Nice one John!

Short clip of a little play time until I send the Kong over the fence. Oh, well, it was a good way to meet the neighbors.

I got a "C" at the vet

Driving into the parking lot of the Broadway Pet Hospital here in Oakland on damn warm September afternoon was a bit disconcerting. It was full. A full lot means lots of animals inside. This was Oz's first visit to the vet. I knew from having two Rottie's before that surviving the gauntlet of the waiting room without someones Lhasa Apso becoming a snack and a $1300.00 vet bill was my challenge. Oz does not have great history with new places. His last new place was Happy Hound. That resulted in an $1800.00 training bill. That worked out really well, but it would have been nice to avoid. Oz knows nothing about Visa balances obviously.

Teri went in first. She got the nurse to begin opening up an exam room so we could go directly in. I jumped the gun a bit of course. I could see an empty bench area that is like a little booth. These are nice. It helps give you a space to pull your dog back into. Good design there guys. With his leash wrapped all the way up I went in the door and got him to sit at the bench. All good until some kind of hound came in and of course Oz starts barking. Loud. Oz barking in a closed room violates numerous OSHA rules I am sure. If you are not ready for it, it scares the crap out of you.

Well the nurse got the room open just about then and we got him in there. Phew! No fur, no blood, no news at 5:00. Then he was pretty good. About like Winston actually.

Dr. Lawernce came in, bearing treats, Oz didn't freak again, good. He sat for her, he layed down for her. I was amazed. He did that several times. Must be the white coat. After a long time and some talking we tried to get a blood sample. I had his head, but he still managed to swing around and almost snap Dr. Lawerence when she swabbed his leg with the alcohol. She saw it coming of course. No harm.

She did try taking him to the back. Sometimes they are being defensive of the owners. Nope, he was cool with tummy scratches. Not cool with anyone poking and prodding. So that was the end of that for the day.

So, on the short leash again, out the door, and up into the Xterra. Teri paid the bill. Oz barked at a few pedestrians, and we were off. I was able to give him some corrections with the collar on the last barking fits and that shut him down. I did not do that in the vet's office. In situations with that much going on we've seen the collar just make things worse. It's a training aide, not a remote control. You have to remember that.

On the upside we were invited back.

Interestingly Oz's reputation had preceded him. Susanne from Happy Hound was making a sales call earlier that day. Oz is now one of their success stories. So that was good. I'm afraid Oz was not the perfect salesman today. However, Dr. Lawerence seemed to be pretty impressed with his progress. She even said he was trainable!

p=mv

On the cute side ... He ran down the stairs into the basement office / work area this morning. Usually we sit him at the bottom of the stairs so he doesn't fly up the stairs at full gallop. Well, I reflexive yelled "Oz!" right when I clued in he had gone below periscope depth. Totally out of character he actually turns and starts back up.

Having about 12 feet to get going, he was at full stride entering the stair way. 32 ft / sec² worth of gravity was no match. He accelerated past 14 steps of berber pushing off five or six  steps just to add to his velocity. Tongue out the mouth, ears back, giant grin. For that moment Oz was in his element. His movement was like the perfect video study of mother natures engineering prowess.

At this point I am squarely blocking the top of the stairs. He proceeded with no abatement at all. I was pretty sure one of us was going down and was determined I was not the one. Then, with the grace of a trapeze artist he clears the top step, lands between my leg and the newel post on all fours in a perfect sit. ~ 24 kg*m/sec of energy let him slide about six inches on his polished pads across the tile floor to an even more graceful stop. At which point he looks up at me obviously very proud of his little move.

All I could say was, "Nice job Oz...."

It was win, win. He obeyed the recall, had a little fun, and did not turn it into a challenge. This was a good turn to what had been a really frustrating morning with him.

Yeah ... So today started when the big knuckle head wakes me up at 2:00 this morning. I thought he was just wanting to go out for the skunk. After he paraded around the room, his nails making that clickity clack, clickity clack sound on the wood floors I figured it was not a false alarm. Sure enough, he had to go. It was not pretty. He did settle down and we did get back to sleep. I could have done with out the expedition.

This dog eats anything. Unfortunately not everything agrees with his system. The trouble is figuring out what he's eating and how to either get him to stop or isolate him from it. Kinda hard with a yard full of green stuff.

Teri thinks he's eating sticks. We have a lot of them. Not just on the surface of the yard. He digs up old ones. He might diggin' up grubs & stuff too.That's one of the natural diet items for omnivores right? I think I read somewhere that bears get most of their calories from eating bugs like subterranean termites & stuff.

Hmmm. So I wonder what we need to feed him to balance that out? For now that'll be two cups of white rice at every meal. Sound familiar mom's & dad's. Uh huh. Thought so.

Sing for your supper

A few weeks ago we finally got Oz to sit still while he was waiting for his food to soak. Sounds like it's a dirty casserole dish huh? He'd eat that too ... He just could not contain himself. So he started vocalizing. First it was a few little yelps. Now we have this. Hey, big improvement over him wanting to jump up on the counter get his food and take out every portable appliance we own in the process!

I will not give you CPR!

After several months of us worrying about Oz eating Radar they are beginning to play nicely again, most of the time. The big black spot with teeth is Oz. The little red thing is Radar's Kong. Usually Radar wins this contest for some reason. I think this is Oz making it clear the game is his if he wants it.

Radar makes a nice pillow!

If you have dogs or kids you know well the relief of silence and then the fear that comes on as you realize something is just about to go horribly wrong. A little while ago we had another one of those moments. I grabbed the squirt bottle and headed into the living room as soon as my mind turned the silence into the vision of shredded couch cushions.

Fortunately I rounded the corner to be greeted by these two clowns actually being nice to each other. Even more fortunate, they held the pose long enough for me to get the camera and get a couple of shots of this.

Here's how this goes. Oz will grab the corner of the couch there. Radar will then decide, "no, I want that corner." So he walks over Oz and starts burrowing in between Oz and the couch. This goes on until Oz gets fed up and slimes Radar's entire head. By this time Radar is chewing on his jowls or tongue or something. The slime treatment is well deserved.

They've been pretty good this evening. Dogs have been walking by out front, with people attached. Oz growled a couple times but did not freak out. Radar has even been more reserved in his ferocious attack dog routine.

Hopefully this will be a calm weekend.

Dog Does Not Fit ...

Q - It's 9:00 p.m. do you know where your husband is?
A - He's out in the back yard assembling a dog house of course! Silly!

Make that TWO dog houses. After we got home from dinner last night I realized the four bipeds were going to be out of the house most of the day Friday. Upon checking www.noaa.gov, I saw the Pin Point Forecast was for s cool 52 degrees tonight and maybe 69 degrees tomorrow. Radar was about to be a little tan four legged popsicle. Well maybe a slushee or something. Anyway, he was going to be cold. No good. Fortunately the People's Republic of China and the folks at hayneedle.com via UPS had supplied us with two ready to assemble dog houses.

Radar's house was a snap. 15 minutes from cutting tape to stuffing blankets in it. Done deal.

Oz's was maybe 25 minutes. It was heavier of course. It was bigger of course. It seemed bigger anyway. Eight bolts and a dozen wood screws later I was ready to have the big guy come on down. So half a doggy treat in hand, diet & all, I get him out back. Into the house goes the treat and .... that's where we stop.

He walked up the the house. Stuck his head in. Tried to a put leg in, no. Stepped back, tried again, OK, one leg, then two. At this point he is down about as low as he can get without falling. His shoulders are hitting the top of the door. All you can hear is this snarf, lick, snarf sound. I can see in my head him sticking that giant tongue out as far as he can to get that little nugget of food. He got it! Out he came. He tried a couple more times to see if there were any crumbs left. Each time, up to his shoulder and that was it.

The basic problem here is that Oz's shoulders are 28" off the floor. The door is like 18 inches or something. Let's not forget the other 10 inches of head and neck.   I was holding out hope that his ability to shrink into a little sleeping ball was going to pay off. Nope. I have failed doggy geometry.

Great. $169.00 plus shipping and the dog doesn't fit. Okay, back to the website. Where's that return policy? After reading how happy they want me to be for half a page I find the online return thing. Checked "other", entered "Dog did not fit", as I clicked on submit I looked at "damaged box or product" check box and thought, "hmmm" is there any damage? Well, too late to check that box. The click event had fired and my message was off to customer service.

Still, I had to know. Damage? Was there damage?

It was dark. I built the thing with the yard lights. I wanted a dog house up and ready to go. As long as the thing stood up, I was happy. Besides Oz is damage on four legs fueled by ten cups of kibble a day. What the hell is a little shipping damage to me? So I hadn't really bothered to look.

With flashlight in hand and the eye of an FDA inspector on, I headed out to look. Ureka! Damaged goods! Better yet, damaged box. Always a good thing. Lot's of old beat up tape on it too. Sweet! A couple of cracks and dinged up corners and a few scuffs, perfect. After a brief photo shoot I e-mailed the photo's off to customer service with all the business about it being dark and some hint of how stressed I was just to get it built. The game is on!

The hayneedle.com website promptly e-mailed me another explanation of how happy they want me to be and a case number.

So now we wait.

Meanwhile Teri's shift was cancelled, so Oz has won another day of lounging on a nice warm couch. Hopefully today I will learn that I will get my $169.00 bucks less shipping back. Then this weekend it'll be off to Home Depot for materials.

How is it that the Postal Service is going broke by the way? What portion of the GDP goes to shipping all this crap around anyway?