He hasn’t fallen over...yet

They say dogs easily pick up behaviors and mannerisms from other dogs. For example, supposedly it’s easier potty train a puppy when he’s living with an older dog because the puppy will watch the other dog potty outside and try to imitate him (so if the older dog isn’t well potty trained either, then I guess you’re shit out of luck…or possibly shit in the house, whatever). 

As much as I love doggy day care, Forest is coming home with some annoying habits. During play time, they let the dogs chew on rags and old blankets. This certainly isn't helping Forest’s sock obsession, and now he goes wild every time I pull out a scarf or towel. If we board Forest for more than a few days, the puppy always comes back with potty issues. I think he sees other dogs relieving themselves inside, so he starts to think that’s ok again. We’ve gone out of our way to avoid boarding Forest now because of this issue, sometimes even driving to Iowa to drop him off with friends or family who doggy-sit Forest while we’re on vacation (which we truly appreciate, thanks guys!). But a few months ago, we noticed Forest exhibiting a new, amusing habit…

Ever since Forest was puppy, he’s always squatted when going potty. In fact, he was so small when he first came home with us, sometimes we couldn’t even tell when he went to the bathroom; tiny Forest standing up looked about the same as tiny Forest squatting (especially when we didn’t mow the grass).

 

Many times we had to pick Forest up to check if he had done his business.

We assumed Forest would always go the bathroom this way, especially after he got neutered (most male dogs squat after being neutered, like they’re ashamed to lift a leg and expose their once-manly nether regions).

But now, randomly, Forest will lift his leg to pee. The first time I saw Forest do this, I actually laughed out loud. The puppy had no clue what he was doing. He was just randomly lifting he leg during walks and out in the yard. He didn't even pee! Just stood there for a moment with that leg hefted high, sometimes glancing at us as if to ask “This is how you do it, right?” Occasionally he would raise his leg so high, he’d lose his balance and stumble around.

After a few more weeks at doggy day care, Forest finalized realized that lifting a leg was part of a process, the end goal being to squirt something out. Now Forest will raise his leg to mark a bush or fire hydrant, but sometimes he still lifts his leg for no dang reason.

He hasn’t fallen over...yet

Recovering Addicts

I swear, Nick and I never thought we’d get addicted. We were just looking for something to relieve the stress of raising a puppy, help us relax after a long day at work. So we thought we’d try it for a few weeks, no big deal right?  Twelve months and a couple thousand bucks later, we've finally realized the truth… we’re addicted to doggy day care.

It started out innocently enough. Baby Forest had a tiny bladder and had to go potty like a zillion times a day. After one week of scampering home every two hours to let him out, we gave up and took him to doggy day care (which is conveniently run by his vet). Suddenly we had our lives back. While we were at work, the doggy day care folks let him play with other dogs, took him out to potty every few hours, and lavished him with love and attention. Sure, it was more money spent on the dog instead of a bar tab, and one of us had to drop him off in the morning while the other had to pick him up after work, but we assured each other that doggy day care was only a temporary solution.

A few weeks turned into a few months and we continued to take Forest to doggy day care. Addicts can always come up with excuses for not quitting.  In the beginning, we reasoned that it would be healthy for Forest to interact with different people and animals while he was still young so he wouldn’t turn into a weird canine who couldn’t play well with others and tried to eat cats. When the weather got cold and nasty, we argued that doggy day care was a perfect way for Forest to get exercise, negating the need for an evening walk. When Spring came around, we were convinced that we just couldn’t find time in our hectic work and travel schedules for a mid-day puppy break. 

So our temporary solution has eventually transformed into the main problem. Doggy day care is not on the way to either of our offices, so we spend more time stuck in traffic. When Nick’s out of town, I’m responsible for both drop-off and pick-up duty. And although it’s reasonable priced, a year of care adds up (raising a dog has turned out to be freaking expensive).

Luckily, it was Forest himself who started us on the road to recovery. The growing puppy finally mastered his bladder, so we stopped locking Forest in his crate at night. When it was time for bed, we just shut the bedroom door and Forest slept on the floor (usually curled up on my discarded clothing).  Except for that unpleasant incident when I tried to sleep in on a Saturday, Forest behaved quite well. Next, we experimented with leaving him home alone for a few hours in the bedroom, sans crate, and we always came home to dry carpets. Then slowly, starting with just one or two days a week, we locked Forest in his crate while we were at work (finally discarding the trusty bungee cord). We felt horrible about putting him in a box all day, and soon progressed to our current practice of just shutting him in the bedroom (although we suspect that he probably spends half his day on the bed).

Someday, we’d love to give Forest free-rein of the whole house while we’re gone, but we’re not quite to that comfort level yet.  Doggy day care isn’t completely out of our system, and may always be a small part of our routine, but I have hope. Every addict does.

Recovering Addicts

Eye Boogers

So this post will probably pass the border into Land of Too Much Detail, but it’s something I have to deal with every day so I thought I’d share.

Before we got Forest, I tried to mentally prepare myself for all the unpleasant tasks that go along with dog ownership. I knew there were going to be midnight potty breaks for awhile (which turned out to be multiple nighttime potty trips) and accidents in the house. I understood that there would be the daily chores of dog walks, meals and tummy rubs (ok that last one isn't too bad). But I never, ever imagined, nor did anyone warn me, that I'd be cleaning puppy eye gunk every day.

When Forest wakes up in the morning, it looks like small, white slugs are crawling out of the corners of his eyes. Yuck. They don’t seem to bother Forest, but it’s totally gross to look at, like eye boogers or something. Forest is a pretty relaxed puppy most of the time, but he’ll squirm and wiggle when I try to clean his eyes using toilet or tissue paper. If I don’t wipe it all away, after a few hours the remaining eye boogers will start to harden and get crusty. *gag* Then my sweet little puppy has what looks like burnt popcorn stuck under his eyes.

When he was a young puppy, Forest was a 24-hour eye gunk factory. I just couldn’t keep up. When the eye boogers solidified, I would try to wipe then away with a wet washcloth, but that just smushed it into his fur. The people at doggy day care finally explained to me that after the eye boogers dried up, the best course of action was to use your fingernails or a small comb to pry the gunk out of his hair. I keep mentally comparing this task to when parents have to stick a thermometer in their baby’s booty. Unpleasant, but necessary.

Is this grossing you out yet? If so, then don’t read any further, because I’ve only described half of the puppy eye gunk removal process. But first, a short story about dog psychology. My coworker has two dogs, and because she is much braver than I, she and her husband will cut their dogs’ hair instead of taking them to a groomer. The older dog is pretty well behaved when it’s his turn, but he barks a lot when they cut the younger dog’s hair. My coworker and her husband have a theory that the older dog thinks the younger dog is being hurt. He doesn’t understand that they’re only cutting away hair; the older dog just sees what looks like body pieces being removed from his friend and falling to the ground. I don’t know if their theory is correct, but it make sense to me.

Back to Forest. While I would describe my puppy as being unhappy when I gently wipe away his eye boogers with a tissue, I would say he definitely freaks out when I pry crusty gunk out of the fur under his eyes. The only thing that seems to calm him down (and believe me when I say I would never do this if it didn’t) is to let Forest see the gunk I just pulled out and then, well, let him eat it. Gross! *blah* Yucky yuck. I can only assume that Forest thinks that gunk is part of him, which technically it is, and he wants it back.

Fast forward to Thanksgiving when my family met Forest for the first time. Besides thinking he was adorable, and they were also surprised at how calm he was for a puppy. When Forest was taking yet another nap on the kitchen floor, I think it was my sister who asked if we drugged Forest to keep him so quiet (I didn’t understand her astonishment until I met her puppy Leo over Christmas).  

At one point during the holiday, Forest was sitting on my lap and I noticed that he had some crusty eye boogers. Lovely. So I tried to discreetly clean him up without interrupting the conversation. After a few minutes my dad looked over, noticed what I was doing and practically shouted “Calli, are you feeding those to him?” I froze up for a second, realizing how very weird the whole thing must have appeared to him, and then quickly explained the eye gunk problem.  At the end I added “It’s kind of like recycling, right?”

  

It’s odd what you can become accustomed to over time, especially when you don’t think about it (or repress it, whatever).

Eye Boogers

The Crate Escape

Yesterday's blog post was getting kinda long, so I decided to post this crate story separately.

Rewind to the first week we owned Forest. Before I discovered the fantastic world of doggy day care, Forest spent 8am to 5pm at home in his crate, which forced Nick and I to rush back to the house a couple times a day to let him out (little puppy = little bladder).

One day I let Forest out in the morning, put him in his crate and sped back to work. A few hours later, I get a call from Nick who asks, “So how sure are you that you closed his crate door?" which is just a smartass question because of course I’m going to say, well hell, I’m pretty sure. Nick proceeds to tell me about how he came home and found the crate door wide open, a couple shoes with canine slobber on them, some nibbled chair legs and a very happy puppy in the kitchen. At the time I was positive that I had closed the crate door, but then I started thinking, well hell, I was in a hurry to get back to work, maybe I thought I closed the door but didn’t secure the latch properly? I spent the next 5 minutes worrying and apologizing while Nick hunted thru the house in search of hidden puppy poop (we’re still surprised Forest didn’t take a dump behind a dresser or in a closet).

The very next day, I left work to let Forest out, walked in the front door and called Nick. “So guess who I just found in the kitchen?” (next to destroyed chew toy and puddle of piss). Yep, the puppy was out again. Thankfully this time Nick was the last person to “close” the crate door so my claim of not being an irresponsible, ditzy dog owner was validated (which I reminded Nick of, oh, just a couple of times).

Our hypothesis is that Forest hates being left alone in his crate so much that he scratches, bites and jumps on the crate door hard enough and long enough to jimmy the latch loose. Then it’s party time for puppy.

So we’ve come up with the following solution:

The bungee cord may not be aesthetically pleasing, but it gets the job done.

This puppy ain’t going nowhere.

The Crate Escape

5 Month Old Puppy

Forest was born on May 30^th, so Friday was his 5 month birthday! We didn’t do anything special to celebrate, just gave him a well needed bath. God that puppy gets smelly at doggy day care. I don’t know if it’s from playing with other dogs, or sleeping in the vet’s crates or what, but by the end of the week Forest sometime has a strong funk on him. So on Friday we gave him a bath, which unfortunately terrifies the puppy. We’ve only had to give Forest like three baths since we’ve owned him (the vet and groomers have had that pleasure several more times) but I think Forest remembers our baths because he won’t willingly enter the bathroom where he takes his baths. It’s all worth it though, he smells so much better now!

In honor of Forest’s birthday (and a nice smelling doggy) here’s a bunch of Forest photos covering his short but sweet life so far.

Forest at 5 months:

Forest at 4 months:

Forest at 3 months:

Forest at 2 months:

Forest at 1 month:

5 Month Old Puppy

Clean Puppy

I was thrilled when I picked up Forest for the first time and didn’t smell that stinky dog-funk that accompanies most canines. I hate that smell, I don’t even know what to compare it to (although “moldy sock” comes to mind). Dogs sometimes just smell like, well, dogs. But during the first week we had him, Forest smelled good, clean, like a brand new puppy right off the lot.

Every since he started going to Doggy Day Care (which I can’t praise enough) he’s been coming home a stinky dog. So last Sunday, Nick and I decided to bathe Forest for the first time. Now Forest has had two baths since we got him: once by the vet on the first day due to medical reasons (long story, kinda funny but still painful to think about) and once by a groomer who got to complete other fun tasks like trimming the hair around his butt. We were hoping that these experiences would make our first bathing attempt a little easier.

We gathered our supplies (Dove body wash, a towel, and a pitcher previously used in a flippy cup tournament) and shut the bathroom door in case Forest tried to escape. Turns out that was unnecessary because Forest isn’t big enough to jump out of the bathtub yet, but Nick and I still had to sit on the edge of the tub with our feet inside to keep him from trying to. Nick would fill the pitcher with water and pour it over the puppy (with me nagging the whole time about not getting it in Forest’s face) and I would try to scrub Forest down. The whole time he whimpered and shook a little. At one point, I was trying to clean his underside when I felt this little trickle of warm water, which I guessed was Forest doing his business (but of all places in the house, the tub was really the best possible scenario).

We didn’t get any pictures of the actual wash since our hands were full of puppy fur, soap, water pitcher and dog piss, but we did get some photos of finished product.

Forest: What the hell did you just do to me?

I'm not sure if Forest is trying to lick himself clean or eat his own face.

Tada! Introducing a clean puppy.

Clean Puppy