Fuzzy Photo of the Day

And once again, Squeaky Hippo has been temporarily retired. Forest was just a tad too rambunctious with his favorite toy while Nick was working from home last week, so it was banished to the top of the front door.

 

Fuzzy Photo of the Day

Shrooming Puppy

Besides two enormous bean bags (one of which endured a messy puppy accident last year), we have a bright green footstool in our basement. In addition to being extremely comfy, it also looks like a mushroom, which I find amusing. Nick’s family tried to get rid of it at a garage sale, but I was adamant that we had to save it.

A few weekends ago, Nick and I decided to watch the movie Clash of the Titans (there are so many things wrong with this movie, the worst being the title. There’s only one freaking Titan in the film, so really it’s Clash of the Titan, singular, which doesn’t make sense, much like the movie). Luckily Forest decided to hang with us so I had another source of entertainment.

Just ignore Nick’s feet in these pictures, he was too lazy to move them.

“Ah, the perfect place to chew on my bone.”

“Yum, mushroom-bone”

“Mommy’s right, this is pretty comfy”

“Oh, this spot is even better.”

“Disregard my previous statements. This is the best position EVER.”

Shrooming Puppy

Sock Monster

As I've mentioned before, Forest usually doesn't chew on our stuff, but he LOVES to slobber all over our socks. Forest has found socks in our house that I never knew existed. He always attacks my feet when I try to put on a pair. Forest has even snuck into the guest room and stolen socks out people's luggage.

But I think I may have pinpointed the moment this obsession started. Forest had only been living with us for a few weeks when he found a pair of my socks in the garage. I had recently mowed the grass and my socks were covered in grass and dirt so I tucked them in my mowing shoes and forgot about them. Forest dragged those stinky socks into the yard and drooled over them the entire afternoon.

Nom nom nom...

Action shot - Forest is going to DESTROY this puny sock.

"It's my sock now, understand?"

Sock Monster

The Adorable Carry-On

There was a seemingly endless waiting period (about 1 week) between the first phone call with the breeder's when we made a verbal contract to become Forest's new parents, and that wonderful Saturday morning when we brought the puppy home for the first time. I spent most of that week buying dog supplies and freaking out. Although Nick was very emotionally supportive, he was of no physical help during this shopping extravaganza, mostly because he was out of town that week on business. But when he was back in town, he refused to enter a pet store like PetSmart or PetCo because of the whole dog-allergies-might-kill-him detail. Whatever, after researching dog breeds and agonizing over this decision for almost two years, I was more than eager to take on all shopping responsibilities.

A slight distinction for non-dog folks out there: a dog crate and a dog carrier are usually two different items. While a dog crate is used for sleeping and potty training, a dog carrier is used for, you guessed it, carrying the dog. A little puppy has little legs and gets tired easily, so you end up carrying him around a lot. Plus puppies are susceptible to a lot of diseases when they're young, so sometimes you want to take a puppy to a public area but don't want him to run around where he could get infected. Thus, a need for a dog carrier.

Of all the doggy products and accessories I bought, the dog carrier was by far the most difficult item to pick out. Seems simple, right? Just find a small bag with handles and/or strap to carry a puppy around in. I also envisioned carrying Forest onto an airplane one day, so the bag had to meet FDA size regulations. Although most of the bags I found technically met the before-mentioned criteria, they were also either pink or sparkly or had "Sassy Bitch" written on the side. Not really Nick's style.

After searching the internet and visiting several stores, I finally found a plain black bag with mesh sides and both top and side zipper openings. It was the perfect carrier for baby Forest.

Little puppy curled up for a nap in his carrier.

Forest loved playing in his carrier and would often strategically place numerous toys in or next to the carrier for immediate access.

 The puppy also loved to chew on the carrier. We considered ourselves very lucky because Forest rarely chewed on anything, so we allowed him this one indulgence.

But soon came the day when the carrier was no longer necessary.  Forest has received all of his shots and vaccines so we don't need to worry about isolating him. And although Forest will never been a marathon runner, he can take long walks and doesn't need to be carried any more. So for the last few months, the dog carrier has been locked away in the basement…until this week.

While planning an upcoming trip to Colorado to visit my folks, I started thinking about maybe taking Forest with me. I'm going to fly, and hate the idea of Forest suffering in the luggage compartment, so this trip would require carrying the puppy on the plane. Yay! I just so happened to have bought the perfect carrier less than a year ago. So earlier this week I dug out the carrier to double-check the dimensions before booking my flight.

Carrier size vs. Southwest regulations -> close call but I think the carrier could have fit under the seat. However, Carrier size vs. Full-Grown Doggy size -> no question, Forest is the champ.

The Adorable Carry-On

Forest's Belated Birthday Present

Forest received a special package mailed all the way from Colorado. Its contents were a birthday card and present! My family is so cute. They probably read about his birthday mishap and felt bad for the puppy. Cause, you know, he's so neglected (slowly lifts gaze to the My Dog Forest blog banner and laughs).

This was an especially awesome present because, well, do I really need a reason? It's a squeaky toy that says Doggie Beer! That just radiates awesomeness. And total bonus points: it doesn't squeak as loudly as Squeaky Hippo. Yay, everyone's happy!

The puppy was fixated on getting the top off. Forest may have observed Nick and I open a couple of beers in his lifetime.

Thank you family!!!

Forest's Belated Birthday Present

Forest's Pink Ball

Besides Squeaky Hippo (related video) the Pink Ball is the only toy to have survived one whole year with Forest, the Destroyer of Puppy Toys. Like Squeaky Hippo, the Pink Ball had a brief hiatus (although this one wasn't our fault, the Pink Ball was too large to fit in Forest's little puppy mouth for the first 6 months of his life) but now the Pink Ball is definitely back in the puppy toy rotation. 

Time to play!

Now I was mistaken in assuming that the normal process for playing fetch was for the puppy to drop the ball on the ground so I could throw it. But no, Forest doesn't play simple puppy games. Instead, he taunts us with his Pink Ball by shoving it against our legs.

"Hey...Mom....hi...you wanna play?"

"Come on Dad, aren't you a tad interested in this here ball?"

But does the puppy ever relinquish the ball that he seems so eager to share? No. Forest wants us to fight for it.

"Aw, you can pull hard than that, you big wuss."

"Too hard! It's mine!"

Eventually I'll twist the ball out of his mouth and throw the wet toy down the hall. The puppy will scamper after it and we'll go back to playing tug-of-war. 

 "Pink Ball rocks!"

Please do not tell the color-blind puppy that pink is traditionally regarded as a girlie color. I don't believe in stereotyping colors, but Forest is a little sensitive about his manhood since he got snipped.

Forest's Pink Ball

Doggy Bed

Well crap, I haven't posted in two weeks. Sorry folks, but it's been freaking busy around here. Nick has a new work schedule so I'm now Forest's personal chauffer. Every morning I drop the puppy off at doggy day-care and then pick him up after work. Add that to my daily commute and I'm spending 1.5 to 2 hours in the car every weekday.  Yes, yuck. I've considered not taking Forest to doggy day-care at all, but that would mean locking him up in a crate for over 10 hours a day. Not only does that sound like a very unpleasant day for the puppy, it's also unlikely he'll actually last that long (as I unfortunately experienced when I tried to sleep in one weekend).

Further complicating our situation:

a) Things are a tad hectic at the office right now so I need to work longer hours.

b) The typical summer social events have quickly filled up our schedule; consequently, we don't have a completely free weekend until mid-August.  

c) I'm maintaining three To Do lists. I have the normal Things To Do list, like buy more dog food. Then there's the Things That Really Should Have Been Done Already list, such as register and implant an identity chip for Forest.  And finally the Holy Shit I Can't Believe We Still Haven't Done This list, which luckily doesn't contain any doggy related items (but contains other embarrassing tasks like "buy wedding gifts for the three weddings we've already attend this year." I promise people, those gifts are coming. Not to throw out lame excuses but we've been out of town a lot lately and I easily lose track of time. But yes, I understand that we still suck.)

Fortunately, even with all of this other crap going on in our lives, we still find time to spoil the puppy :) For example, we finally bought Forest his own bed.

Yay, puppy bed!

Forest loves to prop his head up on pillows and blankets, so we picked a bed with rigid sides.

Before we bought the bed, I made sure it was washer-friendly. Some dog beds just have a removable cover or can't be washed at all, but we can stick this entire bed into the washer AND dryer.

I've already washed it once to get all the pet store cooties off it, but if Forest keeps slobbering all over his toys in bed, it's going to need another wash soon.

Doesn't Forest look like a sad, old dog in this photo? He really needed a haircut, and it might have been a little too early for him…

"Um, it's 5:30 in the morning. Give the camera a rest, crazy lady."

Doggy Bed

Live From the Kitchen - Squeaky Hippo!

How many squeaks could the Squeaky Hippo squeak if the Squeaky Hippo was unfortunately taken out of hiding instead of being frozen like an icicle, burned to a sticky puddle, fed to a pack of Dobermans, buried in the foundation, or cut into small pieces? A lot.

For those of you who don't think this is incredibly annoying, imagine trying to watch Fringe during this ruckus. Dang puppy.

Live From the Kitchen - Squeaky Hippo!

Forest, the Ungrateful Puppy

Nick and I spent a couple thousand bucks building a fence in the backyard for our little puppy (which is crazy right? that money would have been much happier spent at a bar). We envisioned Forest romping around the backyard, pooping wherever and whenever he wanted. We imagined freedom, if only for a few minutes a day. We love Forest, but he's technically still a puppy with daily spurts of ADHD craziness that can get wearisome. We discussed how wonderful it would be if Forest could exert that energy outside, away from wood floors and Squeaky Hippo. So we saved our money, researched fences, called for estimates, paid for a land survey and finally hired a company to build a fence in our backyard. We were convinced Forest would LOVE it.

Instead, we have a very confused puppy.

This looks like a puppy who wants to go outside, right? Maybe roll around in the grass or take a dump. I mean, this is a puppy who's got options.

But no. Forest only wants to go outside if we're going outside. If I don't accompany him, Forest will just sit by the door, looking all pathetic.

The first time this happened, I figured it was just withdrawal. Nick or I have always escorted Forest outside, so either our puppy was lonely or thought he was going to get in trouble. But the emotional tether this puppy has to us must be constructed out of steel.

Side rant: We live in a split-level house so the kitchen is on the second floor and leads out onto the back porch with a staircase down to the lawn. Our house is kinda on a hill, so the porch is pretty high up. It actually has one set of stairs, then a landing, then another set of stairs to the lawn. When we first bought the house, the porch didn't have any stairs. How stupid is that? We had to pay extra money to build stairs so we could access the backyard from our back porch! Total scam :(

So if I relent and walk out onto the porch, Forest will venture to the top of the stairs and then wait. If I walk to the top of the stairs and he's feeling adventurous, he might go down to the landing by himself, but most of the time Forest won't stray more than a few feet from me. I literally have to guide him down both sets of stairs and stand on the grass before he'll play in the backyard. This is totally NOT what we had in mind when we paid extensive amounts of moolah for a fence.

Action shot of Forest butting his nose against the screen door trying to get inside. This is equivalent to a high-tech force field for him.

I've tried shutting the back door and ignoring him, but he'll just whimper and scratch at the glass. One time I left Forest out there for 20 minutes and hid in another room, but he still just moped around the door. Anybody have any ideas on how to acclimate Forest to his new freedom? Or did we wait too long to build a fence and are forever stuck with a clingy puppy?

Forest, the Ungrateful Puppy

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

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

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

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…

Puppy Blankets

We own a few blankets that have been officially designated as "dog blankets" (I've watched Forest throw up and potty on those blankets far too often to use them for anything else). One of the blankets is always laid out on the kitchen floor, kind of like a safe zone for Forest. Our puppy has a difficult time sitting or maneuvering himself on the hardwood floors in the kitchen. He'll just be sitting there and suddenly one of his legs will start sliding out from beneath him, then another one will slowly glide away. Sometimes he'll continuously correct his posture, but most of the time he'll give up and use the momentum to plop down onto the floor. Forest likes lying on the kitchen blanket when he's playing, chewing on something or wants to take a nap.

A few nights ago Forest decided to play with the blanket instead of just on the blanket. 

The puppy pushed it around the floor with his nose.

He crawled under it. 

He flipped on his back and pulled it up over himself. 

And then somehow Forest manged to stand up with the blanket draped around him like a cape and took a little stroll around the kitchen.

Super Puppy!

But all of that moving around and smashing his head into the blanket severely poofed up his facial hair. 

It's a puppy beard! 

Action shot of Forest shaking his head in an attempt to fix his beard.

Might be time for the puppy to get a haircut.

Puppy Blankets