’t shut up about him. But here was this huge group of people that had to be kept in the dark. So no messages or photos on Facebook because one of his family members might see it. No phone calls about that cute thing he does with his tail or emails describing his first car ride (which was very, very unpleasant). Nothing, nada, zip.

When we finally drove up to his family’s house in Iowa, I was almost as hyper and squirmy as Forest was to get out of the car (though I didn’t have to pee nearly as badly as he did). Besides being super excited, I was also a little nervous. My brain had cooked up a long list of things that could potentially go wrong that weekend. Maybe someone else would bring another dog and we’d spend the whole weekend breaking up fights (Forest hadn’t played with other dogs yet and I wasn’t sure how he would react). Or maybe Forest would bark all night and keep everyone up. Or maybe Forest would poop in the house and someone, naturally not expecting dog doodie on the kitchen floor, would step in it (sadly, being on constant poop alert has become habit for Nick and I). And so on.

But everything turned out wonderfully. His family adores Forest. I’ve never seen so many grown men get down on their hands and knees to play with a puppy no taller than a basketball. Yes, Forest did take a dump in the living room, but everyone was very understanding and no one stepped in it. And he did whimper a little at night but no one woke up (or they were very nice and lied about not waking up, thanks folks!).

I won’t try to describe the whole weekend in one posting, I’ll share those stories later. Overall, the weekend rocked and we weren’t allowed to leave until we promised we’d bring Forest the next time we visited. I get the impression that Calli + Nick - Forest = some sad Iowans.

Surprise!