My Monthly Diary for December 2010

Yes, I forgot to do a December blog post. So hop in your Not-So-Wayback Machine and let's go!

Let's see, I think the reason I didn't do a blog entry was that I didn't do a whole lot. Christmas happened. Mommy and I went to Grandma and Grandpa's house for Christmas Eve instead of them coming to our house. Mommy and Mommy's youngest brother suggested it as a new tradition. Grandma was not so sure about it, but she agreed. Mommy brought all the fixings for Christmas Eve dinner and we got there in the late morning. Going into the house I tripped on the front stoop and fell down. Mommy fixed Christmas Eve dinner and played a dice game and dominoes with her youngest brother and we took a couple of walks. After one of the walks I came in the house and fell down. Then Neighbor Mary came over to eat with us. I was happy to see her and when I was turning the corner into the kitchen I fell down. Mommy was starting to worry about me because of all the falling, but I seemed fine otherwise. We had a nice relaxing dinner and Mommy and her brother said they thought it was much better than everyone coming up to our house because it is a long drive and they have to leave early because of church. Because Grandma and Grandpa live close to their church they didn't have to run off right after dinner which was nice. Eventually everyone but Mommy and me went to church (I'm not allowed and Mommy's church is taking walks with me). We went to bed which was a bit of a problem because it was a twin bed and Mommy seemed to think she should get more than a small sliver of it. Eventually we worked it out and fell asleep. We got woken up when the church goers got back around 1 a.m. and then around 3 a.m. I kicked Mommy totally out of the bed and she gave up and slept on top of the other twin bed which didn't have a pillow so I certainly wouldn't sleep there.

Christmas Day I got to open one of my presents early. It was a 2 foot long antler! I got to open it early so I could enjoy it before Mommy's second brother and his family, including my Portie cousin Missy, came over. I got a stuffed reindeer, a stuffed lobster, a great big giant biscuit, salmon treats, and a box of giant dog milk bones. Mommy and I gave Missy a great big giant biscuit and a small blue monkey. We gave all the grown ups photos taken by ME!! Missy's Mommy got a picture of Missy's legs, Missy's Daddy got a picture of his wife and girls, Mommy's youngest brother got a photo of Mommy and my shadows on a hike and Grandma and Grandpa got a six photo frame with pictures I took at their place in Wisconsin, including a close up of Mommy when we were on a boat ride. Everyone liked the photos. After presents Grandpa's college roommate and his wife came over for dinner. I was nice to him again and when I was leaning on his wife I fell over! I spent most of the evening staring at my feet because they felt like bugs were crawling on them too. After dinner we went home and slept in our own bed.

A couple days later Mommy took me to see the chiropractor because of me falling down and the chiropractor thought I might have Degenerative Myelopathy so she told Mommy to take me to my regular vet sooner rather than later for more tests. You can read about that in my previous blog post. When we got home from the chiropractor there was a message from the car insurance people that her old car was officially totaled, they would send her some money, and they were going to take away her rental car in a week so she went to the new car place and actually ended up coming home with a new car that night! It looks a lot like the old car, but is red and not squished. Mommy kept my blanket from the old car even though it is blue because it has doggies peeing on red fire hydrants on it, but she bought me new red pillow cases to replace my blue ones.

Mommy thought we'd take a New Year's Day hike, but it was very very cold, below zero cold, so we didn't. It got nice and warm the next weekend though so I got to go for an 8 mile afternoon walk. I slept all the next day. We've had some more below zero days and I've had to wear Mommy's sweatshirt on our walks and Mommy looks silly in layers and layers of clothes, then a few days later we have a 30 degree day and Mommy and I get to take long walks again and she ends up unzipping her coat and taking off her gloves by the end of our hikes. Winter is weird here.

Happy Adoption Day to Me!

Yup. Today is my adoption day. You'd think Mommy would do something special for me, like take the day off work and take me hiking, or give me an extra special breakfast, something. Well, not for me. I woke up this morning at 6 a.m. and promptly threw up. So, Mommy got out of bed and mixed up some Carafate for me and then we went back to bed and cuddled for 1/2 hour while the Carafate dissolved. After the 1/2 hour Mommy squirted the Carafate down my throat and I spit about 1/2 of it back on her and the bed. An hour later I got to have Pepcid and breakfast and walk to see the guys at the feed store, who at least gave me a treat, and then Mommy took me to the VET!!! That's right, my adoption day and I go to the VET for my annual checkup and shots as well as some extra special tests because my chiropractor was concerned that I might have Degenerative Myelopathy.

See, at Christmas I kept falling down. My back end would just go out from under me without warning. I was also moany groany and Mommy kept catching me staring at my feet like there were spiders crawling on them. She figured I had a pinched nerve in my back and took me to the Chiropractor. The chiropractor didn't find much wrong with my back so she did a test where she made me stand with my toes turned under. I guess I was supposed to put my foot flat right away, but I didn't. The chiropractor does weird things to my feet and legs all the time and I let her because I know it will make me feel better, so when she turned my toes under I just stood there waiting for the next part of the treatment. I guess that is considered a big failure and something to worry about. Anyway, even though I failed the physical tests really bad at the chiropractor's I passed with flying colors at the vet so I didn't have to have a nasty biopsy type test as well this morning.

So I have a fever today because of my shots and no special treats because of my throwing up this morning. Mommy says if I don't throw up tomorrow she will make it a better day for me and we will celebrate then. So Happy Adoption Day to Me! I've been with Mommy for 10 years which Mommy says is a miracle if you consider what my first day/weeks/months/years were like with Mommy and all the injuries I gave her, the gallons of pee and poop she had to clean up in my room, and the door frames, hand rails, clothes, books, stuffed animals, cooking utensils etc. that I destroyed.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everyone! Mommy kept track of how far she and I walked this year and it was 1004.15 miles. That is an all-time record for us, and it brought our imaginary walk to Alaska to completion. We made it to Anchorage and even had some miles left to start our journey home. We have decided to take the scenic route and are heading to Fairbanks before heading back south.


View Imaginary Walk Around America in a larger map

We won't be doing a real New Year's Day hike this year because it is COOOOOOLD. Only about 15 degrees and gale force winds. Mommy and I walked into town this morning and were both frozen when we got home. I lay with my back pressed up against the baseboard heater until I warmed up. Mommy says she's still chilled.

Happy Howlidays! My Monthly Blog for November

First off, some folks were asking to see my very un-PC Halloween costume, so here it is:




Now, let's see. This month I went to Grandma and Grandpa's house for Thanksgiving. Grandpa's college roommate and his wife were coming so I made sure I wore my best tie.

Grandpa's college roommate is in the early stages of Alzheimer's and he sometimes loses track of what he was saying or he can't find the right word, then he becomes frustrated. I noticed when he would get frustrated and would go up to him and lean on him when it happened. He would pet me and we would both be happier. I was a very good boy and only tried a couple times to steal the hors d'ouvres. After Grandpa cut a second serving of turkey I stayed in the kitchen to make sure everything was okay in there. Grandpa had left a whole turkey leg RIGHT BY THE EDGE OF THE COUNTER and I was just about to help him move it some place safer when Mommy came in and said, "Merrrrrliiiiin". She seemed to think I was planning to eat it or something. After dinner when Mommy and Grandma and the roommate's wife were putting away the leftovers I decided to help by taking care of the leftover gravy. Grandma had put it into a big butter tub and left it on the kitchen table so I carefully picked it up by the edge and was sneaking, um carefully carrying it out to the family room when Grandma spotted me and yelled, "Drop that!" I was so startled I dropped it, but it landed on its bottom and only splashed a little bit of gravy and Mommy ran over and picked up the container before I could pick it back up. All in all I thing Grandma and Grandpa were very impressed by what a good dog I was.

This month it got very cold very early. Mommy got one of her old sweatshirts for me to wear on our morning walks. On one walk we noticed that there was an odd smell in town. Then Mommy noticed that there were stripes on the street and she realized they were spraying some kind of deicer on the road. We stopped in to City Hall to ask them what it was made of to see if it was safe for my bare feet (I hate booties), but they didn't know, so they asked a public works guy to call Mommy and tell her. He did and it ends up it was made of sugar beet juice with the sugar removed, salt brine and liquid calcium chloride, so it is safe as things like that are.

Finally this month Mommy had a very scary evening. She was running an errand on her work dinner break and when she went to turn left at a T intersection a young woman in an SUV ran the red light and hit Mommy's car without trying to brake or swerve. She told the police officer that she had dropped something on the floor of her SUV and had bent over to pick it up (while driving about 45 mph in a 30 mph zone) and when she sat up she was hitting Mommy's car. Luckily Mommy has strong survival reflexes and had spotted that the car in the other left turn lane to her left had hit his brakes suddenly so without even wondering why he had done it she hit hers and swerved to the right. That meant that the SUV took out her Prius right in front of the front tires instead of t-boning her. If she had been t-boned I don't think she'd have come home to me and I'd probably be moving to Mommy's youngest brother's house to live. I would have been very very sad. Mommy's leg, shoulder, chest, back and neck were hurt, but not bad enough that she had to go to the hospital, and she is feeling almost normal now, a bit achy and tired, but she thinks we should be able to do our New Year's Day hike. Here is what Mommy's car looked like when she went to get her stuff out of it the next day:


Anyway, we have a lot to celebrate this Christmas and New Year if you ask me. Happy Howlidays everyone!

My Monthly Diary for October

Well, this month we did the whole Halloween thing. I dressed up like an un-PC Indian by wearing one of Mommy's older brother's Indian Guides headdress and plastic bear claw necklace. People liked my outfit and I didn't cause anyone to cry or run away like I did last year. I only helped open the door for the first half of trick-or-treating and then I decided I was done. This was fine with Mommy and she let me sleep on the couch. Then around the last hour I wanted to go out so Mommy let me out and I got upset when trick-or-treaters came to our house and didn't come to the back gate to say hi to me no matter how much I yelled at them to come see me. We didn't get as many people this year as last year and most came in the first half of the night so most of them got to see my costume.

We had that time change thing this month too, but I was a good boy and didn't get upset and throw up in the house. I have also stopped waking Mommy up at 5:30 to tell her I'm hungry. I just wake her up at 4:30 or so to tell her to move over so I can have the warm spot in the bed. I like the cold weather, but I also like the warm spot on the bed. Mommy says it isn't nice to do that, but I'm old so I get my way.

Mommy made me wing lights this month. You can see and read about them in my previous two blogs if you haven't already. I need the lights because it is so dark when we take our evening walk. One evening Mommy forgot to put the lights on me and her and we took our walk and Mommy didn't see a bad spot on the sidewalk when we were doing our power-walk end of our walk and she fell down hard. She slid along the sidewalk, scraped off the palms of both her gloves, got a skinned left knee with a HUGE bruise that covered the whole joint and a smaller bruise on her right knee. When she stopped sliding she rolled over onto the parkway and lay there for a minute or so. I helped by standing over her and staring in her face with my nose right up to hers. She told me I was a very helpful dog after she got up and we didn't do any more power-walk for the rest of the way home. I've been helping the knees heal by licking them whenever she is in the bathroom.

I got sore this month too because Mommy was using the leaf blower. I think the leaf blower is very exciting and I have to run around the yard full blast about a dozen times when she first turns it on. Mommy says I'm getting too old to do those crazy sprints and that is why my legs and back have been aching for the past week or so. What does she expect me to do? Ignore it?

I got to go to Grandma and Grandpa's house this month. Mommy was going to something called an opera with Grandma and it was a long one so I stayed with Grandpa to keep him company. I got so excited when I found Grandma upstairs that I stood at the top of the stairs and barked at Mommy. Mommy agreed it was exciting, but said I didn't need to yell at her.

I made Mommy laugh this month too when we took a short car ride to run errands. I decided to ride on the passenger's side of back seat instead of the driver's side for some reason and when Mommy turned to see how I was doing at a stop she noticed that I was sitting like a human. I was sitting on my butt, with my legs straight out in front of me, bent at the knees with my feet in the foot well and I was kinda leaning against the door with my right arm on the arm rest. She said she really wished she had her camera with her. If she'd upgrade her phone she wouldn't have these problems, but she doesn't listen to me about these things.

I met some new dogs this month too. They are little spotty dogs called Cavalier King Charles spaniels. They are the same color as my former girlfriend Kachina was and much smaller than me so I liked them right away. The boy is called Max and the girl is Jen. We see them on our morning walks and we make our Mommies stop so we can talk to each other for a while. They aren't the running around kind, but they are good sniffers.

Speaking of Kachina, I found out that Kachina's former Mommy sent her boy back to the breeder too. Mommy says that isn't true. He actually went to a boarding school and will probably be back in May. We were wondering why we never saw him on any of our walks this fall. We aren't very fond of sending your critters off to have other people train them up, but Mommy thinks this will probably be good for him. We hope he likes it at the school.

Finally today Mommy and I heard sandhill cranes this morning and when we looked up there were about 100 cranes flying south over our house! Then about 15 minutes later another 100 flew over and then about another 1/2 hour later another 100!! We have NEVER seen that many sandhill cranes at one time. I guess they all decided it was time to go to Texas for their winter vacation.

Have a great Thanksgiving everyone and don't eat any turkey bones. They aren't good for you, but eating them does mean that you get to eat a 1/2 loaf of Wonder Bread afterward, so it is extra tempting to do so.

Headlights! The Next Generation

Mommy saw these lights at the Container Store and she bought them for me.

She thought they were nice because they light up two ways, have spring clips and can swivel in all sorts of directions. So, they have taken the place of my original headlights. The original headlights had the disadvantage of being easy for me to turn off because they were pop lights, and, because they were held on with Velcro, rub off. These lights aren't as bright and I don't cast shadows when I'm wearing them, but they still make me visible. Mommy says when I'm wearing these new lights I look like a techno-angel so they are definitely wing lights not headlights. Here is me wearing them:

Me from the front

Me from the side

Me from the back

Me running

Mommy is going to put my old lights on elastic so she can wear them like armbands and keep herself nice and lit up safe too.

Headlights!

Mommy worries about me when I walk with her at night. I had a red collar that I wore, but I have large ruff and it was often obscured. Besides that, we lost it about a month ago. Now that even my evening walks are after dark Mommy decided I needed some lights. She couldn't find a good lighted collar for me so she made me some headlights (or wing lights) out of a couple of drawer lights and Velcro. Here I am wearing them!

Me from the front

Me from the side

Me running

Me drinking out of the birdbath