Friday, November 23, 2012

Black Friday

Thatcher, Boden and Lea playing with "Grandpa"
Another Thanksgiving flew by. For Thanksgiving, the newfies got a nice little treat: extra family members in the house over the holiday weekend. To them, this means more people to show off for and to beg food from. They really are shameless, and will plant themselves directly in front of the person who they judge to be the easiest target - that is, the person most likely to give them food first. Often, this ends of being the youngest. If there are no children, they usually try their luck with females first, flashing their sad eyes and trying to look innocent. The worst part is that their sad eyes actually work for most people, including us who should by now be immune. We went over to a family member's house yesterday evening and afternoon, so the dogs missed out on actual Thanksgiving dinner scraps. They did, however, repay us for leaving them for the whole evening.

Now, we can't really point fingers as to which dog is truly the guilty party. Not only were Thatcher and Boden both home, a family member's dog has also been staying here the past couple of days. Lea is used to being closed in a room when she's left alone during the day, because she supposedly gets mischievous. Of course, we decided to give her the benefit of the doubt and left her out loose in the house with our dogs when we left. We (wrongly) figured, what kind of damage could she actually do? We don't have any super expensive furniture or really valuable trinkets or anything. So when we got home late in the evening after a wonderful dinner with family, I first notice a book has been snacked on. The dust jacket is in pieces, and the actual book is full of tooth marks. This, I knew, was the work of Boden. He loves chewing paper, and it was my fault I left the book on an end table that he is tall enough to reach. The rest of the house seems intact, but I decide to run and check the upstairs just to be safe. There I see our poor sturdy old laptop, which has weathered six or seven years of rough use, has been torn into. The entire upstairs is littered in toys and bones, yet Lea (we can't completely prove it was her, but Thatch and Boden have never touched the electronics we have all over the house) decided it would be the most fun to chew the keys off of the laptop. Makes sense, no?

Boden - Thanksgiving Day 2012

Thatcher - Thanksgiving Day 2012

Sunday, November 18, 2012

Gator


I forget how much puppies love toys. Thatcher has always had plenty, and many of them have been around since he was a puppy. Worn out and missing limbs, but still alive. When we got Boden, we didn't really prepare like we did for Thatcher. We already had toys, food dishes, leashes, etc. So, in typical second-child fashion, he received Thatcher's hand-me-downs. Lately we've been trying to make up for this by buying a new toy every week or so. It's hit or miss, finding out which dog will take the new toy as "his". The first, a blue fuzzy dog whose four legs squeak, Thatcher claimed. He carried it around constantly for the first couple of days, even bringing it along when he went outside to use the bathroom. Well this weekend, we picked up another new toy - a furry yellow gator who is made of squeaky compartments. Boden and the gator have been inseparable ever since.

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Common Newfie questions

I often "window-shop" online for Newfie-related products. I came across coffee mug with this design the other day and loved it. It made me smile, because since Thatcher joined our family, we have responded to repeated "clever" questions and comments about the Newfie breed countless times. "You should get a saddle for him!", "I bet he eats a ton!", "Is that a black Saint Bernard?". We've heard things like this probably hundreds of times. I think I must buy this. 

Take a peek at this design and more like it! Click here.


Monday, November 12, 2012

Winter appears

We woke up this morning to the first real snowfall of the year. Hardly any, but a light dusting is covering the ground. Saturday was nearly 70 degrees and Sunday, yet today is cold enough for that little bit of snow to remain. Being born in July, this was Boden's first time experiencing snow. When I let the dogs out earlier this morning, Boden tiptoed down the back steps, confused as to why they were covered in all that cold white stuff. But he quickly discovered the joy of eating it. On our walk, every few steps he would scoop up a mouthful of snow and happily chomp away. He hasn't mastered ice yet though. At one point, he slipped and belly flopped onto the sidewalk. He flailed around like a seal for a few seconds, unable to get his footing, then found his balance and continued on his merry way. Meanwhile, Thatcher, the snow veteran, stood there waiting with an exasperated look on his face. This will be his third winter, so he's already spent many a day tromping through knee-high snow and climbing up snow mountains created by the plows. I just let them out a minute ago to use the bathroom, and Thatcher was already rolling around in the snow.



Thursday, November 8, 2012

There goes the puppy fuzz

Boden is starting to lose all his soft puppy fuzz. The last week I've been noticing the dog hair all over the carpet has been really bad. I've been vacuuming literally every day, and I still can't keep up. It took me a while to realize it's coming from Boden. You can pet him, and large tufts of his fuzz float off into the air. So this morning I thought I should brush his fur out to try and minimize the number of times I have to vacuum. With how much fur came off him, you would think he'd be bald. But alas, plenty of fuzz still left for the carpets.

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Vote

Not the most pleasant morning. I woke up to the dogs jumping onto the bed and smothering me. We went downstairs, and while they usually sprint down the stairs ahead of me, they trailed behind this time. I knew something was up. I entered into a living room full of potty accidents. Five, to be exact. I kept myself calm and continued to the back door to let the dogs out. We then made it to the entry way, which was covered with shredded garbage - coffee grounds, paper towels, banana peels, etc. The entire garbage can had been completely torn apart. I know who the guilty party is. Thatcher hasn't done anything like this in at least a solid year. But of course, when I scolded them, he acted just as distraught as Boden. So I spent the next 20 minutes cleaning up garbage, opening windows to air out the smells and scrubbing the carpet. Fun way to kick off the day. But on another note, we're very excited it's election day! I'm getting ready to head to the polls and am interested to see how close this race turns out to be.

Friday, November 2, 2012

Allergic reaction

For the first time in my life, I called in sick for work. We woke up yesterday to discover that Boden had some sort of allergic reaction overnight. His eyes and jowls were all puffy and swollen. He seemed pretty lively overall, and wasn't having any difficulty breathing. But I immediately called the vet to see when I could bring him in. Of course, come to find out the vet doesn't get in until 9am. This was at 6:30am. So for more than two hours, I sat and monitored him. We gave him a little dose of Benadryl, which didn't seem to help. He was walking around, drinking water, playing a little bit. But whenever he would lie down, he would just paw at his eyes and whine. I don't think he was in pain, just extremely uncomfortable. Even Thatcher knew something was wrong. He stayed right next to Boden keeping him company.

When we finally got to the vet, they agreed that it was an allergic reaction. They recommended hospitalizing him for a few hours, giving him a couple injections of antihistamines and monitoring him to see if the swelling subsided. I went back home and tried to keep myself from constantly worrying about Boden. My mind tends to play out worst-case-scenarios, I can't control it. Finally, around 1pm, I decided to call them and check on Boden's progress. The vet said he was doing great, and most of the swelling had gone down. She explained that we should keep him on Benadryl for a couple of days just to be safe. So Thatch and I scurried out the door to go pick up our puppy. He seemed perfectly back to normal the rest of the day, even slightly more crazy than usual.

Two worst parts about this whole incident though. 1. We have no idea what caused the reaction, which makes it impossible to prevent this from happening again. We couldn't find a single thing in the house that he could have gotten into, so my guess is that he ate something outside. Otherwise, it could have even been some kind of bug bite the vet said. We'll just have to be observant. 2. They used a catheter during his hospitalization. So all afternoon and evening, he just leaked pee everywhere. He wasn't even trying to go potty, he just literally couldn't control it. It was kind of funny, but only until you accidentally stepped in a spot he dribbled in. That was our adventure. I'm very glad that Boden is back to normal, because my emotions could not have handled anything else.